Welcome to Second Listen Saturday on the Parenting Roundabout podcast, where we share some
fun moments from a past episode for your weekend listening pleasure. Look for new
episodes every Monday through Friday. Today, we're complaining about all those kids activities
that disappointed us, all the sports camps that we thought we're going to get
our kids into a new new sport, all the special needs camps I sent
my child to that turned out to just be very expensive but not really that
good for them, you know, And never mind activities, the enormous amount
of equipment I bought, thinking this is the thing that's going to make our
family life easy, this is the thing that's going to get my kid to
stop doing that annoying thing, and then you know, into a box,
it goes in the basement, never to be seen again. So much money.
Anyway, What sort of activities have you put your kids in with high
hopes that were immediately quashed. I'm thinking you probably have a few of these.
Well, the one that I I remember the most like disliking the most
was probably gymnastics for my daughter. Yes not necessarily like she liked it and
it was fine, but the overall experience was bad. Just like my son
was very young at the time and there was no good place for him and
me to be. She was in there, and you know, it was
just very inconvenient, and it wasn't necessarily that it wasn't living up to what
was promised, but it was just icky. It was just not It was
just uncomfortable. It was just not a good experience for the non participants more
so than the participants. And you know that matters, like I do.
I really I stopped signing her up for it because I just couldn't deal with
the logistics of it. I mean, I guess if she had pleaded to
continue, I probably like relented, But she was probably only like five or
six at the time, so she didn't have strong opinions, luckily. But
then a more recent example was, you know, my son plays hockey,
and he a lot of the other kids that do hockey in the spring,
they do lacrosse unless they do baseball, but he's never been then into baseball.
He did it for a while, but it was never like a big
thing for him. But a lot of hockey players play lacrosse because there's a
lot of skills that kind of translate back and forth, and so he did
it. And the first year it was pretty it was fine, like he
enjoyed it, but it was fairly disorganized, like very little notice for events
things like that. And then the second then he did it again, and
it was so much worse. They even, you know, far more.
You know, constantly practices were being canceled but then reinstated or rescheduled at the
last minute and changed location and time and you know, we might have a
game on this weekend, but we don't know yet, and on and on,
you know, and I'm used to hockey where you got you know,
it wasn't always a consistent schedule in terms of the the practices. It wasn't
like every Monday at this time or whatever, but it was set at the
beginning of the season and it pretty much stayed like that, and especially the
games. Um. But anyway, this was just constant annoyance. And then
just to top it off, the coach um was extremely competitive and not only
didn't really let my son play um during games, he often didn't let him
play during practice. Oh and like that's just completely nonsensical. You know,
My kids, like, mom, how am I don't I don't know how
I can get better if I don't even practice, Like, what on earth
is the point of that? Yeah, so that's so disappointing. So I
have a lot, I have a lot of comments about obvious. Yeah,
it just I think it depends and so much on the association or the organization
that's you know, if it's the gymnastic school or the the lacrosse association or
the figure skating club or whoever it is. You know, there's just so
much that can go wrong. Yeah, yeah, And sometimes it's just not
a good fit with your child. But other times it's those external things like
not having a decent waiting area for the parents or not you know, being
inconsistent with schedule or you know, those are things that have nothing to do
with your child's experience with that sport or activity. Or you know, the
adults obviously, the coaches or the other adults who are interacting with your child.
That makes a huge difference too, right, Yeah, right, What
sorts of things have you had that experience with Nicole many Um, Yeah,
I found it really challengingly. First of all, Asin said that there were
a lot of activities when you know, having my son and things, and
then of course you know, bringing my daughter along because it didn't have the
option of leaving your home at that point, and it was just just the
logistics of it were challenging. So it would be, you know, be
all excited and yeah, this would be a great experience, and then of
course we get there and the waiting area is terrible. Well you know,
there's no room, there's no seating, it's just yeah. So, I
mean I remember we took Josh to music classes for years and Kristin and I
would have to sit out in the car for forty five minutes, and uh,
it's just painful because I couldn't you know, we couldn't go into the
music store and sit and wait because she'd be running rampant with all these musicals.
Yeah. So, and I mean not that they should take that into
consideration when they're creating their space for students, but it's still an important aspect.
I mean, yeah, you know, he was dead set on the
guitar lesson, and so we stuck with it. My daughter when we moved
here to Redlands. You know, I tried putting her in a lot of
different activities just to just to help her find her tribe and her people and
find something that she loved to do. And ye, once again, it
was just the first I didn't know any better. In the first summer,
I put her in some outdoor activities, which was a big mistake in southern
California in the summer, poor girl. I had her out playing soccer in
one hundred degree heat. Won from the camp. Yeah, but yeah,
I just yeah, I feel bad almost fort But with some of these situations,
yeah, I do too. I did the same thing of of trying
to help my daughter find her tribe and find the thing that she was going
to be good at. And she was so sweet about it. She would
go wherever I pointed her. She would do it if I if we stopped,
it was always because I decided I wanted to stop it, and then
she would just cheerfully go on to the next thing. When I just like,
there's an endless list of things, you know. Yeah, we did
the soccer camp outside in the summer, and we did a volleyball camp,
and we did a LaBrosse camp, and we did gymnastics, and we did
a ballet and we did you know, all these different things, and she
just merrily went from one to the next. Nothing ever stuck. There was
always some reason why it wasn't right, you know. Sometimes it was the
waiting area, sometimes it was the cost. Sometimes it was just I didn't
like the way they were treating her. Sometimes it was a short thing that
we tried once and never did again. It just just the child is full
of those. It would be horrifying if I ever made a list. And
such a good sport she was, but never to the point of saying,
hey, I really love this, Can I keep doing it? Just always
okay, mom, yeah say so. And then with my son there was
less just because he was it was harder for him. But I remember,
did you guys do jimboree? There was a big thing where it was the
mommy and me. It was just the constant thing, you gotta go,
you gotta take your little and you know, he would just anytime I sent
him down on the floor, he would make a bee line for the jim
matts in the corner and start playing with those. And I think we were
finally asked to leave. I don't think that I I left out of embarrassment.
I think they said, clearly, your son could not be less interested
in this. Perhaps we might have gone to more than one place. I
can't because it darn it, this is what people do. I have a
kid in this age, I'm gonna do this thing. And he was he,
you know, was just whatever. I'll be over here, a fun
mom playing with the parachute. I see something sweaty in the quarter, I'm
gonna check that out. That's the other part of it, too, is
that I feel like I was so desperately trying to put her into this mold
of expectations or that you know, oh, everybody plays soccer and everybody um
play, you know, plays baseball and everything. Like I kind of put
her in all these things that the personality that's not her nature. Yeah yeah,
she's not inclined to do that type of activity, and whereas my son
it was more so. And um so I feel bad in a way that
I wasn't picking up on that and that I was. I think I was
just desperate for her to to do something active in the area that um yeah,
I know, to help her, have her have her people so well.
I think our takeaway from this is two new business ideas to add to
our list of business ideas. Number one is a local guide service in which
we investigate all the different dance and sport and the different kid activities, and
we rate it on is there a waiting area, is there a bathroom,
is there water available? Is there a place for the sibling to play and
be or do you have to sit in your car? Nobody ever looks at
those things. You don't talk about those things on the online ratings, but
those are important. Are those of made or broke programs for our kids in
the past, over and above whether it was any good. So somebody needs
to come up with that sort of local guide to the you know, the
adjunct features. Also, can we create a way to give parents an experience
of having the normal kids supporting parent thing without their poor kids having to actually
do it? Can we just all right, moms go to this waiting room
every day, you know, once a week at six o'clock, sit lunch,
kids dancing, go home. There you go, Your kid gets to
go, gets to stay home and play with their computer, and you get
to go feel like you're doing the parent thing. You get to network with
the other parents, you get to watch little girls in two twos, and
then you can go home and your poor child does not have to go from
all this stuff goes with it. It's really for you. Right, we
know it's just gonna right get I like it. Somebody make those things happen.
The children of americles, all right, you've heard it here first