Rare as it is, I agree with Martin Gibson. My kids haven't been scheduled into all of that after school and weekend stuff. They participated in a twice-weekly walking/running program after school when they were in elementary school, because I wanted them to learn that walking (at the very least) is a recreational lifelong activity, so they went to various races over the years and had a lot of fun. If they wanted to do after school stuff they were welcome, but mostly they've been free agents to do their own thing. I think it's better for them to learn how to entertain themselves than to always expect someone to tell them what to do and how to play.

I wish I'd had a camera a few weeks ago when I was out walking the dogs in the woods near us and encountered my daughter and her friend down at our creek. The girls had found a couple of folding chairs that had washed downstream and they were sitting on a little sandbar, next to the bank, talking and skipping rocks and looking like a mellow scene out of Tom Sawyer down at the river.

SRS