How over scheduling your children can be detrimental to their development

Well the school year has started and now so do the new seasons of sports and activities.  As a mother of three small children I am a huge believer in keeping your children involved in extracurricular activities.  It’s good for them. It's healthy for their social lives and it keeps them out of trouble.  When our oldest turned 5 we signed he and his sister up for soccer.  Since they were so young their team was unisex and they were placed on the same team.  They had practice once a week and a game every Saturday.  We loved it. I was (still am) a proud soccer mom!  The next season we signed them back up and this time they were placed on different teams.  They still had practice once a week and a game every Saturday.  This time although practice was on the same day they were at two different times and 20 minutes apart in location.  Their games were at two different times and two different locations on Saturdays! Now things were getting interesting.  Since my husband and I both worked full time and the youngest was still in daycare those days were super busy! We were both able to get off of work an hour early (4pm).  We would immediately pick up two of the kids from school and then head to get the youngest. My husband would then drop myself and my daughter off at her practice.  He’d then go to my son’s practice for an hour. Now since their practices started at different times we were being dropped of an hour before it started just so they could be on time. My daughter spent that hour doing homework. By the time we were back home, it was dinner, showers and bed. On soccer practice days I usually throw something in the crock pot so that when we get back home we have a hot meal already done to eat. On non-crock pot days we were eating sandwiches and chips during practice.

They are now on their 5th season of soccer and I think we have this scheduling thing down to a science.  Well now, they are both in scouts as well and you guessed it, they meet on two different days.  With sports and other activities our dinner time at the table is cut down to only a couple of days a week.  It’s replaced with car meals or rushing around from one practice to another.  There is barely any time to ask “how was your day” because before you know it your day is over.  Not to mention the kids not having down time of their own to just be kids.

While it’s important to let our children experience different activities and explore interests they may have, it is also very important to teach them about valuable family time. Not only family time but also time to just be themselves. Just be kids. Time to laze around and decide on their own what they want to do. We all know how fast kids grow. Before you know it they are graduating from high school and you're left wondering "where have all of those years gone?"  For a lot of parents the years are spent running from practice to practice and game to game and this activity and that activity.

So how much is too much?  Are  we spending more time in our cars picking up and dropping off than actually quality time with our children?  Are we so focused on scheduling them for as many activities as we can squeeze in that we have to pencil in family time?  Are we allowing our children to have down time to play with their siblings as opposed to just seeing their siblings in passing? I read a CBS article about this very subject and one thing that stood out to me was that “overscheduling kids may be detrimental to their development.”  It said that due to a study "The more time kids had in less structured activities, the more self-directed they were and, also, the reverse was true: The more time they spent in structured activities, the less able they were to use executive function."  Later in the article the following was stated “executive function includes a broad range of thinking skills that include planning, problem-solving, making decisions and regulating thoughts and actions."  You don't have a chance to develop those skills in structured activities and classes."

While it may seem that the best thing for your child(ren) is to keep them active in a scheduled activity all of the time "There could be a benefit to having more free time.  Kids may be developing broader life skills that could be really important for them, especially as they get increasingly independent. These findings suggest it may be OK if the kids have some time when they're obviously not working toward some goal."  So ease up a little. LOL let them breathe and then let them BE.

I've come up with 3 ways that I think will tell you if your child is or feels over-scheduled:

1.  They are always rushing (or being rushed) from one place/activity to another with little to no down time.  If you are noticing that you are always going, going, going trying to get your child to their activities; if they always have to eat meals in the car, if the only time they are home is to sleep and get dressed, if you don't remember the last time they were able to just sleep in or have down time then your child may be over scheduled. Think about it...how do YOU feel when you feel like you have a thousand things to do and not enough time to do them?

2.  They always seem stressed out.  If your child comes off as being overwhelmed or moody often.  If they aren't excited about going to or participating in the activity or homework time is accompanied by the soundtrack of loud sighs or tears (not from frustration of the homework but from the little time they have to complete it due to an activity they then your child could be over scheduled.  Think about it...how do YOUR moods change while stressing over the long list of things you have to do?

3.  They tell you they are.  Just ask them.  Ask them if they even want to do the next season of that sport.  You may be surprised.  They made need a timeout for a season just to take a breather and if they do don't give them a hard time about it.  Sometimes we want it more than they do and that's not fair to them.  Ask them if they are feeling like they are doing too much.  Ask them if they feel like they are getting enough time for homework or time with their friends.  Ask them and then......listen.  Think about it...how do YOU feel when you are spending a lot of time doing things you aren't even into anymore. How do you feel when you are missing out on fun things with friends because of work or other obligations?

I hope you learned a little something and this encourages you as it did me to just pay closer attention to how much we sign our children up for. Just like it's important for us to have a work-life balance at  it's just as if not more important for our children to have that balance as well.