Why My 8-Year-Old Said “Remind Me to Never Do Clubs” — And What It Taught Me About Kid Energy
The first words out of my third-grader’s mouth when she wrenched open the minivan door last October were not “hi” or “can we get a fruit snack.” It was, “Remind me to never do clubs. Ever.”
Her backpack slid off one shoulder to land on the goldfish-crusted floor mat, one neon sock pooled around her sneaker, a streak of silver glitter glue down the hoodie she’d begged to wear specifically for art club that morning. Six weeks earlier, she’d circled that club in purple marker on the school sign-up sheet, chattering so fast I could barely keep up: all her friends were going, they got to use papier-mâché, the teacher had glitter that wasn’t the cheap dollar store kind. One afternoon a week, 90 minutes after school, $25 supply fee. It seemed harmless. I rearranged my remote work schedule for early pickup, stashed an extra granola bar in her bag every Tuesday, even marked the end-of-session art show in my calendar with a confetti emoji.
The first two weeks went exactly as advertised. She climbed into the car rambling about paper mache bowls and a classmate who brought stick-on googly eyes from her grandma’s craft closet. By week three, she was dragging her feet out the door Tuesdays, mentioning vague stomach aches right as we pulled up to drop-off. I wrote it off as nerves over her weekly multiplication quiz, handed her a peppermint, and sent her inside. That afternoon, she ate her crunchy peanut butter granola bar without complaining I’d bought the wrong texture — a red flag in our house, where snack preference is make-or-break — but I told myself she was just tired from a long day. When she asked to skip the next week, I gave the default line most parents have used at least once: “You signed up for this. We paid the fee. It’s only a few more weeks. Just finish out the session.”
That landed exactly as well as you’d expect, which is how I ended up with her slumping in the seat, staring out the window like I’d personally sentenced her to a month of leaf tracing. Which, it turned out, was basically what club had become that day. The art teacher had scrapped their free-choice projects to mass-produce decorations for the school fall fair. She’d spent 75 minutes tracing the same oak leaf template onto red construction paper, cutting straight lines, no glitter, no googly eyes, none of the dragons she fills her sketchbook with. After club, the duty teacher forgot to mark her checked out, so she stood alone by the school wall for 12 minutes while everyone else left, and her best friend had an early dentist appointment anyway. “I don’t get to choose anything there,” she said, picking at a loose thread. “It’s just more school. With more scissors.”
She was right. I’d written club off as “enrichment,” a fun bonus, not an extension of the school day. When I mentioned the moment to her homeroom teacher at parent conferences a week later, she just nodded; she hears some version of that every fall. By week four of club season, half the kids in class are dragging, even the ones who begged to sign up. Seven hours of school already means seven hours of following directions, regulating your voice, taking turns, reading social cues, and staying on task even when you’re bored. Even a fun club is still structured, still supervised, still requires following someone else’s plan. For a lot of kids, that’s not a break. That’s overtime.
That night, after she’d spread her markers on the living room floor and drawn dragons for an hour without anyone telling her what size to make them, I pulled up the club email and laid out her options, no lectures about commitment attached. She could finish the last two sessions, and I’d block off the rest of both Tuesdays entirely — no grocery runs, no homework right after pickup, a blue raspberry slushie on the way home both days. Or she could quit, no questions asked, and we’d just eat the $25 supply fee. She picked quit before I finished talking.
I know the common counterargument: we have to teach kids to follow through, keep promises, not quit when things get a little boring. That makes sense for contexts where other people are counting on you. If she’d joined a rec soccer team and quitting right before games would leave the team short, that’s a different conversation. But a voluntary art club with 22 kids? The only person she was obligated to was the September version of herself that thought extra craft time sounded fun. Learning to recognize when you’ve overestimated your own energy feels like a far more useful skill than grinding through two weeks of leaf cutouts just to say you finished.
We’ve made a few small, low-lift changes to how we handle sign-ups now. I don’t do the “it’s only one day a week” math anymore. One 90-minute structured block after five full school days takes more energy than it sounds like, especially for kids who spend all day around peers. We only ever sign up for one club or activity at a time, max, and I block off the rest of that week’s evenings with nothing — no errands, no extra playdates, just coming home to mess around. Most local school clubs let kids try the first session for free, and I always ask about that instead of paying for a full eight-week session upfront. When the sign-up sheet comes home, I don’t just gush about how fun the activity sounds. I name the actual energy cost out loud, using a line any parent can borrow: “This means you’ll stay at school an hour and a half late every Tuesday. You’ll be tired when you get home, and you won’t get your usual cartoon time before dinner. Knowing that, do you still want to try it?”
I ran into another class mom at the grocery store a few weeks after art club ended, and she mentioned her son does three clubs a semester — robotics, student council, running club — and joked he’s already building his college resume at 8. Two days later, I watched him have a full meltdown at the playground because his popsicle had a crack down the middle. His mom sighed and said he’d been flying off the handle over every tiny thing lately, and she couldn’t place why. I didn’t say anything; I’ve been that mom too, the one filling every empty slot because I thought busy meant enriched. Kids rarely spell out “I’m overstimulated and my social battery is dead.” They get stomach aches. They fight bedtime. They slam minivan doors and swear they’ll never do a club again.
This isn’t an anti-club take. I know kids who thrive on this stuff. My neighbor’s 10-year-old does drama two afternoons a week, stays until 5:30, and comes home bouncing, reciting lines for anyone who’ll listen. That’s his energy style. My kid’s is different: she needs an hour after school to lay on the floor and do nothing of consequence before she can even talk about homework.
The spring club sign-up sheet came home last week. She circled drama club, crossed it out, then circled it again so hard the marker went through the paper. We agreed she can go to the free first trial, no strings attached, and if she likes it, we keep the rest of that week completely clear. She nodded, then looked up from her dragon drawing last night and said, “Remind me to never do clubs, okay?”
I told her I would. Right now she’s in the shower, singing a made-up monologue about a cat who runs a bakery, so I have no idea how this will go. She might quit after the first meeting. She might love it and beg for the lead in the spring play. Either way works. I’m not here to force her to be a club kid, or to opt out of everything. I’m just trying to help her notice what over-tired feels like before she gets to the slamming-the-car-door point. Most days, that feels like enough.
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