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My son is involved in two extracurriculars -- AWANA and church choir.  I'd like him to be involved in something more active but the only two active things he really enjoys are climbing and his scooter

 

Are there climbing classes or something he can take at this age (7)? What should I be looking at toward getting him into a more active activity?

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Where do you live (approximately)? Where we live, you can definitely take climbing classes at 7 through parks and rec or private centers.

 

I certainly would make sure my 7-year-old was involved in physical activity but it doesn't have to be organized. Learning the unicycle (for example) is very challenging.

 

My own children do swim and I want them both to be able to swim well enough to rescue in theory. They do three months of swim (one season each year) then the rest is a choice. Sometimes their choice is rollerblading around the block after school. :)

 

(ETA: I mean in theory I'd like them to get that far, not that they'd be theoretically capable of rescuing.)

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I just looked at Austin Parks & Rec. My jaw dropped--not one indoor pool for the city for the entire winter? No swim lessons. Wow. But there are some that seem to do evening swim lessons in summer.

 

We have indoor pools for swim lessons so we can do it year round.

 

I also checked climbing. It's free but 10+.

 

Free seems to me to be an unbelievable luxury.

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I just looked at Austin Parks & Rec. My jaw dropped--not one indoor pool for the city for the entire winter? No swim lessons. Wow. But there are some that seem to do evening swim lessons in summer.

 

We have indoor pools for swim lessons so we can do it year round.

 

I also checked climbing. It's free but 10+.

 

Free seems to me to be an unbelievable luxury.

 

Yes we have done swim lessons in the summer with them and with our current city. But swim team has practices all over the day. There are some private indoor pools I believe? At least, I know friends of ours are on a year round swim team (they live in Round Rock and go to a charter that gets off REALLY early on Wednesdays, so they can practice without it being a problem)

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My ds does TKD, it starts with the little ones at 5, or Tiny Tigers at 3. My daughters take dance and they have a hip-hop class for boys, which I personally think is pretty neat. If we had a climbing gym here I'd have the whole family signed up but as we only get to go sometimes I'm not sure the age they start teams but it is insanely fun and it would be a perfect extra-curricular for my own son. Around here we also have indoor soccer for the winter, gymnastics- although it generally starts moving away from rec level by that age (here anyway). I'm sure there are more opportunities at other places though, it is a bit sparse here.

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Young Champions and Upward Sports programs both tend to be low cost. Around here, Young Champions offers Cheer and Martial arts, Upward Sports does basketball and cheer in the Spring season. Upward is Christian, YC is secular (but often meets in churches if that's where the least expensive space is).

 

 

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My 7 year old attends church and does a children's choir. As far as sports I don't do anything organized. He isn't especially interested and it's hard with a kid who still naps to get to many organized things. We do hike a couple times a month, he plays outside almost daily, and when it's nice out we hit the park and ride bikes frequently.

 

Do you climb? Maybe you could climb together or form a climbing club for kids. If you have a climbing gym maybe they would be willing to let you use the facility during a non peak time for the club.

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Our local climbing gym offers a homeschool discount day once a month -- if there are indoor climbing gyms in your area, maybe you could approach them about trying out something like that?  It wouldn't be a class, but even my 5 year old could climb on his own on easier walls.  I just supervised and helped with clipping into the auto belay system (and left the toddler with a babysitter...LOL!).  At our indoor climbing gym, I think the kids climbing team starts at age 8.

 

Maybe there would be other physical activities he would be interested in but hasn't been exposed to yet? I don't think my boys would have ever thought of wanting to do Tae Kwon Do if we didn't have good friends who do it too.  But because they had heard about it a lot from friends, they were eager to try too.  My 5 and 7 year olds are both in TKD -- It is a great fit for my 7 year old DS, and a great physical challenge (5 year old DS struggles a bit due to attention issues, but it is good for building his attention span/discipline as well too even if he isn't advancing as quickly).

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You live in a town that has two pretty great climbing gyms, and even outdoor rock climbing on some reasonable limestone at Reimer's Ranch. South Austin Rock Gym and North Austin Rock Gym will both have classes and they even have a kids team with competitions all the way to National level. I coached two twin 7 year olds to nationals and it was so much fun:). South has more route climbing whilst North is more bouldering, if I am remembering correctly after a killer flight from London:(

The owner/manager of the gyms is a great guy and he and his wife both climb with their young children.

 

Climbing is a fantastic sport for high energy kids...they do really well with a short term goal (do the route!) and the additional long term goal of improving, completing a project, and working toward harder or more challenging routes/Boulder problems. It really is a total body activity that occupies mind and body. The boys I coached were ADHD and there were such significant improvements in both as far as awareness/control of their bodies that even the doctors commented.

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In your situation, if he is too young or otherwise not qualified for organized climbing, I might put him in gymnastics and tell him that he needs to reach a certain level of skill in that in order to qualify for climbing sports.  (I have a daughter who isn't motivated for sports, but she's a HP fan.  So I told her that only those who do well in rec team soccer can qualify for the Quidditch team.  LOL.)

 

Another thing that might be good for building arm strength is archery, if you can find it for his age.  My daughters recently started doing this sport (started at age 7), and they find it quite interesting, as the facility allows them to learn different types of bows etc.

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