What's wrong with a kid being "overscheduled"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So ppl's hs kids can't entertain themselves without screens or activities?

My HS kid plays 3 varsity sports. He has perfect grades and is studying for his SAT. He is on several academic clubs and competitions. He is gunning for Ivy+ schools.

He is not roaming around daydreaming. He has a full AP courseload.

My youngest child who is almost like an only child is not good at entertaining herself at all despite being the least scheduled of my three children.

Maybe you should focus on your youngest more?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Parents who are like this tend to have hyper kids that are hard to be around. Non-hyper kids don’t need this level of entertainment at all times and the parents need fewer breaks from them too.

While I disagree with your delivery, I do agree that my ADHD extroverted kid is happiest with a booked calendar and so are the rest of us. Because when he's not scheduled he is moving, talking, asking for play dates, making his own activities, etc. He doesn't need nor want quiet time. So lots of activities is a good thing.

I sometimes hear about families content to do nothing all weekend and cannot understand that lifestyle.

I have a friend who prides herself on family time. They all spend time on their screens. The kids have no time limit on screens. Boy plays video games all weekend. Daughter watches YouTube. One kid is a good student. One kid is not. She just lets them be.

kids are bums

Or those kids are buying drugs and trying them alone in their rooms or asking ChatGPT how to kill themselves. I’d rather my kids be out of the house with friends doing the activities they love than sitting alone in their rooms at home.

Weird conclusion to jump to.

Kind of like how kids who do activities never see their families and can’t figure out how to entertain themselves.

Of course they see their families, same as you only we spend more time with ours with the driving. We eat together, go out to dinner/lunch, etc.

Exactly how do your HS kids entertain themselves without electronics or activities?

Mine goes for walks, plays basketball outside, lifts weights, cooks, and on and on.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Parents who are like this tend to have hyper kids that are hard to be around. Non-hyper kids don’t need this level of entertainment at all times and the parents need fewer breaks from them too.

While I disagree with your delivery, I do agree that my ADHD extroverted kid is happiest with a booked calendar and so are the rest of us. Because when he's not scheduled he is moving, talking, asking for play dates, making his own activities, etc. He doesn't need nor want quiet time. So lots of activities is a good thing.

I sometimes hear about families content to do nothing all weekend and cannot understand that lifestyle.

I have a friend who prides herself on family time. They all spend time on their screens. The kids have no time limit on screens. Boy plays video games all weekend. Daughter watches YouTube. One kid is a good student. One kid is not. She just lets them be.

kids are bums

Or those kids are buying drugs and trying them alone in their rooms or asking ChatGPT how to kill themselves. I’d rather my kids be out of the house with friends doing the activities they love than sitting alone in their rooms at home.

Weird conclusion to jump to.

Kind of like how kids who do activities never see their families and can’t figure out how to entertain themselves.

Except it's not, it's not a far stretch to say that overscheduled kids have less time for other things

Less things like what? Hanging out with your bored kids?

No maybe they'd have more time to play or hang out with their neighborhood friends. Not sure what's so wrong with that.

It’s weird that you think it’s all or nothing. Why is it so hard for you to strike a balance if your kids do any activity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have the opposite feeling. I wonder why a parent would not want to let their child try something new whether that be ice hockey or ballet or swim.

We are on the upper end of achieving as a family. We work hard and play hard. We know many people who don’t work that hard or maybe just unsuccessful, don’t try hard and don’t do much at all. Shrug. They probably look at us and don’t envy us either.

Perhaps your attitude is why many of us see overscheduling as a negative. Many families in this area have virtually no unscheduled or downtime. The line between balanced and over or underscheduled varies for every family. But I agree with PP’s who mentioned that the ability to entertain oneself and also socialize in unstructured settings seems to be an undervalued skill. So many studies have shown the relationship between boredom or daydreaming and creativity/problem solving. It is a skill to have a free day and figure out how to structure and fill your time - also how to meet new people in informal settings or without adult oversight/structure. It is striking to me the amount of college students who are posting on social media about how they have no friends/are alone/want to go home. I can’t tell the degree to which social media amplifies the phenomena, but when I went to college I was homesick and knew other kids who were homesick, but it was basically a given that we were meeting new people and finding our way socially. It did not seem as overwhelming as many young people today seem to find it and I’m not sure why, unless they are socializing less?

I agree with this alot, but what do you mean by underscheduled?

I just mean, I think both sides can have valid points. Structured activities or sports can develop group social skills, build perseverance, teach how to overcome setbacks, etc. the same way unstructured time and social opportunities develop other skills and abilities. So I think having too many structured activities can create the same imbalance as having none or too few (though underscheduled is less common given the nature of school days and limited free time). It also varies by kid - I have one very social, active kid who enjoys sports and loves any activity he can participate in with friends. We sign him up for more activities than his brother who loves creating stories and music, and really enjoys unstructured time after school to recharge from the school day. And they both are working on different things - my social kid can struggle to entertain himself if no one wants to play a game or talk to him, so we make a point of giving him an hour or two on the weekend to find something to do while we are doing chores/running errands/etc.; my other kiddo often balks at opportunities for clubs/activities outside of school, so we have a standard of exercise/sport, music and another club or activity each term (depending on what else he has going on) and he has begun to point out that he enjoys signing up for activities and still finds the time to have his free time. It feels like a balance because we also have family in the area that we make time to see and my husband and I have our own lives; some seasons we feel burned out and others we regret not trying new things for one kid or the other. I dont know if our kids ever feel over scheduled; maybe it’s just the grownups!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So ppl's hs kids can't entertain themselves without screens or activities?

My HS kid plays 3 varsity sports. He has perfect grades and is studying for his SAT. He is on several academic clubs and competitions. He is gunning for Ivy+ schools.

He is not roaming around daydreaming. He has a full AP courseload.

My youngest child who is almost like an only child is not good at entertaining herself at all despite being the least scheduled of my three children.

Maybe you should focus on your youngest more?

Hosting a play date for her now. We may do too much for her. Or she constantly wants to be with people. She is very social.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have the opposite feeling. I wonder why a parent would not want to let their child try something new whether that be ice hockey or ballet or swim.

We are on the upper end of achieving as a family. We work hard and play hard. We know many people who don’t work that hard or maybe just unsuccessful, don’t try hard and don’t do much at all. Shrug. They probably look at us and don’t envy us either.

Perhaps your attitude is why many of us see overscheduling as a negative. Many families in this area have virtually no unscheduled or downtime. The line between balanced and over or underscheduled varies for every family. But I agree with PP’s who mentioned that the ability to entertain oneself and also socialize in unstructured settings seems to be an undervalued skill. So many studies have shown the relationship between boredom or daydreaming and creativity/problem solving. It is a skill to have a free day and figure out how to structure and fill your time - also how to meet new people in informal settings or without adult oversight/structure. It is striking to me the amount of college students who are posting on social media about how they have no friends/are alone/want to go home. I can’t tell the degree to which social media amplifies the phenomena, but when I went to college I was homesick and knew other kids who were homesick, but it was basically a given that we were meeting new people and finding our way socially. It did not seem as overwhelming as many young people today seem to find it and I’m not sure why, unless they are socializing less?

Stop hiding between studies. Kids don't need to stay home and day dream because you refuse to support their interests. Having interests, sports, activities is a great ice breaker in college. If your kids have no interests its hard for others to connect.

What do your HS kids do weekends and evenings outside school? How much time do you spend and what does that look like?

They are socializing less as they don't have the opportunities.

Yeah, agree. The example of college kids who can't make friends is a terrible example in support of so-called underscheduling. The best way to meet people in college is join teams, clubs, groups, etc. around your interests/skills you've developed. It's the non-joiners who have trouble making friends in college.

Each of my ES kids has a structured activity 4-5 times a week. Neither one of them is over scheduled. I don't adopt that label because it's not true in their cases. They have unstructured time with friends all the time, including on days when they have activities. They are in ES -- the activities don't meet for that long, they have very little homework, they go to bed at 9/9:30 (wake up at 7:45), and there are lots of hours in the day. They have down time too -- they both typically choose to read. I'm glad about that.

[Anonymous]

There's no such thing as underscheduled for a child who goes to school full time and gets good grades and takes a challenging courseload, and has extra curricular activities built into the school day or afterschool. I think oberscheduling has become more of a concern because elementary schools no longer provide organized sports or rigorous arts. So parents have to drive around town filling these needs. Maybe choose a private school that provides these things and you wont feel overscheduled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's no such thing as underscheduled for a child who goes to school full time and gets good grades and takes a challenging courseload, and has extra curricular activities built into the school day or afterschool. I think oberscheduling has become more of a concern because elementary schools no longer provide organized sports or rigorous arts. So parents have to drive around town filling these needs. Maybe choose a private school that provides these things and you wont feel overscheduled.

This is the elementary school forum. Most kids are not picking the courseload. And PPs are literally complaining that kids spend their time afterschool doing structured extra curricular activities instead of playing in the neighborhood. I doubt those PPs would feel any differently if the after-school EC activities were organized through the school as opposed to through some other organization or company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no such thing as underscheduled for a child who goes to school full time and gets good grades and takes a challenging courseload, and has extra curricular activities built into the school day or afterschool. I think oberscheduling has become more of a concern because elementary schools no longer provide organized sports or rigorous arts. So parents have to drive around town filling these needs. Maybe choose a private school that provides these things and you wont feel overscheduled.

This is the elementary school forum. Most kids are not picking the courseload. And PPs are literally complaining that kids spend their time afterschool doing structured extra curricular activities instead of playing in the neighborhood. I doubt those PPs would feel any differently if the after-school EC activities were organized through the school as opposed to through some other organization or company.

Just as ppl feel activities are really important some of us feel like unorganized play in the neighborhood is equally important, as long as kid can stretch it out for.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Parents who are like this tend to have hyper kids that are hard to be around. Non-hyper kids don’t need this level of entertainment at all times and the parents need fewer breaks from them too.

While I disagree with your delivery, I do agree that my ADHD extroverted kid is happiest with a booked calendar and so are the rest of us. Because when he's not scheduled he is moving, talking, asking for play dates, making his own activities, etc. He doesn't need nor want quiet time. So lots of activities is a good thing.

I sometimes hear about families content to do nothing all weekend and cannot understand that lifestyle.

I have a friend who prides herself on family time. They all spend time on their screens. The kids have no time limit on screens. Boy plays video games all weekend. Daughter watches YouTube. One kid is a good student. One kid is not. She just lets them be.

kids are bums

Or those kids are buying drugs and trying them alone in their rooms or asking ChatGPT how to kill themselves. I’d rather my kids be out of the house with friends doing the activities they love than sitting alone in their rooms at home.

Weird conclusion to jump to.

Kind of like how kids who do activities never see their families and can’t figure out how to entertain themselves.

Except it's not, it's not a far stretch to say that overscheduled kids have less time for other things

Less things like what? Hanging out with your bored kids?

No maybe they'd have more time to play or hang out with their neighborhood friends. Not sure what's so wrong with that.

So, you don't want us to put our kids in activities so they can hang out more with your kids because you will not put yours in activities? Mine would rather do activities. I don't feel like being a free babysitter to you with a so called playdate.

So wait, you really think parents aren't putting their kids activities if a kid wants to do activities? Where'd you get that from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no such thing as underscheduled for a child who goes to school full time and gets good grades and takes a challenging courseload, and has extra curricular activities built into the school day or afterschool. I think oberscheduling has become more of a concern because elementary schools no longer provide organized sports or rigorous arts. So parents have to drive around town filling these needs. Maybe choose a private school that provides these things and you wont feel overscheduled.

This is the elementary school forum. Most kids are not picking the courseload. And PPs are literally complaining that kids spend their time afterschool doing structured extra curricular activities instead of playing in the neighborhood. I doubt those PPs would feel any differently if the after-school EC activities were organized through the school as opposed to through some other organization or company.

You can pick a school with more challenging academics so that your child stays busy productively, instead of having to do a lot of busywork-equivalent activities. You also wouldn't feel the pressure to add stuff like tutoring, enrichment, and private instrument lessons on top of all the sports, because good private elementaries provide that. I'm just saying that free public school plus a bunch of activities can end up being more expensive that a very good private school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents who are like this tend to have hyper kids that are hard to be around. Non-hyper kids don’t need this level of entertainment at all times and the parents need fewer breaks from them too.

While I disagree with your delivery, I do agree that my ADHD extroverted kid is happiest with a booked calendar and so are the rest of us. Because when he's not scheduled he is moving, talking, asking for play dates, making his own activities, etc. He doesn't need nor want quiet time. So lots of activities is a good thing.

I sometimes hear about families content to do nothing all weekend and cannot understand that lifestyle.

I have a friend who prides herself on family time. They all spend time on their screens. The kids have no time limit on screens. Boy plays video games all weekend. Daughter watches YouTube. One kid is a good student. One kid is not. She just lets them be.

kids are bums

Or those kids are buying drugs and trying them alone in their rooms or asking ChatGPT how to kill themselves. I’d rather my kids be out of the house with friends doing the activities they love than sitting alone in their rooms at home.

Weird conclusion to jump to.

Kind of like how kids who do activities never see their families and can’t figure out how to entertain themselves.

Except it's not, it's not a far stretch to say that overscheduled kids have less time for other things

Less things like what? Hanging out with your bored kids?

No maybe they'd have more time to play or hang out with their neighborhood friends. Not sure what's so wrong with that.

So, you don't want us to put our kids in activities so they can hang out more with your kids because you will not put yours in activities? Mine would rather do activities. I don't feel like being a free babysitter to you with a so called playdate.

So wait, you really think parents aren't putting their kids activities if a kid wants to do activities? Where'd you get that from?

Wait so the kids who don’t want to do activities don’t and that makes their parents better than parents whose kids want to do activities and their parents let them? Maybe people just different and like different things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents who are like this tend to have hyper kids that are hard to be around. Non-hyper kids don’t need this level of entertainment at all times and the parents need fewer breaks from them too.

While I disagree with your delivery, I do agree that my ADHD extroverted kid is happiest with a booked calendar and so are the rest of us. Because when he's not scheduled he is moving, talking, asking for play dates, making his own activities, etc. He doesn't need nor want quiet time. So lots of activities is a good thing.

I sometimes hear about families content to do nothing all weekend and cannot understand that lifestyle.

I have a friend who prides herself on family time. They all spend time on their screens. The kids have no time limit on screens. Boy plays video games all weekend. Daughter watches YouTube. One kid is a good student. One kid is not. She just lets them be.

kids are bums

Or those kids are buying drugs and trying them alone in their rooms or asking ChatGPT how to kill themselves. I’d rather my kids be out of the house with friends doing the activities they love than sitting alone in their rooms at home.

Weird conclusion to jump to.

Kind of like how kids who do activities never see their families and can’t figure out how to entertain themselves.

Except it's not, it's not a far stretch to say that overscheduled kids have less time for other things

Less things like what? Hanging out with your bored kids?

No maybe they'd have more time to play or hang out with their neighborhood friends. Not sure what's so wrong with that.

So, you don't want us to put our kids in activities so they can hang out more with your kids because you will not put yours in activities? Mine would rather do activities. I don't feel like being a free babysitter to you with a so called playdate.

So wait, you really think parents aren't putting their kids activities if a kid wants to do activities? Where'd you get that from?

DP. I only put activities my kids want to do 100%. Problem is they WANT to do so many.

It really depends on the kid and their personalities.

Also a kid who goes to SACC or who goes to some aftercare is different than my kid who comes home at 3pm to a SAHM. I can take her to dance at 4 or her other activities. She chooses every single one. We actually made a list of 10 things she wanted to do and we had to cut down to only 5. We didn’t have time for 2 that I would like her to pick up again in the spring and next summer.

[Anonymous]

When my kids aren't in activities, they have 0 interest in playing with neighborhood kids or playdates with the nearby schoolmates. For one thing, they don't even know many of the neighborhood kids because they go to different schools or are homeschoolers, and the schoolmates who happen to live close are rude brats. My kids would rather play with each other at home, no interlopers.

This idea that overscheduling activities is ruining neighborhood free play is naive. There's lots of factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents who are like this tend to have hyper kids that are hard to be around. Non-hyper kids don’t need this level of entertainment at all times and the parents need fewer breaks from them too.

While I disagree with your delivery, I do agree that my ADHD extroverted kid is happiest with a booked calendar and so are the rest of us. Because when he's not scheduled he is moving, talking, asking for play dates, making his own activities, etc. He doesn't need nor want quiet time. So lots of activities is a good thing.

I sometimes hear about families content to do nothing all weekend and cannot understand that lifestyle.

I have a friend who prides herself on family time. They all spend time on their screens. The kids have no time limit on screens. Boy plays video games all weekend. Daughter watches YouTube. One kid is a good student. One kid is not. She just lets them be.

kids are bums

Or those kids are buying drugs and trying them alone in their rooms or asking ChatGPT how to kill themselves. I’d rather my kids be out of the house with friends doing the activities they love than sitting alone in their rooms at home.

Weird conclusion to jump to.

Kind of like how kids who do activities never see their families and can’t figure out how to entertain themselves.

Of course they see their families, same as you only we spend more time with ours with the driving. We eat together, go out to dinner/lunch, etc.

Exactly how do your HS kids entertain themselves without electronics or activities?

Mine goes for walks, plays basketball outside, lifts weights, cooks, and on and on.

Why not do a rec basketball team? Cooking class? Something. Its kinda sad and hard for college admission to do NOTHING outside the house. Why are you so against it? Sounds pretty unfun to play basketball outside alone.