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Welcome to Second Listen Saturday on the
Parenting Roundabout podcast, where we share some

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fun moments from a past episode for
your weekend listening pleasure. Look for new

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episodes every Monday through Friday. Today, we're complaining about all those kids activities

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that disappointed us, all the sports
camps that we thought we're going to get

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our kids into a new new sport, all the special needs camps I sent

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my child to that turned out to
just be very expensive but not really that

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good for them, you know,
And never mind activities, the enormous amount

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of equipment I bought, thinking this
is the thing that's going to make our

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family life easy, this is the
thing that's going to get my kid to

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stop doing that annoying thing, and
then you know, into a box,

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it goes in the basement, never
to be seen again. So much money.

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Anyway, What sort of activities have
you put your kids in with high

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hopes that were immediately quashed. I'm
thinking you probably have a few of these.

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Well, the one that I I
remember the most like disliking the most

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was probably gymnastics for my daughter.
Yes not necessarily like she liked it and

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it was fine, but the overall
experience was bad. Just like my son

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was very young at the time and
there was no good place for him and

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me to be. She was in
there, and you know, it was

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just very inconvenient, and it wasn't
necessarily that it wasn't living up to what

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was promised, but it was just
icky. It was just not It was

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just uncomfortable. It was just not
a good experience for the non participants more

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so than the participants. And you
know that matters, like I do.

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I really I stopped signing her up
for it because I just couldn't deal with

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the logistics of it. I mean, I guess if she had pleaded to

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continue, I probably like relented,
But she was probably only like five or

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six at the time, so she
didn't have strong opinions, luckily. But

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then a more recent example was,
you know, my son plays hockey,

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and he a lot of the other
kids that do hockey in the spring,

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they do lacrosse unless they do baseball, but he's never been then into baseball.

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He did it for a while,
but it was never like a big

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thing for him. But a lot
of hockey players play lacrosse because there's a

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lot of skills that kind of translate
back and forth, and so he did

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it. And the first year it
was pretty it was fine, like he

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enjoyed it, but it was fairly
disorganized, like very little notice for events

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things like that. And then the
second then he did it again, and

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it was so much worse. They
even, you know, far more.

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You know, constantly practices were being
canceled but then reinstated or rescheduled at the

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last minute and changed location and time
and you know, we might have a

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game on this weekend, but we
don't know yet, and on and on,

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you know, and I'm used to
hockey where you got you know,

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it wasn't always a consistent schedule in
terms of the the practices. It wasn't

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like every Monday at this time or
whatever, but it was set at the

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beginning of the season and it pretty
much stayed like that, and especially the

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games. Um. But anyway,
this was just constant annoyance. And then

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just to top it off, the
coach um was extremely competitive and not only

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didn't really let my son play um
during games, he often didn't let him

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play during practice. Oh and like
that's just completely nonsensical. You know,

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My kids, like, mom,
how am I don't I don't know how

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I can get better if I don't
even practice, Like, what on earth

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is the point of that? Yeah, so that's so disappointing. So I

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have a lot, I have a
lot of comments about obvious. Yeah,

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it just I think it depends and
so much on the association or the organization

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that's you know, if it's the
gymnastic school or the the lacrosse association or

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the figure skating club or whoever it
is. You know, there's just so

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much that can go wrong. Yeah, yeah, And sometimes it's just not

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a good fit with your child.
But other times it's those external things like

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not having a decent waiting area for
the parents or not you know, being

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inconsistent with schedule or you know,
those are things that have nothing to do

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with your child's experience with that sport
or activity. Or you know, the

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adults obviously, the coaches or the
other adults who are interacting with your child.

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That makes a huge difference too,
right, Yeah, right, What

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sorts of things have you had that
experience with Nicole many Um, Yeah,

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I found it really challengingly. First
of all, Asin said that there were

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a lot of activities when you know, having my son and things, and

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then of course you know, bringing
my daughter along because it didn't have the

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option of leaving your home at that
point, and it was just just the

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logistics of it were challenging. So
it would be, you know, be

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all excited and yeah, this would
be a great experience, and then of

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course we get there and the waiting
area is terrible. Well you know,

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there's no room, there's no seating, it's just yeah. So, I

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mean I remember we took Josh to
music classes for years and Kristin and I

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would have to sit out in the
car for forty five minutes, and uh,

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it's just painful because I couldn't you
know, we couldn't go into the

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music store and sit and wait because
she'd be running rampant with all these musicals.

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Yeah. So, and I mean
not that they should take that into

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consideration when they're creating their space for
students, but it's still an important aspect.

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I mean, yeah, you know, he was dead set on the

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guitar lesson, and so we stuck
with it. My daughter when we moved

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here to Redlands. You know,
I tried putting her in a lot of

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different activities just to just to help
her find her tribe and her people and

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find something that she loved to do. And ye, once again, it

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was just the first I didn't know
any better. In the first summer,

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I put her in some outdoor activities, which was a big mistake in southern

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California in the summer, poor girl. I had her out playing soccer in

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one hundred degree heat. Won from
the camp. Yeah, but yeah,

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I just yeah, I feel bad
almost fort But with some of these situations,

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yeah, I do too. I
did the same thing of of trying

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to help my daughter find her tribe
and find the thing that she was going

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to be good at. And she
was so sweet about it. She would

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go wherever I pointed her. She
would do it if I if we stopped,

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it was always because I decided I
wanted to stop it, and then

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she would just cheerfully go on to
the next thing. When I just like,

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there's an endless list of things,
you know. Yeah, we did

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the soccer camp outside in the summer, and we did a volleyball camp,

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and we did a LaBrosse camp,
and we did gymnastics, and we did

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a ballet and we did you know, all these different things, and she

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just merrily went from one to the
next. Nothing ever stuck. There was

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always some reason why it wasn't right, you know. Sometimes it was the

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waiting area, sometimes it was the
cost. Sometimes it was just I didn't

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like the way they were treating her. Sometimes it was a short thing that

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we tried once and never did again. It just just the child is full

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of those. It would be horrifying
if I ever made a list. And

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such a good sport she was,
but never to the point of saying,

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hey, I really love this,
Can I keep doing it? Just always

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okay, mom, yeah say so. And then with my son there was

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less just because he was it was
harder for him. But I remember,

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did you guys do jimboree? There
was a big thing where it was the

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mommy and me. It was just
the constant thing, you gotta go,

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you gotta take your little and you
know, he would just anytime I sent

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him down on the floor, he
would make a bee line for the jim

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matts in the corner and start playing
with those. And I think we were

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finally asked to leave. I don't
think that I I left out of embarrassment.

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I think they said, clearly,
your son could not be less interested

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in this. Perhaps we might have
gone to more than one place. I

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can't because it darn it, this
is what people do. I have a

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kid in this age, I'm gonna
do this thing. And he was he,

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you know, was just whatever.
I'll be over here, a fun

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mom playing with the parachute. I
see something sweaty in the quarter, I'm

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gonna check that out. That's the
other part of it, too, is

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that I feel like I was so
desperately trying to put her into this mold

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of expectations or that you know,
oh, everybody plays soccer and everybody um

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play, you know, plays baseball
and everything. Like I kind of put

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her in all these things that the
personality that's not her nature. Yeah yeah,

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she's not inclined to do that type
of activity, and whereas my son

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it was more so. And um
so I feel bad in a way that

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I wasn't picking up on that and
that I was. I think I was

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just desperate for her to to do
something active in the area that um yeah,

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I know, to help her,
have her have her people so well.

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I think our takeaway from this is
two new business ideas to add to

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our list of business ideas. Number
one is a local guide service in which

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we investigate all the different dance and
sport and the different kid activities, and

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we rate it on is there a
waiting area, is there a bathroom,

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is there water available? Is there
a place for the sibling to play and

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be or do you have to sit
in your car? Nobody ever looks at

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those things. You don't talk about
those things on the online ratings, but

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those are important. Are those of
made or broke programs for our kids in

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the past, over and above whether
it was any good. So somebody needs

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to come up with that sort of
local guide to the you know, the

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adjunct features. Also, can we
create a way to give parents an experience

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of having the normal kids supporting parent
thing without their poor kids having to actually

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do it? Can we just all
right, moms go to this waiting room

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every day, you know, once
a week at six o'clock, sit lunch,

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kids dancing, go home. There
you go, Your kid gets to

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go, gets to stay home and
play with their computer, and you get

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to go feel like you're doing the
parent thing. You get to network with

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the other parents, you get to
watch little girls in two twos, and

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then you can go home and your
poor child does not have to go from

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all this stuff goes with it.
It's really for you. Right, we

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know it's just gonna right get I
like it. Somebody make those things happen.

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The children of americles, all right, you've heard it here first