Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Do you pick extracurriculars?

I chose in the early years. Also, some things were winter and some summer, because we went to the beach and there were other options.

Swimming was a must, safety since we were on the ocean for the summer. Tennis, Sailing, nature camps where she learned to kayak.
Early soccer, though she was not that interested and time ran out. Ballet, gymnastics, chess in school, piano, Chinese school.

Then piano was really pushed but then she didn't love it. When it was expected that she start competition we made the choice to back off and do regular piano, just to keep it up. This is her main talent so it is hard to drop it completely. Many kids at this age get tired of the practicing. Dance became her focus but then ballet became 2X a week, with jazz and hip hop, at a pre professional program, but her choice.

So now it is dance, and acting as her choices, with piano keep up and Chinese as my requirements. She also dabbles with horseback riding and sailing but they are week long camps in the summer. And tennis.

I think there are dabble type of activities that work in the summer without full on commitment. Things to make social life easier when you get older. Like skiing and skating. Those are also sometimes activities.

We chose when she was little, but as soon as she could talk, she had input. (We didn't always listen, but there you go.)

Our rule is much like Dude and ColinsMum have alluded: you have to do it until the commitment is ended in some natural way.

She has done:

ballet
tumbling
tai chi
*walking*
dog agility
*dog obedience (regular and Rally-O)*
*dog freestyle*
Aikkido
golf (this one she may pick back up again)
tennis
tap
soccer (indoor league-- she eventually lost interest)
violin
pottery
*drawing*
watercolor
Lego robotics
Computer classes
*Piano*
*4-H dog*
*4-H pigeon*
*4-H rabbit*
archery
*skeet (shotgun)*
swimming (she finished lessons and would have joined a club team, but they basically told us to pound sand re: disability and got backing from the national legal team in so doing, so, uh, no)
*writer's group (moderated/led by a local YA author)*
*tabletop RPG*
chess
debate (tried this through the school, and sadly-- IT WAS SO LAME. She loved it and tried to make it work, but it was just not the level she needed. )
*4-H Communications (this would include posters/speeches)*
bicycling (she comes and goes with this-- has a GORGEOUS bike, but seldom rides, though truth be told, we DO live at the top of a pretty steep hill, so.)
gardening
*volunteer activities-- gardening, composting, outreach, working with children, literacy, food insecurity/food bank, etc.*


* current activity

She'd also like to pick up rifle target shooting this year, now that she's 14. She'd also like to try accordian/viola at some point. In college, she wants to get a chance to do some community theater. She thinks that she might still be young enough for the role of Louisa von Trapp in a local production this fall... but OMG, how busy is she already??

Please understand, too, that most of this list is stuff that is never going to look prestigious to anyone. It's just stuff that she does because it makes her happy, or can actually teach her some of the things that she desperately needs to learn (but will probably NOT learn in school).

For example: an animal simply doesn't understand the concept of "cramming" before competition. Nor does piano work that way. You can't practice for four hours once a week, the morning before your lesson. LOL. DD has tried that, believe me.

This is my policy too! I choose because of the young age of the child and if I can see that there is no real problem with any activity, my DS cannot quit until he has a compelling reason to do so.

We have been doing swimming from when DS was 8 months old (Daddy and me swim class and then moved on to training with a coach) because it is not negotiable.
He is 6 years old now and he has been doing Tae Kwon Do for 2 years (he wanted to do a martial arts and I chose TKD based on my research of all martial arts styles), Soccer for 3 years (part of afterschool enrichment at school) as sports. Last spring, I added in TBall and it got crazy for me. So, I am not adding in another sport any more until some sport in our schedule comes to a logical conclusion.
For arts, I chose piano, because he is very musical. He started group lessons at 4 and moved to private lessons after a year. He now wants to try other instruments while keeping the piano lessons going which will not happen due to no time in our schedules.
And DH wanted our kid in Chess, so he has been attending chess classes at a chess school for over a year. Since he is not doing great at it, we gave him the option to quit which he refused because he loves the classes!

We were all about the "swimming is a mandatory life skill," until we ran up against SPD. DD9 can never, ever progress past the very first level of swim class, no matter how many years she spends on it, if she will not put her face in the water. We eventually stopped pushing once she demonstrated the ability to tread water for long enough to not drown if she falls in. DS5 doesn't even have that.

aww, your poor kiddo. i failed Pre-Beginner 8 times, and probably would have kept right on failing before an instructor took pity on me and accommodated my mysterious inability to float (i did learn to swim once i was actually allowed to kick). so extra well done for your DD for learning to tread in spite of everything - and good for you for working around things so nicely!

That's me! After many years of swim lessons (mandatory at school) I could never do it. I finally learned to tread the water for a minute or two on my own around 3rd grade and learned to swim on my own in 7th grade. I still do NOT put my face in the water and can't stand water in my eyes but I have no issues swimming long distance than my sister who learned to swim when she was in preschool. Our boys 5 and 3 have yet to take swim lessons. DS5 has the same SPD issues I had so with him we won't push it at all. Plus he has cold allergy so swimming isn't really recommended for him because of the temperature changes. DS3 will have to start soon because as soon as he sees water, he wants to jump head first. (I had to jump for him into our friends pool once last year ... wasn't a big pool but plenty big for a kid to drown. That and his autism (we're calling it autism until it's proved otherwise), in his case it truly is a life skill he needs to learn just in case. But I cannot be the one to teach him. His dad will, probably in the winter.

We are not doing any extracurricular just yet. Though we will be testing waters with gymnastics for both boys for 4 weeks in September just to see how they do with something that's more organized. Definitely want to do some music later in elementary school and probably earlier at home, though no formal lessons. I did have formal lessons for 7 years and hated it and always really liked just picking up a different instrument, learning on my own, playing by ear for fun.

Aside: Definitely do the firearms training! It's a terrific life skill and requires a lot of discipline and analysis. Your DD might want to look into Kelly Bachand, who is a rifle prodigy, for inspiration.

We picked them when our children were very young, didn't really know what they wanted to do, and because we wanted them to have a chance to try new things. As they got older and wanted to choose themselves we let them choose, within reason (as in, my dd9 who wants to do *everything* still only has 7 days in each week, has to attend school too, and is limited by her parents budget, much to her chagrin - life can be rough lol!). We do try to be sure our kids are staying physically active, and we have kept them in piano lessons even though each has gone through a phase of wanting to quit at various times - but ultimately they were only phases and I kept them in through it because in my own experience, I felt that piano was the best all-round instrument to study to learn music theory, and knowing piano made it easy for me to learn to play other instruments when I wanted to. We've usually had a bit of an idea of whether or not it was best to drop an activity all together when our kids wanted to drop it or whether or not it was a temporary feeling that they would get past. If they were truly miserable and hated an activity they'd signed up for, I'd let them out of it as soon as they'd finished out whatever session we'd signed up and paid for - I have no desire to torture my kids, and they have always found quite a few things to be interested in all at the same time, so we haven't been caught with kids hanging out with nothing to do

I also try to look at the extracurriculars as just that - "extras". They are a chance for my kids to have fun, learn new things, be active. They *aren't* something that I see taking my kids to the Olympics, stardom, or following on to careers or college scholarships in and of themselves - but I do see them as having value in giving my kids a chance to be with other kids who share common interests and in helping my kids find a way to have active & interesting "fun" that might lead to hobbies they can continue into adulthood. So from that perspective, the actual "thing" they are doing doesn't matter so much (as long as it's legal and doesn't hurt anyone lol!)... as much as the simply "doing" it

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - We do guide our children to activities that help others (volunteerism etc). We still let them pick, but so far they've needed some help either from us or through school or church or scouts etc *finding* things that are meaningful in the community etc - simply because they are still on the low end of life experience

We also went for the arts and sports and made our kids learn to swim 200 metres, so they would be able to survive if they fell from a boat. For DSs I would recommend a team sport, because, where I live, if they can't play they get left out at school lunch time. DS14 started football 3 years after his peers and had to work hard to be good at it. Besides enjoying the sport, he saw it as a way of making friends. DS11 was too uncoordinated to be good, but he now knows the basics, and can play if he wishes.

By far the most valuable EC activity is Speech and Drama. This has provided them with a wide range of fun group activities and skills, it has given them confidence, extension in English, and a record of exam results that has provided opportunities in acting, public speaking and leadership and will eventually give them a qualification. They both admit they have gained more from this activity than any other.

I have to ask, rifle prodigy? A kid who can kill well?