Summer Fun

Eric and I have always shied away from the activities that have become common and almost expected of kids in today's society. Kids start soccer and t-ball and 3. They start tackle football and competitive cheerleading as young as kindergarten--you know, so they're ready to go once middle school hits. [Can you hear the sarcasm?] We have been so turned off by the OVER-scheduling of America's kids that some may say that we've UNDER scheduled our kids. A few years ago we signed them up for a non-competitive 10 week soccer season. And um....yeah...I think that's our whole resume.

Since we plan to homeschool next year, Eric and I thought it would be a good thing to get them going on one activity each. Their school sent home info about very low cost (and non-competitive) cheerleading and self-defense classes. Good fit for us. So starting next week Taevy will learn cheerleading basics and Samren will learn self-defense (karate) basics. The classes go for 10 weeks, then you can either continue on, or not.

It's interesting that these are two activities that both Eric and I feel like we benefited from as kids. I was such a wallflower. But something possessed me to try out for cheerleading in 7th grade. It really was a good activity for me. I think that the squads now become WAY to competitive WAY too early (and we won't even get into the cost involved), but the activity was very good for me socially and physically. Eric was a shy guy too, and he said martial arts gave him the self confidence he was lacking as a young man. At any rate, it will be a fun activity to do once a week this summer, and potentially as an ongoing interest for our kids.

Anita