Well said, Megmeg.
This thread is giving me insight into why people consider any attempt to have my kids do anything at all as being pushy, but I must say it still really annoys me. What happened to moderation? Why do they assume that if I make them change the kitty litter that I'm also standing over a piano with a stick to make sure they get into Julliard?
Here's the difference: normal kids do a lot of stuff they don't want to do or find difficult at school. They're asked to strive and figure things out, to progress and learn new things, then they go home and are asked to do a bit of physical activity, help around the house with boring tasks. Hothoused kids do this and then go on to a cram school to do more hard academic stuff because more is better. Our kids go to a normal school and sit around doing essentially nothing, so why is it automatically the same as the hothoused kids if we decide it's good for them to get a fraction of the same experience as a normal child gets? Why do our kids get thrown under the bus? Very few of our children get anywhere close to appropriate schooling during school time and have to get it afterschool, so why is it OK for most kids to do appropriate work, but not OK for ours?
And, on the other end of the spectrum, I do think that if a child is getting appropriate academics during the day at school that they should be doing something different after school. I am a strong believer in boredom. With regard to sports, many top coaches are warning of over training and over specialisation in children. I think they have a point, but I have no idea how a single family can change the system if their child likes a team sport. If you want to play soccer, you have to participate in that system.
(our kids means pg kids of the people on here in general. Personally we afterschooled for academics in a bad school situation, and were able to stop when we found a good school situation, and now we're just battling the sports issue)
