4Real Forums: Ever taken a lengthy activity break?

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Topic: Ever taken a lengthy activity break?

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SeaStar
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Posted: April 07 2015 at 10:20am \| IP Logged

Have you ever taken a long break- say a school year- off from kids' activities?

We are not what I would call overscheduled at my house, and yet I wonder what a long "time off period" would feel like?

Would we get bored? Be looking for something to do after a few weeks?

We have two months off activities in the summer, but then there is the swimming pool and fun summer stuff to fill in the gap.

Have you ever done this? Was it beneficial? Would you do it again?

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JenniferS
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Posted: April 07 2015 at 12:49pm \| IP Logged

We did not take a year off, but we took four months off. It was very nice. Though some of my kids may not admit it, our family benefited greatly from it.

JodieLyn
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Posted: April 07 2015 at 12:50pm \| IP Logged

Nope. I admit it does sound like a nice idea sometimes. But then when I start to think about it.. well, the reasons we started the activity are still valid. And we're mostly active people. The kids would definitely go out and play more.. but they also tend to get more creative and reckless when they don't have a constructive outlet. So while we'd be more in charge of our own schedules (not following someone else's) we'd end up adding in more things like more camping or more hiking.. which are good things. But swimming and playing lacrosse are also good things.

But if you want to I would suggest trying it out while the kids are still young. Like it would be hard for us to stop swim team (not that we want to) when it's the last year for my oldest and she'll be recognized as a senior swimmer and after all these years of participating it would feel wrong to stop and not let her get the recognition of all her years of working hard to improve.

And on top of that if your kids will start getting jobs when they're older, you won't have as much control of being able to do other things as a family when you're working around job schedules.

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JodieLyn
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Posted: April 07 2015 at 12:58pm \| IP Logged

I should say though that we're careful about too many dissimilar activities. My boys do Boy Scouts, the girls do 4H (not animals). They all swim. And until this year they all play lacrosse. I don't do fall/winter sports. This year the boys are still playing lacrosse but for a variety of valid reasons my girls aren't playing lacrosse and myself and my girls are taking Tae Kwon Do instead. So we're still together as a family a lot even with the activities. My favorite family sport is swimming though. There's only one pool. So competition is all the ages taking turns in the pool. No running around for different age levels and the like. Plus unlike every other sport. It's during the summer and most of the practice is done first thing in the morning which is so much easier than juggling meetings and practices and dinner in the evenings.

We're plenty busy but even if it's not the whole family, those in the activity are often together or practicing/meeting at the same time. Which is different than if everyone in the family is doing different activities so that they're not happening at the same time/location let alone being together.

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Jodie, wife to Dave
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All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott

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