On hindsight

As parents, we are always eager to enroll our kids in all kinds of classes. Each of us do it for many different reasons. While some want to expose their kids to all kinds of fun activities available, others want to enroll their kids into all those activities they have always wanted to learn in their childhood. There are some other who enroll their children in multiple activities out of peer pressure and there are those parents who enroll their kids in activities purely based on the child’s request and eagerness to learn said activity.

Before I have folks all ready to argue otherwise, let me just preface this statement with a disclaimer that this is largely based on my observation and may not reflect at all what the majority of the population. This urge/eagerness to open our children to the multiple activities is generally increasingly perceived with the first born. We are so excited about giving the best to our kids that, in our enthusiastic zeal, very rarely do we realize that at the same age, the most we did was return from school, run down to the street and play with our friends in the neighborhood. Our parents did enroll us in extra curricular activities but as I think back to those days, it was never the mad rush that it is today for most of us.

Not long after Meg started kindergarten, the activities we enrolled her in started ramping up as well. Within the next five years, she had at some point been enrolled in some combination of all the following activities aka art lessons, karate, soccer, swimming, music, dance, chess and kumon. The OH & I believed that if she tried out all of the above, she might eventually pick up the few activities that she liked the most and we could eventually help her pursue the ones that she enjoyed the most. It didn’t take us too long to realize that we couldn’t have been more wrong (I guess parenting eventually is a humbling experience to prove to us how stupid we were!) Meg was a trooper and was soon willing to do it all and did not want to quit any one of them. Soon, we realized that with the second kid entering the scene, this was neither practical nor healthy for the older child. So what ensued was a conversation with the girl to explain to her the insanity reasons for the need to pick a few favorite activities. The easy kid that she is, this wasn’t as hard afterall.

Wiser, from the first time around, our approach with the second was to not enroll him in any activities until he specifically made the request to be listed to try these activities. The only one that he wasn’t given the choice was swimming, because the OH & I strongly believe it is a life sport prior to being a physical activity. While we continued to torture put ourselves through driving Meg to all her classes, Raul enjoyed staying home with grandparents and enjoying his kindergarten years. He is now only enrolled in activities he asked for and much as we have our own opinions, the OH & I have been pretty good about not forcing him into anything to fulfil our agendas.

Meg is now at a point in her life where she is old enough to look at all her activities and give it some serious thought. She has been swimming for years now and swims in the pre-competitive team and wanted to go pro not too long ago. But somewhere in the past six months, the priorities have changed and the interest is now in an all new sport, volleyball. Despite the fact that we were a tad bummed by her decision to pursue volleyball over swimming, we convinced ourselves that eventually all that matters is that she is happy with her choice and enjoys her activities. So volleyball was in with a promise that swimming would be out once summer begins in this part of the country, where it is a season that is pretty much unbearable to be outdoors.

Where am I going with this long winded post? After only 3 weeks of volleyball, we can clearly see that Meg is not just good at it and enjoys it, but that she picks up the nuances of the games a lot quicker considering that she is at an age where comprehension comes much quicker. An activity that would have taken her 2-3 seasons to master when she was younger takes a lot shorter when she is older. This brought with it the realization that in our enthusiasm to enroll our children early in all sorts of activities, we don’t just tire ourselves & the child out, running helter skelter but we also end up spending a lot more finanacially than we really need to. If only we were smart enough to figure that out earlier, the OH & I could have saved ourselves a whole lot of time and money waiting it out a few more years. Instead of spending their precious childhood carting them to different classes, we would have given ourselves the time to keep them just to ourselves for a few additional years

At this point, I guess I have to acknowledge that there are some activities that benefit some an early start. But if you truly expect these activities to be hobbies, then there really isn’t a rush. The older they are, the better they understand and the more they enjoy their extra curricular activities. Hindsight afterall is twenty twenty.

What do you guys think? As always would love to hear your thoughts.