Youth activities as a family affair?

The girls' 4H club took a trip to Mt. Apatite to learn about geology. We visited a couple of different quarries and all the kids dug around in the dirt, found treasures of various sizes and shapes and simply had a great afternoon being outdoors and hanging out with their friends.

But I think this picture sort of sums up why I like the girls' 4H club so much.

It's a true FAMILY affair.

There are no restrictions on younger siblings and moms and dads (and grandmas - one came on this trip) were all welcomed.

Not all "general" (not animal-specific) 4H clubs are like this, but I've seen a lot of that are. My girls joined 4H in early elementary school because I wanted to find an activity that could involve BOTH of them. I was already busy with a 25-hour a week job at that time and didn't have time to cart kids in different directions. And although I understand the thinking behind age-specific activities, because I had a child with some special learning issues, I knew she did not always have the cognitive skills to keep up with kids of her chronological age. And her sister (19 months younger), being a more mainstream learner, was excluded from activities simply based on her age even though she could have easily (and positively) participated in activities.

Early on I knew age-specific activities were not always a good fit for my family.

And I know I will catch some flack for this but I've always found the "tag-along" term to describe siblings of age-specific groups to be offensive. Again, I understand the younger siblings can be disruptive but a "contract" with the parent of younger kids to outline expectations of supervision (i.e., on the parent) would help make that a workable situation for many groups.

I think there is a lot of "drop off" activities for kids simply because parents are so busy carting each child to age/grade-specific activities that they don't have time to hang out at each child's meetings/practices. I often think it really is too bad that there can't be more family-oriented *regular & on-going* recreation programming available in the community so parents don't have to stress about simply serving as a taxi service.

There are certainly more programs beyond 4H that offer family-oriented activities, including many church youth groups.

I think Maine's Take it Outside initiative is trying to encourage families to explore the outdoors together through various events at state parks. And Obama's Let's Move initiative also has possibilities, although they don't always focus on the family affair piece as strongly in their promotion of it.

I wonder how others feel about this topic. Are you a true believer in age-specific activities because you believe siblings close in age need to have separate activities? Or are you one to seek out family-oriented programs so all your children can participate? Or are you just too busy with your own work schedule that it's easier to simply be a taxi service to drop them off at age-specific activities?