When I was growing up there was little or no children’s clubs or activities. The most you could wish for was joining your local football team, or maybe cubs before moving on to scouts. It was just the way of the world I didn’t grow up in world where kids joined clubs.
Thankfully that has all changed. Nowadays there are clubs and activities in abundance for all our children and it has to be a good thing. There is no doubt about that. I feel that the reason for this is that our children are all very different, and with the vast choice they will hopefully be able to find something that they enjoy doing as an after school activity.
The big question for me is at what age do you start introducing out of school clubs or activities? My older children all played football throughout their childhood. They participated in this during school from about the age of seven or eight years old. This consequently led them on to joining a club of which the majority of the team was made up of school friends. The transition to a club was made easier by the fact that they had their friends with them and the fact that they had also experienced football in school.
For my five year old twins this has been a little bit more difficult. R has loved playing football, well forever, and M had shown a huge desire to do dancing.
So we checked out our local area for football clubs and took R along to a few. As it happens she wasn’t quite five years old. Everything was going fine and they both initially joined in the session. Unfortunately I knew after about 10 minutes that they weren’t comfortable and showed signs of being unhappy. The reason was simple. The club had girls from aged four through to seven years old and there was no question they felt intimated by the older girls who were loud and boisterous. Sadly they both got upset and we left after 15 minutes. I thought about why they got upset and realised it was simple. They were too young.
M had shown a desire to do dancing so we signed her up for ballet classes. R didn’t want to do it which was absolutely fine so when M went to the class, parents had to wait outside. Although M went in and did the class it was short lived. She went back the next week and that was the last time she attended. This could have been that mum and dad weren’t there or possibly that her twin sister wasn’t taking part. Whatever the reason she was done with it.
The problem I see is that clubs and activities outside of school are nowadays businesses and of course need to make money, so they are looking to encourage parents to enrol their children at even younger ages, which I believe is a big mistake because parents should be waiting a bit longer until they are a little older and more confident in themselves, and wait until maybe until they experience a team sport or other activities in school where they feel comfortable in their environment, which will hopefully help them settle into a class or activity outside of school.
I would love to know your thoughts. What age do you think children should join clubs or partake in after school activities?
