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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2824 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 24, 2024

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Are there inexpensive enrichment activities I should consider enrolling my ~5 year old daughter in?

I was in Girl Scouts, but it was getting pretty dodgy (heavy cookie sales focus, zero outdoors skills) even then, and I haven't heard great things lately. 4-H is still good as far as I can tell, but for 10 and up. Someone I know tried Mormon and Evangelical groups (for a bit older kids), and said the boys groups were fine, but the girls were doing kind of the larp housewife stuff people have been commenting on lately. A co-worker has her first grade daughter in gymnastics and she likes it, but I think that's kind of expensive for me at this time.

My sister-in-law takes her daughters (ages 2 and 11 months) to the children’s museum about once a week. I think their yearly family membership costs less than $200 and the museum changes the “exhibits” up every few months. I’ve been to two different museums with them now and have been impressed by both of them. Jungle gyms, arts and crafts, water tables, instruments, microscopes, light tables, the last one even had bunnies and chickens.

Also libraries often have children’s programming like weekly story times where they read to and do activities with the kids. Typically free.

Boy scouts rebranded a while back and now has girl's packs/troops. It's not as widespread though so you might not have a local group. Also some of the opportunities won't be available to the girls as they don't get enough participants (though that's more of an issue at the high school level).

I used to work for the local Boy Scout council and found myself advising my old troop on how to deal with the situation through my contacts after the scoutmaster was given answers he didn't like from the District Executive (no real surprise there). The exact problem was that the daughter of one of the more active adult leaders and her friend wanted to join, and while there was a girls' troop relatively close, the leader basically said "I'll be damned if I drive to two meetings and manage two sets of events, etc." So we ended up chartering a troop with two girls that I ended up being the assistant scoutmaster of under the scenario of "We'll call your bluff." It basically operates as a patrol within the larger troop because as long as we keep the paperwork separate, the Council isn't going to pry too deeply into our affairs.

Gymnastics or dance lessons are the standard answers for girls that age, but for a 5-year-old, just waking up is a pretty rich experience already. I wouldn't worry until she's 7 or 8.

for a 5-year-old, just waking up is a pretty rich experience already. I wouldn't worry until she's 7 or 8.

Seconded. I am a parent of sons, but I don't think the sexes are that different at that age, and if anything I would expect daughters to benefit more from unstructured time with Daddy. The time of a working father is precious, and you can spend an hour paying attention to your daughter, or you can spend the same hour paying attention to the road while you drive her to whatever enrichment activity you do. You don't take a 5 year old to soccer practice, you kick a ball about with them in the back garden, etc. As far as I am aware, the only activity where people who start at 7 struggle to catch up with the people who started at 5 is violin.

Swimming and riding a bike may be essential life skills for kids depending on where you live, but you can probably teach them yourself.

Yeah, maybe I'll just hold off, or send her for some swim lessons in July. I'd like her to learn to swim properly.

Any physically demanding team sport.

Soccer, basketball and volleyball are usually the most popular among girls and I'd mildly favour basketball or volleyball since thay seem to cause less female specific injuries if they go onto elite level competition/exercise.

Maybe you don't consider this enrichment though?

Another option is joining a church choir, it's often free, not very preachy (if that is something that bothers you) and it's a decent music education.

She's 5. I went to the kind of English prep (i.e. private primary - different meaning to the US) school where team sports is as important as academics, and we didn't play "real sport" until year 3 (September after 7th birthday). If getting 5-year-olds into team sports was a good idea then traditional English schools would have done it.

It depends on what your goal is I suppose, the first years are very casual. People obviously have different opinions on these kinds of things.

I started soccer at 6 but I know that it was available for 5yos at my local club. My local basketball club offers activities from age 3.

I guess I hadn't considered team sports, because it seems like a big commitment, and we do a family day trip every Saturday that it's nice out and we aren't sick. I wouldn't really expect any kind of elite level competition, since there are no athletes on either side of the family, just high energy and openness that manifests as hiking/camping/restlessly exploring everything in a three hour driving radius. Maybe I'll look into it and see what team sports involve and are available in the area.

I'm trying to go back to church, and suspect chanting/choir (our preferred church is Russian tradition liturgically) might be a good activity for our younger daughter, especially, but do also like that it's something where the other kids and I could all go and participate and not just be spectators. It could also be something to do during the service -- currently they just act really antsy and distracting (part of why we don't go much).

Team sports usually isn't a big commitment until they're like 12+. For the very young (like 5-7yo) it's usually 1 to maybe two times a week on weekdays and no games.

A plus is also that its often possible to let other parents do most/some of the work, at least if you can befriend them. You don't need all parents to drive to every game for instance. I don't know your living situation and how car dependant your area is but when the kids get a bit older its often possible for them to largely manage themselves.

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