Labor Day, the “unofficial end of summer,” has come and gone. Although much of California is still sweating through early-September heatwaves, the kids are back in school, and fall activities are getting into full swing.
Whether your child plays a sport or a musical instrument, participates in clubs and competitions, or gets involved in the school play, extracurricular activities can become a lot for any parent to manage. Besides your job and general home responsibilities, you’re organizing practice schedules and pickup times, carpools and snack duty, away games and performance nights, plus making sure everyone eats dinner and the homework still gets done.
You’re happy to do it because they love it, and because it’s good for their health, their minds, their creativity, and their college applications.
But then, there’s the cost of all this enrichment—the joining fees, gear, uniforms, instruments, and costumes; the travel and tournament expenses.
A 2023 survey of 2000 American families conducted by LendingTree found that:
- 71% of parents with kids under 18 have at least one child involved in extracurriculars
- Among parents earning $100k+, 86% reported having a child in a competitive activity
- Most popular activities include: Sports 70%, Music 41%, Arts 28%
- Parents with kids in extracurriculars spend an average of $731 per child, per year on activities
- 62% said they’ve been stressed about how to pay for it; 42% said they’ve taken on debt for kids’ activities.
Of course, $731 is a nationwide average based on a single study. Depending on where you live, your child’s age and experience, and the competitiveness/training level of the activity, costs can skyrocket from there. A similar LendingTree survey, conducted two years earlier, found that one in four families with a child enrolled in a competitive extracurricular activity spend $4,000+ annually on that activity. Club volleyball, for example, in the Bay Area, can range from $2000 to upwards of $6000 per season — not including uniforms and travel expenses for out-of-town tournaments and so on.
Managing Kids’ Extracurricular Activities after Divorce
If you’re going through a divorce and navigating back-to-school season as a co-parent for the first time, the logistics and finances surrounding kids’ extracurricular activities can feel especially challenging, confusing, and contentious. The subject can raise tension between co-parents in numerous ways:
- Parents may disagree over what activities and time investments are worthwhile for the child.
- Activity schedules (practices, games, recitals) and locations may cause friction if they infringe on custody/visitation time, or are more inconvenient for one parent than the other
- Costs – Who has to foot the bill for enrollment fees, equipment, travel, and so forth?
Who pays for Extracurricular Activities?
The financial commitment for extracurriculars can be a major area of conflict between co-parents.
Under California law, both parents must financially support their child. When you get divorced, your child support order spells out how you will share that responsibility.
Child support is designed to meet the child’s essential needs: shelter, food, clothes, and school expenses. Although a custodial parent could choose to put some child support money toward activities, in general, child support orders do not address the finances of extracurricular activities, as they are not typically considered a necessity.
Planning Ahead
In the logistical and emotional chaos of your split, with all the big decisions to be made, soccer teams and trumpet lessons may not seem like top-tier issues, and they can be easy to overlook. But you can save yourself many headaches if you get out ahead of conflict and financial strain related to your kids’ extracurricular activities.
During the divorce process, spouses working together on a marital settlement agreement and parenting plan can negotiate the extracurricular activities issue and include provisions for choosing, logistically managing, and paying for these activities.
- Decide together how you’ll communicate about activity schedules (such as through a shared calendar) and how you’ll coordinate transportation (e.g., trading off driving duties).
- Be mindful and respectful of each other’s parenting time and try to avoid scheduling things that consistently intrude on one parent’s time with the child, or that create disproportionate hassles for one co-parent.
- Determine how you will share costs; budget ahead for big-ticket expenses; some parents set up a joint fund specifically for their kids’ activities.
- Build in some flexibility and try to be generous with one another—games will get rained out, recitals will get rescheduled, and kids will misplace their gear.
- Above all, center your child’s needs when planning or dealing with co-parenting conflict over extracurricular activities. Weigh the benefits of the activity in terms of their holistic well-being, and in light of this big transition in their life. Prioritize activities based on what your child really enjoys, what makes them light up and thrive — not just what you each think they should do. Consider what activities will help provide a sense of stability and consistency during a tumultuous time.
- Work with a knowledgeable and forward-thinking family lawyer.
At SFLG, we focus exclusively on family law. With decades of experience navigating divorce, custody, child support, and parenting plans, we understand, in great detail, the issues you’ll face as a co-parent– including planning and paying for your child’s activities. We offer highly tailored and creative solutions to thorny problems, always putting your child’s best interests first.
By Debra Schoenberg
