GTKY: future activities for your LOs

[ashiscute]

Do you have any organized sports or activities that you excited for your LOs to be doing or to do? Anything you are hoping they don't get into? Anything you are not going to allow at all?

[melw629]

We have a few years before we get to this stage, but I'd love it if there were a swim club near where we live. I want our kids (present and future) to be strong swimmers, and joining a summer swim team as a kid is what really improved my swimming ability. I'd like DS to have the same experience; it's just a good life skill to have.

Football is the one sport we absolutely will not allow. Especially peewee football. Too much trauma to a developing brain. Research is showing that concussions sustained in childhood have lifelong effects on the brain, and are much more serious injuries than we've been giving them credit for. I also don't expect parent-coaches in a small town to appreciate the seriousness of "getting your bell rung" or follow best practices for removal from/return to play after an injury.

Just about any other sport is fair game.

[ashiscute]

I agree about football. DS will not be allowed to play and if this LO is a boy it will be the same. DH often says he wishes he'd have played football growing up but is adamant our kids won't.

DD is 4 and currently in dance and I love it for her. She did gymnastics for a year before switching to dance and I prefer dance. This fall I'm hoping we can sign them both up for soccer. DS will be 3 in Sept so on the young side but I think they would love it. Plus soccer is fairly inexpensive at this age. We do live near a couple swim clubs but we haven't seriously thought about joining yet. I really do think swim lessons are important but the membership plus the lessons are pretty expensive. Maybe next year.

I sort of hope neither kid gets into scouts. I'm not against it and I won't forbid it or anything but I really don't feel like scouts teach anything valuable and it's a huge commitment. DH did scouts until he was 13 or so and really hopes the kids (read DS) gets into it. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

[3timemom]

My girls have been doing dance since they were 3. My oldest started Girl Scouts this year(yeah cookies!!). Other than that not much yet. My son will probably play some kind of sport and Boy Scouts when he is old enough. My girls love dance and mg oldest is going to be trying out for competition the end of this month. I'd rather them stick to 1 thing outside of scouts, whether it's a sport or dance or something else. I just think it will be too hard on them and myself to run all over to multiple activities every single day for all of the kids.

[Deleted]

I know it's a long ways off, but I'd like DD to learn how to play an instrument someday. There are a lot of benefits to learning music that I'd like her to at least try something. In the more immediate future though, we're going to do another Mommy and me swim class at my local Dive shop. We have a swimming pool, and it is really important to me that she learns to swim. I also was thinking she might enjoy gymnastics.

The only thing I really hope she doesn't want to get into is cheerleading. My cousin does competitive cheerleading, and the amount of makeup these 10 year olds are wearing is crazy.

[penguin129]

I think it be cute if DD got into dance. Clogging is big where we live and I can see her clogging in her cute outfit during the Swap Cabbage Parade.

[nerdalert]

I will be signing DD up for mommy and me ballet classes as soon as she can walk! Haha. I hope she likes dance. I started dance when I was 3 and did something dance related up until a couple of years ago in college. I did competition dance (yes, like what they do in Dance Moms, but no, people do not act like that) and I loved it so much, I really hope that DD gets to experience that too.

I will also encourage my kids to learn to play an instrument. We have all kinds of guitars and other instruments laying around the house that I'm sure they will probably be interested in playing them.

I am going to let my kids decide ultimately which activities they'd like to do, though. I'd even let them do the dangerous ones like football. I did gymnastics for a while, and that's dangerous... But the experience is worth it. I won't condone my kids being reckless, but I'm not going to hold them back if they want to try activities that are more dangerous.

The only thing I can think of that I won't let my kids do is beauty pageants. Ugh, I could write a book about all the reasons why I hate those.

[Deleted]

We tried dance and soccer with our oldest. She didn't really care for either. She's expressing some interest in softball or soccer for this coming fall, so we'll see. She took one course (6 weeks) of swimming but now we can't really afford to keep up with lessons, so we will see about that in the future.

My DD1 has a single kidney, and even though her urologist said everything except professional biking is safe for her, I'll be weary of any high contact sport. Thankfully, as a female, a lot of them won't be an issue.

I'm not sure yet for DD2, any organized type sport or activity is still a few years off for her.

[younglove316]

We have a few years as well (DD is 14 months) but I'm thinking gymnastics might be out. We have been going to the little gym since she was 4 months old and all of a sudden she hates it. The past few classes she just screams when we do things so I'm not sure.

Growing up I did soccer, bowling, softball, tried basketball for a year, & cross country for a year. I tried to be as active as possible but I think I would most like to see her play softball. It was my favorite and I always enjoyed it. I think soccer would be great too.