Is My Child Overscheduled?
When did we forget that we are human beings, not human doings?
~Omid Safi, in his essay “The Disease of Being Busy” for onbeing.org
My husband and I limit our kids to two extracurricular activities per child at any given time. This is fewer than that recommended by experts who diss kids’ crammed schedules (three or fewer, they say). So our lives shouldn’t be too hectic, right?
In theory, yes.
Then there’s Monday afternoon. Early release day, so the kids and I should have some time to just hang out together. But enter the after school schedule:
1:30: School’s out
1:45 to 2:45: back to back violin lessons (two kids)
3:05: Girls on the Run (one child)
4:00: Acting (older son)
4:30: Pick up daughter from GOTR
5:30: Pick up son from the theatre.
I’m pretty much in the van the whole time, with at least one of my tired kids in the back seat, unhappy about being drug along (can’t blame them). Here it is early release, all this “extra time” and we get home tired, hungry (dinner is, of course, late) and there’s still homework to do.
What are we doing?
Socrates is credited with saying, Beware the barreness of a busy life. How did he know?? Many enriching activities, all ones my kids say they enjoy, yet we get a serious case of the crabbies on these supposedly fulfilling afternoons of busy. Granted, not every afternoon is like this, but when we start the week at a frantic pace, it starts us off on the wrong foot. Tired. Behind on the homework schedule. In desperate need of some time to unwind.
Basic math has eluded me (lack of oxygen due to hours in a stuffy van?). Because two activities times three kids does not equal happy and fulfilled. It equals a very weighty six. And sometimes seven if you throw in an extra, although temporary, super-cool activity. (Moment of weakness? Maybe. But I stand solidly behind this once-in-a-school-career opportunity for my daughter.)
Busy has become the other “B” word in recent years, only to have contemporaries rail against this label. We have had critics (including child health professionals) of parents who fill their kids’ time with a crushing number of activities; these are the parents with helicopter tendencies, we are told, who push their kids for the sake of themselves. Those defending their children’s busy schedules shake their heads at parents whose “old-fashioned” ideas leave their kids idle in a world bursting with opportunities their parents never had. Today, we have those (also health professionals) who laud “enriching” (not extracurricular) activities as not only necessary for kids’ self esteem, classroom performance and social relationships, but as many as three at time is considered ok.
What are we parents to do with this information?
Enter yet another B word, but one with a much more positive connotation: balance. Balance between busy and idle, and the scale by which this is measured is as unique to each child as with anything else. Michael Thompson, clinical psychologist and author of The Pressured Child says:
“As a general principle, there is a line between a highly enriched, interesting, growth-promoting childhood and an overscheduled childhood,” he said. “And nobody knows where that line is.”
Likely because, there is no concrete rule-of-thumb. Not even within a family unit. Some children thrive on being busy. But there are kids who need more unstructure, time to quietly create or read or simply reset after the constant stimulation of a school setting. A child’s threshold for scheduled activities depends on the child. The line Dr. Thompson speaks of is certainly on a spectrum. And no matter where that line is, experts and parents on both sides of the busy-is-harmful debate agree that children need free time.
Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, child and adolescent psychiatrist, champions this idea. The author of The Overscheduled Child emphasizes…wait for it… balance. Time for kids to just be. To get messy and navigate boredom, play with friends and spend time with family, not performing for family. Dr. Thompson emphasizes the importance of the basics: activities are great, but kids need a full night’s sleep and time to complete homework, too. And what about parents who advocate lots of extra activities for their children? They still agree their kids need spontaneity to make the daily schedule work. Serious and silly. Work and play.
Balance.
So how can we maintain a healthy level of fulfilling activity without going overboard on all the cool opportunities out there? The place to start, not surprisingly: our kids. The simplest and best advice I received in my Physician Assistant training was talk to your patients, observe them, and they’ll tell you everything you need to know. It’s the same with our kids; we parents just need to be attuned. Kids will tell us unfailingly if they are busy and happy or overwhelmed and over scheduled:
•Observe your child’s demeanor going to and coming home from an activity, says Dr. Thompson. Is she happy, bubbling over with information? Or is she quiet and complaining Do we have to?? If either behavior is consistent, that’s the simplest and best insight into how our child feels about a given enrichment. If she’s unhappy, consider dropping the activity.
•Observe the physical signs. Is your child lethargic or sleeping poorly? Has he started having frequent headaches or stomachaches? These symptoms can be signs of many things (and warrant a doctor’s evaluation), including but not limited to, depression and feeling overwhelmed with too much to do.
•With unscheduled time, you hear “I’m bored” repeatedly. A packed timetable can cause a child to have trouble occupying herself if left to her own devices. Curing boredom independently is a skill many over scheduled kids struggle with.
•Grades are suffering. Are kids too exhausted after a packed day? Is there no time to complete homework in a realistic time frame (i.e., by bedtime)? Most parents agree that activities need to be pared down if school becomes a second priority.
•Family meals are nonexistent. Meals together is a prime example of the good, solid family time that Dr. Rosenfeld applauds. Kids need to be with their parents and after a day apart, mealtime offers interaction without the distractions of work, school and activities. Eating supper in a whirlwind of shifts eliminates one surefire way of being a family. If the family dining table is collecting dust, it’s time to reevaluate the family schedule.
•Just ask. Behavior is great insight into how a child feels about an activity but not necessarily the only measure, as I found out. My daughter started having meltdowns each time she faced practicing her violin. Curious, yet assuming I knew the answer (unhappy=ditch the activity), I asked her how she felt about playing the violin. Surprisingly, she said she liked it. When I probed further, she told me she couldn’t concentrate on her music with the constant commotion in the room. Which makes perfect sense. But it was not on my radar as her brother can effectively tune out all else when he rehearses. So she and I made some changes. Instead of practicing in our open, high traffic dining area, we practice behind a closed door elsewhere in the house. And we always practice when her brothers are at cub scouts and the house is quiet. Gone is the struggle over practice time. And gone are the groans when her brother, meaning well, offers his help. Here I thought my daughter wanted to quit violin, but all I needed to do was ask and found out otherwise.
Being busy is good for kids. They need to explore new ideas, skills and group dynamics. It’s all a part of self-discovery and learning about the world. But the temptation (for kids and parents alike) to try a multitude of options can easily tip the scale toward the downward spiral of a packed schedule and never-ending activity. Finding balance can take some experimentation. Like my family’s Monday afternoons. Four activities in one day is crazy; we won’t do it again. Live and learn.
On a recent “idle” day my kids built a house for their stuffed animals and dolls using “everyday” items from around our home.
