Parents Long commute to gym/gym friends

[3LittleGymmies]

For those of you who travel far to gym, how do you handle birthday party invites, etc. that will require you to travel back out that way on a non-gym day? Do you allow your child to go or explain that it's too long of a drive for a party? Do you have them pick and choose which are the most important to them? We travel to our gym five days a week, a little over 30 miles (but with traffic, anywhere from 45 minutes to well over an hour). I didn't really think about this part of it when we switched and I am wondering how you all manage those logistics. I want my girls to be able to nurture their gym friendships because those are the friends that they see the most, and I would feel badly having them miss over a drive... but they have been coming home with so many invitations, and it would have us driving out that far 6-7 days a week and a 2 hour party can easily take up a half of a day. On the other hand, they don't get to see those friends in school and can't easily have sleepovers, etc. Tough mom decisions!

 

[Flossyduck]

I definitely know where you are coming from on this one and it's a toughie when you already spend so much time fitting around gym and making the long journey. I have to say that, when we were in this position, I always tried to make it possible for dd to go if she wanted to and found that it self- regulated a bit. Sometimes she couldn't go because we had other commitments as a family, and sometimes she chose not to if she didn't know the girl too well and she was tired, or wanted to see her school friends, but most of the time she really wanted to go and we let her.

Actually as the kids get older I find that they seem to get invited to parties at a distance in any case - to the ice-rink, or a laser quest party or horse riding. I often end up with a journey to those places even for school friends. Giving dd the option to go the extra for her gym friends just feels important to me.

 

[OwlGalLiz]

I understand. My DS goes to school 25 min in one direction and gym is 35 min in the opposite direction from our house. Add in scouts and neighborhood kids - we're all over the place. But it's ok. To us, fostering the friendships is more important. If he wants to go, we make it work if it fits in with our family schedule. When his turn comes around we'll be inviting those folks to his party.

 

[COz]

I live in inner city suburbs. I think of 30-45 minutes drive as a 'normal' drive to pretty much anywhere. Long is something that will take 1hr.

I get tired at the thought of doing anything on top of the already scheduled activities though. There's only so much room in the week

 

[auswi]

We have a really long commute to gym but luckily most of the training friends have the same crazy hours so birthday parties have so far been between sessions either on a Sat or between sessions in the holidays. We have the opposite problem of Dd-the social butterfly LOL- getting lots of invites outside gym. We leave it totally up to Dd to choose- and so far gym has always won however we do make an effort to catch up with non- gymmies on the occasional down day. As gym is her sport I don't personally think I should influence her either way - friends party or training it's up to her and hopefully when the gym ride ends we will have an adult/ older child that knows it was their choice to have a childhood filled with gym( and at this stage Dd thinks she's the luckiest girl in the world to be able to train IDP