ERIN ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, August 25, 2005 7:00 pm
Sports, music, drama, art, clubs, Scouting — in these first few days of school students stand before a smorgasbord of extracurricular options.
“It’s like a buffet line,” said Chris Baker, clinical social worker with Lincoln’s Child Guidance Center. “At the beginning you are really hungry and you think that looks good and that looks good … By the time you have sat down and finished with your plate you’re not feeling so good.”
That’s why parents need to help their students make the right decisions about how many things to take on, and yet keep academics their number one priority.
“You need to keep everything in balance,” said Moira Prager, educational therapist and owner of Learning Styles and Solutions, an Aston, Pa.- based company.
“There are many many children who are just way overscheduled,” Prager said.
There is no one formula that fits every child.
“Each child is different from the next. Each child can be very different from his or her siblings. They have different personality types, different energy levels. Parents need to look at what kind of personality and energy level the child has in order to decide how much is enough,” Prager said in a telephone interview.
Some kids will want to do everything.
Some kids will want to do nothing.
And some kids will want to quit an activity before they ever really give it a shot.
“None of those scenarios is necessarily great,” say Baker and Sara Crandall, also a social worker with Child Guidance Center.
Repeated studies show the benefits of activities — from building self-esteem, self-confidence and self-reliance to enhancing problem solving and organizational skills.
But too many activities — to the point of overscheduled, overextended kids — do just the opposite, Prager said. Too much to do makes kids disorganized. They become disheartened, resentful, depressed, exhausted and unsure of themselves. Their family lives get lost in the shuffle of traveling from one activity to the next event.
“It’s important to find balance,” said Crandall.
With a new school year just getting under way the first and most important step is understanding how much time your student will need for homework and special school projects.
“School is not what it was like when we went to school,” said Baker. “Schools today are really giving so much more homework, it is important for parents not to underestimate that.”
To find out how much you should expect, Prager encourages parents to get their schools’ homework policies. Talk to your children’s teachers about expectations.
Then you can plan extra activities accordingly.
Many child experts suggest no more than one competitive sport per child per season. But again, it really depends on the child and the family, said Baker.
Let your child choose the activities that he or she likes, said Prager. If the child is unsure make a pact: Try it for a few weeks, a quarter or a semester.
“Pushing your children to take part in activities that they are not enjoying is a negative and eventually turns into resentment toward the parent and the actual activity,” Prager said.
“And sometimes children burn out from activities,” she said.
Prager’s daughter began swimming competitively at age 8. Her goal was a college swimming scholarship. But in high school when swim team practices began at 4:45 a.m., it proved too much, Prager recalled.
“She said, ‘I just can’t do this anymore. I hate swimming,’” Prager said. “I knew enough was enough and pushing her would break her.
“A child complaining he doesn’t want to go to practice is very different from someone saying, ‘I hate doing this. I don’t want to do this anymore,’” she said.
If parents feel strongly that their child continue in an activity that the child wants to quit, draft a written contract. If at the end of the contract the child still wants to quit, then let them, Baker said.
What about kids who don’t want to do anything? If it’s a kid who truly has few friends and very limited social experiences, parents may need to step in and find an activity for that child, Crandall said.
But if the child has friends and just enjoys the free time of hanging out, riding bikes and playing — then don’t fret too much about it, Crandall said.
As children progress through the grades, their activity options increase exponentially — and so do the time demands and need to make hard choices, Baker said.
In elementary school, parents have more say and more control over activity choices.
By middle and high school, kids need to have a say in the decision. Parents need to help keep their children’s expectations in perspective with their school, family and personal lives.
Have kids set their activity priorities. Have them look at their daily and weekly schedules. Can they realistically meet all the time commitments, plus have downtime?
Downtime is vital, say all three experts.
Without downtime, kids have trouble relaxing and falling asleep.
“When kids are overbooked or overscheduled, sometimes it takes away the creativity of the child. There is too much structure and not enough imagination that is being able to be expressed,” Prager said.
In their book “The Overscheduled Child: Avoiding the Hyper-Parenting Trap,” authors Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld and Nicole Wise say parents need to put the emphasis on relationships and family, rather than a resume of accomplishments.
“Childhood is a preparation, not a full performance,” Rosenfeld and Wise wrote in an article published on Connect for Kids. “Children ought to enjoy hobbies and passions rather than working at them like part-time unpaid jobs. … Children are not supposed to excel, or even be good, at anything. They are, by definition, immature and unpolished. They are learning!”
So as the lists come home and hemming and hawing begins, Baker offers these parting words of advice for parents:
“Less is better than more. Kids are so stressed. I encourage parents to think small. You are always able to add things later.”
Reach Erin Andersen at 473-7217 or eandersen@journalstar.com.
Signs your child
may be too busy
* Is irritable, cranky or quick tempered
* Feels tired, anxious or depressed
* Complains of headaches or stomachaches, which could be due to stress, missed meals or lack of sleep
* Falls behind in schoolwork.
Source: Nemours Foundation, Kids Health
The schedule
* Work with your children to come up with an acceptable list of after-school activities.
* Create a master calendar to be placed in a prominent place. List each child’s activities by day and time.
* Set a weeknight bedtime. Build in a 20- to 30-minute time for reading.
* Decide what time homework will begin.
* Designate a homework place. It should be the same place every night. Make sure it is stocked with necessary supplies, has an appropriate-sized desk and chair.
* Establish a time with each child when you will check homework, backpacks and folders for school communication.
Source: Moria Prager, educational therapist
Making decisions
* Agree on some ground rules.
— Perhaps choose one sport per season or limit activities to two afternoons or evenings during the school week.
— Make it a priority to have at least one night or weekend day free from outside obligations.
* Consider your child’s obligations.
— How much time will he need for homework, special school projects, family obligations and religious obligations?
— How much private time does she feel she needs for friends or doing her own thing?
* Put it down on paper.
— Have your child list each activity he wants to do and rank it in order of importance.
— List the time commitment each activity requires, including practices, competitions and drive time. Err on the side of extra time.
* Put it all together.
— Help your child decide what she can do. Let her decide what she should give up.
* Try to balance activities equally among all family members, so no one is feeling slighted. (This includes mom and dad.)
* Keep a calendar to stay organized and display it prominently. If you find an empty spot — keep it, don’t fill it.
* Allow your child to miss one or two sessions of an activity if it means he can recoup and regroup.
* Create family time.
Set aside time to do things as a family. Make it non-negotiable.
* Set priorities.
— School must come first. If your child can’t keep up with school obligations, an extracurricular activity may have to go.
— If your child tends to quit too easily, have a plan in place for sticking with the activity for an agreed amount of time.
* Know when to say no.
— If your child is already booked to the max, but wants to take on another activity, don’t be afraid to make her quit something else in its place.
* Never underestimate the importance of downtime.
— Doing nothing isn’t always bad.
— When it comes to scheduling our kids remember — less is better.
Sources: Amanda Formaro, of thefamilycorner.com; Nemours Foundation, “Kids Health;” and Child Guidance Center in Lincoln