Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Scheduling the kid

The strident women, were having a big email exchange about the over-scheduling of young kids and the expectations to sign the little ones up for everything. As a joke, I made up a little mock schedule for my child. Trudy suggested it should be a blog post and, ever ready to slack off and not have to write a new blog post, I agree. Here it is:

My son goes to Komputers for Kids on Mondays, his favourite part of it being the Klicking Your Way to Kindergarten where he learns all the mouse skills he needs. We leave there to go to his Darling Debaters class. I am very proud that he is particularly adept with a debating move involving folding his arms, sighing loudly, screaming NO and then stomping his foot. On Tuesdays he goes to his Chess for Toddlers session then later attends his Cooking with Preschoolers. He made a lovely quiche last week. Wednesdays, of course, is for his Pre-K Latin then his Ballroom Dancing. Thursdays we take it easy and he only attends a special group, in the morning, that tests his skills by watching him play with others. The instructors then give me customized lessons I can do to help increase his language/numerical skills. We spend the afternoon working on those skills. Fridays include another computer class, called Keyboarding for Pre-Writing Children, where he can practice many of his other lessons. It appears he can type many Latin phrases, but, since I don't know Latin, they just seem like random poundings on the keyboard to me. But the instructor says he's brilliant and that I should sign up for an Advanced Keyboarding class for only another $250. I am so very proud.

4 Comments:

At 3:19 PM, Blogger M Butler Hallett said...

BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

My daughters, 9 and 6, have on extra-curricular each. That's plenty. Kids still need time to be kids ... crazy stuff, like run around the neighbourhood, explore the woods, fight with the kid next door and learn how to apologize.

 
At 10:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with the one extra-curricular activity per child limit and that is what we do too with our 7 and 9 year olds (although in junior high, I would like to schedule them to the hilt, much like your child's imaginary schedule, since that is the age at which the prospect of them running around the neighbourhood, exploring the woods, and fighting with the kid next door becomes terrifying. Sports, band, choir, drama, chess club -- once they hit grade 7 they're signing up for any activity that's not called Toking Up Behind Sobeys or Giving Oral Sex on the Schoolbus).

 
At 6:12 AM, Blogger M Butler Hallett said...

I'd forgotten about all the stuff I was doing in junior high and high school. Helped mostly keep me out of trouble, but I did mouth off a lot.

It's so hard to let kids out of your sight.

These days kids toke up behind Dominion.

Yep, youth is wasted on the young.

 
At 7:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think at Holy Heart, behind Sobeys is still the location of choice. (Though that's actually high school, not junior high). One of my students recently wrote a very vivid poem about that very thing!

 

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