Lost Childhood: Are Kids Today Too Overscheduled?

In my work with children thus far, I am noticing an alarming trend in overscheduling children. I have worked in a variety of settings from daycares, hospitals, homes, etc. in which children have very limited unstructured time in which they can play with friends, toys, or expand their imagination. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting your child to be involved in their community. But there is a point where too much involvement becomes harmful to the child. And often times there is a misnomer about who the activity is benefitting more, the child or the parent. When you enter a middle to upper class society today, if your child is not in a million different activities, other parents might stereotype you as abusive or neglectful. It has and does become a competition between parents over whose child is in more activities. I have seen parents push their children to attend activities even when the child is adiment about not wanting to go.

What is this really teaching our kids? It is teaching them that their opinion does not matter. They do not need to be free thinkers, someone else will always be guiding and controlling their thinking. The more scheduled you are in life, the more successful you will be. My parents do not want to spend time with me. Spending time with family is not important. I can not learn things on my own, I must be taught everything by an instructor.

How might kids respond to overscheduling? Well, how would you feel if your opinions and values were not being recognized? You would probably be pretty upset, but you might not act out because you deem it inappropriate. A child's cognitive level of thinking is much less advanced, and they might not know how to respond appropriately to heightened stress levels. They might act out aggressively, show signs of hyperactivity, become extremely irritable, angry, or hostile, isolate themselves from family members or friends, get sick more often, have irregular sleeping patterns, the list goes on and on...

Many parents do not see these behaviors as being a result of overscheduling, but instead worry that something is wrong with their child. They then seek out specialists, doctors, etc. without realizing the underlying problem that their child is downright stressed and unhappy. Children who continue to lead these overschedule lifestyles may often turn to drugs or alcohol or other negative coping mechanisms down the line. It is very scary to see this becoming the American way of raising children.

What can parents do to change these patterns? First and foremost, take a deep breath. If your child is overstressed, I cannot even imagine how stressed a parent must feel who has to keep up with this type of schedule. If you want your child to participate in activities, that is great and I encourage it. But is not and should not be seen as mandatory. Children do fine without activities as long as they are able to develop strong, healthy attachments to parents or caregivers. However, if you do enroll them in something, realize that it is the quality of the activity and not the quantity that matters. Pick one maybe two activities that your child really enjoys, and make sure your child truly wants to participate in them. Forcing your child to participate in activities they do not want to do will only cause them to resent you as a parent, and they won't gain anything by pretending they want to be there.

Reinvent family values by spending time with your kids at home. You don't have to schedule things for them to do, let them be creative and come up with their own stories, games, or make their own toys. Allowing time for free thinking and exploring challenges kids to think fast and independently which is great for improving cognitive skills. Go on a nature walk and talk about all of the things you see around you. Ask them how they feel about things and really get to know them. Read and play games with them to increase literacy and language skills. Invite one of their friends over in order to foster socialization. When they are constantly being scheduled, they'll have no time to do these things that are so important in terms of healthy development. Childhood is short, and they'll have plenty of time for their lives to be scheduled later. There are so many simple ways to teach our kids without spending lots of money and time. It is really sad when parents hardly know who their kids are because they are constantly schlepping them from one activity to the next. Parenting is a much higher calling than being a chaffeur. Simply put, let your kid be a kid because they deserve it.