It’s inevitable. Your kids will see something, hear something, have a friend that is joining something and they will want to join too. From sports, music, theater and all other extra-curricular activities, we had to make some choices as parents to help us manage the ten children and their many “mom, can I?” moments.
We limit each of the kids to one sport per season, with a few exceptions if they have a light sport to double up. In which case, I make it clear to the coach what their commitment level is and if they don’t want to deal with them missing a few games and/or practices, then they must choose.
We also have a “Sports in Bulk” philosophy to help us out. I don’t have just one child in track, for example, I’ll have three. If I’m driving just one kid to one practice or game then it’s not a very efficient use of our time. I get a few of them involved and channel their interests so we can all enjoy more time together while feeding their desire to participate in different groups, teams and activities.
We do have a few exceptions as you can imagine. Take our Sophia, who’s 13, she’s very interested in acting and we definitely want to give her those opportunities as they come up. She will be in The Wind and the Willow in the coming weeks and we couldn’t be more proud of her and excited to give her that chance to try something new.