Can Families Be 'Too Active'?
Give Your Kids More Time Not More Activities
In addition to regular family activities, parents often immerse their children in a regimen of excessive organized and scheduled recreation and education. It's not unusual for parents to fill their children's schedules with obligations like swimming lessons, tennis lessons, sport's camps and practices, in addition to church and family activities.
"Parents should be giving their children more time, not more activities," advises Waverley psychologist Dr. Todd Reiher. "You may be doing a disservice to them in the name of 'good' parenting,"
In addition to creating a hectic family schedule, excessive activity Deprives children of time to think, to read, to wonder, to imagine, to create, to explore their developing inner selves, says Reiher. The danger is that when the activities stop, the youngsters feel a sense of emptiness, boredom and a lack of comfort with themselves or their families.
"We are raising a generation of kids who don't know how to kick back, relax, and be with themselves. They maintain schedules that many working people would find demanding," Reiher said.
It seems likely that overscheduling parents do so because it helps them feel secure in their roles as parents, especially if both parents work outside the home, Reiher says. They do more for their kids rather than doing more with their kids.
Overscheduling might also be a symptom of growing societal affluence, Reiher says. "The same philosophy that leads Americans to spend more than they can afford, to eat more than they need to, and to try to do more than they have time for is being applied to children as well."
To learn more about finding the right pace for children's development, log onto http://www.parentsjournal.com.
