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My kids swam in a summer league a few years and during the summer there was practice every day but they only asked for kids to make it 3 days a week, for 6 weeks. Under 8's usually only swam for 45 minutes. There are two nationally ranked swim teams in town, and I don't really know how much they expect. But I know several kids who have ranked nationally, and in order for this to work out they did have to drop other activities and swim almost every day. Not sure they did that till the under 10 group (9 & 10 year olds).

I personally wouldn't have my child commit that much time to one sport at that age, but I do know people who do. Personally, I feel kids need more down time. There is always transportation time that has to be added in, time to do homework, and other activities.

Ivy,

Thanks for this perspective. Flexibility is definetely the key thing. I will request a slower start and then see a ramp up.

On a seperate note I was reading an article on how school sports in the US has moved away from enriching kids to focusing on the kids who will sports the main focus. It is a real sham.

I agree about the change in change in sports in the US. Part of it has to do with the cost of participation. A year of competitive soccer here is like $1800, plus uniforms and additional tournament fees. For that kind of money, people tend to expect a lot of... something. You want your money's worth, right? This unfortunately means that they push a lot on the kids and make everything very overkill and overdone. It also means that the very best athletes may not be represented or get the chance to complete because of the financial barriers to entry. My daughter's "A" team wasn't the best players... it was the best players who could afford the fees.

(As an aside, this is why I keep advocating for TAG funding for our state, even though we've opted out of the public schools for our daughter -- because every gifted child deserves an appropriate education, not just the ones who can afford to seek an alternative.)

Great thread. We cut back a lot in the last year or so due to dd7's recent need for vision therapy, and I am very reluctant to get her back into dance, in particular. It is a wonderful opportunity, absolutely, however with classes added to performances, and practice for performances (eg: nutcracker) it just adds up to several days a week and full saturdays very very quickly.
Tae kwon do was this way too; medium to large weekly commitment and year round with almost no breaks makes it something we are taking a break on until the kids are much older.

It's hard when you have your child in ballet to say, no we can't also do tap. Or, no, we can't commit to sleeping beauty, when it seems to her like ALL the other kids are doing it. But now I think she recognizes that the ballet thing was mainly to get some time on stage and that there are other ways to do that as well, and we are remaining firm on limiting all activities to a couple days a week.

Non-year round activities really help with being able to pick something new. Thankfully our rec soccer league here is very much oriented that way, so it is a good fit.

I mean if one of our children shows a real desire to master a sport, to the point of even practicing, stretching, reading about it a bunch at home, etc., then we might consider committing more, but otherwise we are keeping it fun and light.