To Overschedule or Not--that is the question
It's a tough issue in today's busy world.
Before you read this post, I want to confess that this is an issue that I haven't figured out yet.
You see, I LOVE being overscheduled. I thrive on it. I love activities and lots of them. There is nothing more exciting to me than signing Mira up for a new class, something new to introduce her to in the world.
I'm serious.
I want her to be well rounded and adventurous. But more than that, it's just the trill of knowing that she'll get to try something new for the first time.
But the first question is, um, what to choose: My community has a well-developed and amazing dance program (plus those little four year olds in tutus are so adorable), so that seems a given. Swimming is VERY important, more of a life skill. Music is important for brain development and so is art. Soccer builds hand eye coordination. And aren't you supposed to learn language young?
Then there are the activities Mira begs for.-- "Mom I want to take gymnastics, please oh please."
To top it all off, my professional self believes it is "bad" to overschedule kids.
I know that I am talking about my four year old, but this is something that all parents I know struggle with. The age old question: free time vs. scheduled time.
Have you noticed, for instance, that the demands of being on a soccer team are VERY different than from when we were kids, especially if they are on a travelling soccer team (did we even have that when we were kids?). There is an ethos that you absolutely don't let down the team, even when grandma is in town. If there is one thing I have learned from running mom/daughter programs on weekends--soccer trumps everything.
How do we as parents handle this and find an appropriate balance? Gloria DeGatano, the head of the Parent Coaching International and also an expert in the field of brain compatible parenting believes that children need free time (and lots of it) in order to learn to think, imagine and problem solve.
I know some people let their child choose one or two things to do each semester (I admire those parents). Other people have their children doing a ton of activities at a frantic pace (I fear I have a natural leaning towards the latter).
I think I will always be walking the balance. Checking in with myself and my daughter to see what's a good fit in terms of activities and what feels like too much. I will be always wishing there was more time in the day to do more, see more and experience more. And I will wonder, for example, if I am robbing my daughter of the spirit of the team when I see cute pictures of the kids her age playing soccer in the rain (something we didn't pick to do this time around).
I recently learned of a concept called scheduling "white noise time." What this means is time that is left free. When that time comes up in your calendar, you can do anything--take a nap, work on a project, play. I also read somewhere to make sure you have a period in your week where your children are home with no set agenda for at least three hours. When you are particularly busy, make sure you have this time to balance it out. And, in case you are wondering, that three hour stretch of time should not be television time. At first your child may be beside themselves looking for something to do or pulling on your shirt sleeves wanting you to engage. However, my experience has been that after a while my child settles into her own play and her imagination sky rockets.
I know that no matter how busy we get and how full our life is of activities, I am always going to off-set it with "white noise time."
What are your thoughts on overscheduling and how do you handle it? I really want to know.
Labels: lessons, overscheduling, parenting
posted by Peggy300 at
9:59 PM
2 Comments:
With my three older children, I was so busy juggling work and children that I didn't overschedule. I actually felt guilty about this for years -- I had been more "overscheduled" as a child and often felt like I should have involved my children in more activities. But as it happened, the kids had plenty of unscheduled time and gravitated to what they most enjoy. They all took swimming (I agree, a life skill) and martial arts (one hated it, the other two loved it). Other than that - one was a book worm, developed her talent for arts and crafts, and took up the harp (!); another got involved in running and weight lifting, computer animation, and then later, piano (I taught him myself); a third developed an interest in computer programming and bike riding and has recently taken up piano also. My youngest child is seven and is involved in two scheduled activities - martial arts and piano lessons - and I think that's enough. Now that I have seen it with my own eyes, I have to agree with you, kids really do develop their imagination and talents during their unscheduled time. (so long as it's not completely taken up by TV or computer games)
(I'm writing not as a parent but as a youth advocate and M.A. Ed. with 15 years working with home-schooled, alternatively-schooled and traditionally-schooled kids. And as someone who tends to think and write a lot about how we can provide sanity in the midst of the over-stimulation of this contemporary world, with my three wonderful nieces, ages 8, 10, and 13, in mind.)
Great post, Peggy. I especially like your confessional, because in taking control of one's schedule, whether just for oneself or for the kids, we have to be willing to be real about our own proclivities as we figure out kids' temperaments. IOW, I like the important lesson that there's no one way to do it "right."
I am the same as you--I love myriad activities. As a kid I couldn't get enough of trying new things. I am happy my mom had me in ballet, art, roller skating, ice skating, gymnastics, swimming, tennis, piano, skiing lessons, pretty much anything I asked to do.... And I only wish we'd known about rock climbing and wilderness school!
The thing I didn't do much of, that I look back and realize I truly wanted, is SHARED activities--I always wished my mom would do art or get in the pool or on the ski slope WITH me so we could--and this is perhaps the crux of it -- craft some narratives together. "Remember that time, when I fell on the bunny slope, and you had to help me up, and then you fell too..."
I had those narratives, but only with other kids, not with adults. Of course I am sure my mom cherished the break time from her energetic kid. And she did sign us up once for a mother-daughter cooking class. THAT, of all the activities, really felt special, because she wanted to spend time with me.
This is one reason I SO love and support the work you do, Peggy, to bring parents and kids together for shared self-exploration and getting to know one another's deep selves. It's so brilliant that you work with both at once, that your programs actually nurture the needs of both the child and the parent. I realize now that that was at the heart of what I wanted from my mom-- time for authentic exploration of "who are you? who am I??"
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