Learning From Others

Learning from Others

Most people want their children to have more than they did or at least the same type of upbringing that they believe made them the type of person they are but some parents have begun to question which things should be important. Over scheduling children's lives has become an issue that individuals, families and others have been exploring as many parents find they are so involved in shuttling their children to activities that they have little time to really interact as a family. Over the last year or so, I have watched a friend of my mom's struggling with this issue. She was raised in a very middle class environment, the child of two middle class hardworking parents in Guatemala. She and her siblings were involved in Soccer and Swimming, music lessons, and after school Catholicism classes, while summers were spent in day camp at the grade school, art lessons, little league and pony tail, music camp, church camp, the list seems endless. Despite the schedule, the family still ate dinner together daily. By the time she reached high school, she did not always make the best decisions but she believes that she never really got into trouble because she was involved in so many activities and she also believes that the activities really enriched her life--music camp and sports netted her friendships that she maintains more than twenty five years later. As an adult, she had grown to appreciate her mother's commitment in getting two children to private lessons, soccer and swimming practices, and numerous other activities throughout the years. In addition, several years before she began her family, she watched an HBO program featuring recovering teenage drug addicts and every single young person stressed the importance of keeping children involved in activities.

Her daughter started dance lessons at two, as did her son three years later. Both have been involved in numerous activities since. Her husband is out of town much of the time and could never remember the schedule so she finally typed up a daily listing of school and other activities. The program was working fine up until the middle child was in second grade. He had started cub scouts the year before and when they received information about soccer, Maria signed him up, fondly remembering her brother's soccer activities and her own involvement in the swimming team. While cub scouts should have been more manageable (the year before the parents were required to stay for the meeting while this year she could drop her son off), the added stress of twice weekly practices and weekend games left her so drained she did not have the energy to get him to cub scouts every week. She felt very guilty and eventually gave up trying to get him to scouts, even after the fall season had ended. With a third child four years behind her older son, she began thinking about how she would manage when the youngest began activities, something that started when he was three and became a member of the choir at church, requiring Maria to get three different children to practices at least two days a week in addition to the schedule of the oldest child who was involved in school choir and cheer leading. Maria experienced guilt because she did not seem capable of keeping the same pace as her mother even knowing that her business required a time commitment her mother did not have. She was also concerned that her children would not have the advantages she believed she had gained from her extra-curricular activities. In the final analysis, Maria decided that she would keep her children involved in certain activities but that she would be a better mother if she were not exhausted from maintaining an impossible schedule with little down time for the kids.

William Doherty and Barbara Carlson addressed the issue of overscheduled kids and under connected families, and the pressure on parents to ensure that children's lives are enriched while at the same time evaluating the quality of lives they are creating for their children. As critics of modern society point to the sedentary lifestyles of children, schedules seem even more important but others suggest that children today do not have the time to engage in the type of neighborhood, often outdoor play that was more prevalent twenty to thirty years ago. Doherty and Carlson argue that today's hectic schedules are damaging for children, not because their parents are choosing bad activities, but because there is so little quality family time available in the hectic schedules they keep. Today there are more activities for children and they start at a younger age and many parents have come to believe that if they want their children to succeed in these activities, they must begin early and stick with them. In some cases, the individuals seem to follow a model they perceive as good parenting without really giving any thought as to whether these activities are really beneficial to the child(ren). Others are thinking ahead toward college and the type of activities that look good on a college application--that signify that the child is a well-rounded individual that will be an asset for the school. Doherty and Carlson believe that while all of the reasons for hyper scheduling that have been observed explain the phenomenon and the changes in family life in recent decades, the evolution is really the result of the adult world of hyper competition and marketplace values entering into the family environment. Change requires parents that have the courage to get off the