Kids want more free time, fewer activities

I've been consistent in my belief that kids today are overscheduled and overstructured. I thought perhaps I was a dinosaur.

I remember softball as fun. Now it's one more thing to add to a resume as an all around kid. I took piano lessons but they didn't take over my whole life. I had plenty of time to be a kid and lots to do without my entire life being micromanaged.

We skipped summer school this year for the first time for Elcie and Rochelle. They're both doing Honor Roll work in Special Ed. Elcie will be mainstreamed experimentally when she goes back. Summer school here is almost all repitition of the previous grade and neither of them need it.

All these activities are worthwhile but there needs to be some balance.

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My children all whine and complain because their friends are always too busy to play between sports and clubs. baseball seems to be the worst, with practice or games nearly every day. This summer has been extra hard. Working parents have their children shuffling from a week of horse camp to a week of art camp and so on, because they don't have time for them in the summer. One mother actually siad to me, "I love the summer, cause *insert child's name here* is only home on the weekends."

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When I was a kid, I only had one thing going on outside school.
I teach part-time and I find most parents these days want to give their kids some advantage above other kids by over-scheduling them (as adults) in hopes that they'll get into a better college or perhaps do better in life.

I also find that it's mainly the over-working parents that involve their kids in everything under the sun.

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We weren't allowed to participate in anything that required us missing family dinners more than 2 nights a week. That ruled out the local little league, since most of them either had practice or a game 6 days out of the week.

I think we'll stick with a variation of that when Paul is old enough to particpate in things. He can have sport, and one non sport activity per season, so long as the practice schedule isn't insane. I refuse to spend my afternoons and early evenings dealing with traffic in the DC metro area any more than I have to. I'd rather just have his friends come over one day a week and have an informal ball game or DnD/lan party and pizza night :P.

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I am basically a homebody and love my own free time so my kids are made to fall into that mold whether they like it or not. I have always kept structured activities to a minimum.

During the school year my 6 year old daughter was allowed an activity one night a week and this summer all she has is two weeks of summer enrichment at her school. She is fine with that plan since she is mostly likes to be home so friends can come over to play.

My 4 year old son has tee ball once a week and swimming lessons once a week but he also likes his free time and after a couple of weeks, he says he does not want to go to tee ball anymore. Can't say I blame him. My favorite days are waking up with no plans!

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I was overscheduled as a child, running from puppetry to ballet, to drama to piano, to bass. When I finally quit ballet after 7 years, I started soccer. When I quit puppetry, I joined the Jr. Symphony, etc.

Summers were a lot slower; my parents were usually off for the summer, so I had lots of time outside on the bike, etc., and swim lessons. I always went to camp for at least 2 weeks.

My children's summer looks a lot like their school year, since they are homeschooled. They have lots of time during the day, and they swim. The neighborhood seems like a ghost town, though, even in summer, what with all the camps, etc.

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My nieces go someplace every day - but my sister lives in a third-floor walkup, no air-conditioning. And it's *tiny*.

So I've scheduled our days so they can do a lot of unstructured stuff with other kids their respective ages. Works out well, really.

Of course, they're three and a baby, so.

That said, the whole point of summer vacation was originally so children could go home and work the fields and bring in crops. It was not so that children or adults could spend half the year (more than half the year - 185 days off compared to a 180 day school year) playing around. I see nothing wrong with children spending more *days* doing something structured (or in school, really), so long as on any individual day, they have at least equal amounts of free time as structured time (and more unstructured time the younger the child is).

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I strongly agree that kids are not getting enough free time! I am a teacher, and I hear kids longing for time to just sit in their room to think about life, time to read a good book and be able to devour the entire book in an afternoon, time to talk to their freinds and just hang out, etc. I also teach piano, and some of my students arrive at lessons so stressed and wired from previous activities and then rushing to lessons that I sometimes have to play soothing music for them for a few minutes to calm them down so they can concentrate on the music lesson. I firmly believe that children should have no more than two activities a week! Children do not develop properly when they have no free time to play. As these children begin to enter the adult world, I think we are going to see shorter life spans due to childhood stresses.

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I think it's good to have things to do, but not to be so structured. I have friends who's kids LITERALLY are involved in at least 4 organized activities a week!! Between soccer, gymnastics, karate, baseball, swimming, etc....the poor kids look like their run ragged. When I was a kid, the most I was in at any one time was 2 activities...usually one sport and piano lessons - neither of which were forced upon me so there was no stress involved. I spent most of my summer vacations riding my bike and swimming with friends. There's enough stress in the adult world to go around, let's let our kids have some fun while they still can :) :)

http://homeschooling.youngparentsmagazine.com

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Jen, I had almost equal summers. This is real summer! Nothing to do, you aren't ought to go anywhere - just you and your friends and huge field of playground, from one border of state to another. Of course I'm joking about borders. But this freedom was awesome. I hope my kids will feel it

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I keep hearing about YOUNG kids having ulcers. I wonder why? I think that kids need time to unwind just like adults do. It just breaks my heart when I hear a kid say they wish they could stop doing so many activities. I know a parent who has her dd is activites practically every day (ballet, tap, gymnastics, modeling, beauty contests) yet she complains that the child has trouble with academics. I suggested cutting back on the extra curriculars and she said, "She has 2 days to do nothing". I think it should be 5 days to do nothing and 2 days to do extra curriculars, especially if her grades are failing. I can see this child rebelling, why can't her mom?

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I completly agree. When my daughter tunred 8 or 9 I had a party where I just let the kids play. there were no activities planned. They did what wanted. They had cake and pizza and got to open the presents then They were allowed to play with the presents.
The one girl came up later and said" this is the best party cuz we got to play with the toys and the presents and didn't have to play games and stuff"

Kids need free time, the need to learn how to do things for themselves and to entertain themselves. If they have every moment planned for them they never learn to deal with down time or what to do if there is nothing to do.

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