As parents, it’s easy to think that if our child loves something, then more of it must be better.
I certainly thought that.
My son Oliver has always loved dancing.
He’s one of those children who hears music and is instantly up on his feet.
Alongside Theatretrain, I signed him up for ballet and street dance after school.
It seemed like the obvious thing to do.
He loved dancing, so surely more dancing would make him even happier.
Then something changed
Oliver lives life at about 110 miles an hour.
School.
Homework.
Friends.
Theatretrain.
Extra dance classes.
By the end of the week, he was running low on fuel.
The first thing I noticed wasn’t that he stopped enjoying dance.
It was that the excuses started appearing.
“I’m too tired.”
“I don’t really feel like going.”
“Can I stay at home tonight?”
At first, I wondered whether I should encourage him to push through.
After all, he always enjoyed himself once he got there.
But eventually I realised something.
He wasn’t falling out of love with dancing.
He was simply exhausted.
Loving something doesn't stop children getting tired
This is something I’ve noticed with lots of children over the years.
A child can absolutely love an activity and still need a break.
Being reluctant to go doesn’t always mean they’ve lost interest.
Sometimes it means they’ve got nothing left in the tank.
We decided to make a change
For now, we stopped the extra street dance classes.
Not because Oliver didn’t enjoy them.
But because he needed a bit more breathing space.
Looking back, I think it was the right decision.
Almost immediately, the pressure disappeared.
He still had the activities he loved, but there was room in the week simply to be a child.
More isn't always better
I think parents put a huge amount of pressure on themselves.
We want to give our children opportunities.
We don’t want them to miss out.
We worry that if they’re not constantly busy, we’re somehow not doing enough.
But I’ve gradually come to believe that children don’t always need more activities.
Sometimes they need the right activities.
The ones they genuinely look forward to.
The ones where they feel they belong.
And alongside those…
They need time to relax.
To play.
To do very little at all.
How do you know if your child has too much on?
Every child is different, but these are some of the signs I started noticing:
- They seem unusually tired before an activity they normally enjoy.
- Excuses about not wanting to go become more frequent.
- They have very little downtime during the week.
- They seem to be rushing from one thing to the next without time to recharge.
None of those automatically mean you should stop an activity.
But they might be a sign that it’s worth looking at the overall balance.
So... how many activities is enough?
I don’t think there’s a magic number.
Some children thrive with several activities each week.
Others are happiest with one or two.
What matters most isn’t how full the diary is.
It’s whether your child still has enough energy to enjoy the things they’ve chosen to do.
I’ve learnt that children don’t just need opportunities.
They also need space.
And sometimes that balance is where they thrive.
