what do your kids do?

i have a 2 year old and waas wondering what other parents do with their kids at this age??


How many classes a week?

what kind of classes?

recommendations?


thanks

i have a 2 year old too.

she goes to one playgroup for 1 hour each week.

she goes for 1-2 playdates with her friends each week.

other times, it's just me and her, we:

-go to the park

-do playdough

-do painting

-play with toys

-read

-draw

-sing/ dance

-swim

-shopping! hahhaa.

At two, 1-3 playgroups a weeks is quite fine.


Michelley's list just about it. One important addition: let her play by herself. As the Swedish saying goes: "Kids need to learn to be bored".

thanks for your advice.


I am about to go back to full time work and was just wandering how to fill her time.


She has a playdate pretty much every morning with at least 3 or 4 kids, also goes to the local playroom and attends a playgroup once a week (considering changing this to twice a week) - i suppose maybe one gym class to add to that. Probably just mothers guilt about going back to work!!


I love the point about "kids need to learn to be bored" great advice!

Well, that's exactly what I mean cara!


The trick is making them so bored (doesn't take a lot) that they make up things to stop being bored. I have found that a lot of parents are worried that their kids will be either unhappy or start disturbing the parents so they never get to that point. The kids become attention seekers and external stimulus junkies. A little perseverance is required. ;)

When I was small, one day I was pestering my father that I was bored. He turned to me and said "smart kids never get bored because they have really good imaginations." I was bored plenty of times after that, but I never mentioned it to my father again.

:)

3.5 year old kid


weekly:

swimming 2 times

library 1 time

mandarin class 1 hour

art class 1 hour

ballet class 1 hour

playground/cycling 2 times

Toys R Us 1 time

dot-to-dot & coloring in


(academic stuff) every other day:

10 min addition/subtraction

10 min reading english together

20 min reading mandarin


daily:

30 to 60 min Disney TV

and my soon to be 2yo:

once per week swimming

most mornings goes to playroom in our compound and meets up with his buddies.

*they particularly like to run together as a herd*

most afternoons back to playroom eventually

fights with soon to be 4yo sister for world domination [she lets him win, usually]


What works for both of my kids is actually to have a pretty normalized schedule: so eating at the same time every day [+/- 5 min okay; +/- 30 min not so good], nap at the same time every day, know that after nap is playing with Ayi time [aka learning Mandarin time]. Now that my daughter is almost 4, she is having a few more lessons/playdates, but at two she was pretty much in "free play" most of the time; we just changed the scenery and/or adult supervisor.


When my daughter was small, she would get pretty serious nightmares from any television exposure, so we never made it a part of her normal day. Now, she generally gets to watch about 2x/week, and she enjoys it tremendously, but we make sure that what she is watching is in the language that she seems to be the least fluent in. And we limit it pretty severely even now: we find that she is much less fun to be around after an hour of TV than after an hour of almost anything else.


We also find that the kids' most extravagant self-play happens first thing in the morning. There are lots of mornings that the kids wake up first and by the time we wake up our daughter has filled her brother's cot with toys and they are having silly conversations and laughing like maniacs.