Wednesday, June 03, 2009

I think you know this already but...

I find relationships and personal motivations interesting. This time I'm interested in the amount of "extras" kids do and what makes them do it.

Ella does one ballet class each year which is 30 minutes a week. We originally signed her up as a way to get her interacting with other kids her age and help develop her motor skills. She really seems to enjoy it so we've kept doing it.

Some of the girls in Ella's ballet class were in more than one class. There was one girl in her class that did (that I know of) 5 different classes. To me, it's seems like a lot to have a 6 year old child involved in. I understand that you have to start young if you want to be competitive when you're older but at what point is it too much? Is this girl really interested in doing all of these classes or is there pressure from a parent to participate? Am I holding Ella back by only having her do one class? She's never asked to do more than this but I've never pointed out to her that she could do more. Will I be pushing her to do too much if I have her participate in soccer in the fall in addition to the ballet class? Am I not pushing her enough? When I was in school, I was in many extracurricular programs: volleyball, softball, choir, show choir, concert band, marching band, school musicals, etc. I feel like it helped me become a well-rounded person. However, I didn't start doing all these things until I became older. Would I have still wanted to do all of these things if I started at a younger age?

It's time to vote, people (not that I'm going to listen to what you have to say but I'm interested in the results none-the-less)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Let her be a kid now, she'll be in school soon enough and decide her own thing. That's what your mother and I did with you. Right? --and you didn't turn out too bad.