Do we put too much pressure on our kids?
One of the hottest debates amongst parents and professionals centers on over-programmed and over-stressed kids.
For every study that says over-programming is the worst thing for your child, there is another study that wonders if it really is. For every parent who swears their child needs their downtime, there are others who say downtime is where the problems lie.
With so much conflicting “evidence”, advice, parenting books and commentary, what is the right answer?
Fun on the Surface
I often sit in my 4-year old daughter’s gymnastics class and I can’t help but overhear the chatter of enthusiastic parents around me. Topics range anywhere from the age of their children, to what skills their daughter needs to learn in order move up (to the next competitive level), to how many private lessons they can squeeze in before the next competition.
For the most part it’s light and supportive. Parents (mostly moms) beam with pride at their Olympics-bound gymnastics prodigies. Veteran parents are giving advice to new moms. Older girls out on the floor are giving it their all. They pour their sweat (and yes, sometimes even blood and tears) into new routines, new skills and the finesse. Everything it takes to outshine their competitors at the next competition.
It Takes a Toll
Look a little closer and you might see a different story. Injured girls with taped ankles, braces, boots and sometimes even casts hobble around, admittedly with more grace than I can muster on my best day. Frustration as they try to stick a landing off the bars, tears as their bodies are literally stretched beyond their limits.
Stay after practice a little longer and you start to see this toll it all takes on the whole family. Parents picking up their exhausted kids after a 4-hour practice. Kids eating dinners in the car and siblings dragged along for the ride. Homework yet to be done, showers yet to be taken, downtime is not a word in these girls’ vocabulary.
It’s not just gymnasts that live this life. Kids everywhere are putting in extra time at soccer, tennis, swimming and any other sport you can think of. They juggle homework with piano or violin practice, study groups, chess club, debate team and the list goes on.
In my own family, my husband and I (not to mention our lifesaving nanny, AKA parent #3) are seemingly always in the car. We put in hundreds of miles a week shuttling kids from one side of Los Angeles to the other. It seems as if you aren’t exhausted at the end of the weekend…well then as a parent, you may not be trying hard enough.
Generational Shift
I definitely subscribe to the old adage about idle hands. With a newly-minted teenage girl in the house, I’m all for keeping her busy. I don’t want her hanging out at the mall or holed up in her room on one screen or another. With so many more activity choices than, say, when I was her age, I like that she has a plethora of opportunities to do some pretty amazing things. Granted she’s growing up in a large urban environment compared to my sheltered, rural upbringing. Where was the diving team and voice-over lessons when I was a kid?
On the other hand, I also vividly remember spending hours riding horses, riding my bike, watching Gilligan’s Island over and over, and sometimes, [GASP!] being bored once-in-a-while.
I’m not saying my parents had it easy. However, sports were played directly after school, piano lessons were once a week and NOTHING was more than a 10-minute drive away. None of this sitting in rush hour traffic, packing meals to be eaten in the car, or homework being done at 9pm.
The Kid is the Key
But you want to know something strange? Our family is busy, late everywhere we go, cranky some of the time, frantic most of the time, and…HAPPY! My kids love spending time with their friends doing what they love. My husband and I are the loudest cheerleaders on the sidelines, and the best part is we are experiencing it together as a family.
So here’s what I say…
Keep it manageable. Make sure the activities your kids participate in are things that THEY love, not some unfulfilled aspiration from your childhood. If they are hurt, sick or just not feeling it, let them take the day off. And when they tell you they don’t love it anymore, as hard as it is to do as a parent, let them walk away and try something else.
Being a kid today is not the same as it was 30 years ago. Maybe the fact that they don’t know how to be bored is because they have never needed to be bored, and maybe that is ok.
Maybe you will see tears in your daughter’s eyes because she just can’t seem to stick the landing today. But, if she gets up the next morning ready to try again, she just might be learning a valuable lesson.
What is your opinion? Are we putting too much pressure on our kids?
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