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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the folks that highly value unstructured kid-led playtime (I think it's important too!), but have been disappointed that kids are not outside roaming the neighborhood for your kid to play with, what have you done from there? Just given up and your unscheduled kid plays alone every day? Have you texted parents of classmates and their friends and asked them for a playdate? (Do your kids have friends?) Invite them over -- I don't believe you that no one has time for some playdates. My kids do lots of activities and so do most of their friends (we like it this way, thanks) and we arrange playdates all the time. My kids have several a week. Surely you have the bandwidth to do this since you are not dealing with EC activities. You could even also sign them up for a few afternoons of school aftercare (I'm not even kidding) -- it's typically just unstructured playtime.

Aftercare at school is not the same thing at all. School has rules and guidance for what kids do and how. At our school, the paras yell at kids for climbing up the slide instead of sliding down. Very different from 2 or 3 kids tooling around outside unsupervised and having to think, argue, cooperate, decide, keep track of time, etc.

Also, jeez, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. My point is that there are plenty of way to get your kid unstructured playtime even if you don't have some idyllic neighborhood that you have created in your head and even if it doesn't look precisely how you describe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the folks that highly value unstructured kid-led playtime (I think it's important too!), but have been disappointed that kids are not outside roaming the neighborhood for your kid to play with, what have you done from there? Just given up and your unscheduled kid plays alone every day? Have you texted parents of classmates and their friends and asked them for a playdate? (Do your kids have friends?) Invite them over -- I don't believe you that no one has time for some playdates. My kids do lots of activities and so do most of their friends (we like it this way, thanks) and we arrange playdates all the time. My kids have several a week. Surely you have the bandwidth to do this since you are not dealing with EC activities. You could even also sign them up for a few afternoons of school aftercare (I'm not even kidding) -- it's typically just unstructured playtime.

Aftercare at school is not the same thing at all. School has rules and guidance for what kids do and how. At our school, the paras yell at kids for climbing up the slide instead of sliding down. Very different from 2 or 3 kids tooling around outside unsupervised and having to think, argue, cooperate, decide, keep track of time, etc.

Also, jeez, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. My point is that there are plenty of way to get your kid unstructured playtime even if you don't have some idyllic neighborhood that you have created in your head and even if it doesn't look precisely how you describe.

That is my point. You seem to think my desire to have kids play together on their own is some weird, old fashioned ideal. Um it’s the easiest thing to do. You let two kids of a similar age outside in the yard and let them play. It’s just hard for me to do as the parent of an only child in a town full of extremely scheduled young children. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with aftercare. Im saying that doesn’t address the issue at hand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:in my case I have 3 kids. Each kids is not overscheduled, they do 1-2 activities each but that’s about 5-6 activities I am driving them to. I am overscheduled, but each kid is not. They are of an age where I don’t have to take all of them with me all the time so they stay home and play with each other, do homework, whatever. But they aren’t available to run around the neighborhood or have playdates with other kids if I can’t be home or I can’t pick them up later due to a conflict. I don’t see any kids running around anyway in our neighborhood. It’s the parents stretched thin in cases like mine.

I think neighborhoods are different. I have friends who live walking distance to the school and they have impromptu play dates even though kids all do many activities. We used to live in a house where my son was in the same class and BFFs with the kids at the bus stop. They would play right after school and before sports or be on the same soccer or bade team and carpool.

We now live in an area where families are more affluent, attend different schools and not many young families because young families can’t afford to live here or would not pick this type of neighborhood as a starter home.

My friends who live in a townhouse hang out everyday at the local playground in their community.

My kids are too old to hang out a playground after school. That all stopped after about 1st grade.

Kids stop playing at the playground in first grade?

Pretty much. Most people have more than 1 kid and all this works up until about that age. Then when you add in varying kids ages it all kind of fizzles. The older kid doesn’t want to play at the park, or there’s a toddler or new baby and it just doesn’t work out. This was a blip when my oldest was about that age when we had the time and inclination and then circumstances changed.

Wow, that just seems so young.

It’s not that the kids never played at the park, we just didn’t join in with the impromptu afterschool play date after a certain age. In my case it might be “1st grade girl moms meeting up” but I also had a 4th grade boy who didn’t want to play with those girls and a 3yr old and the 4th grader had homework and soccer later so we were going home to get ready for that. So, as I said, we didn’t hang out after school at the playground. I never said we didn’t play at any playgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the folks that highly value unstructured kid-led playtime (I think it's important too!), but have been disappointed that kids are not outside roaming the neighborhood for your kid to play with, what have you done from there? Just given up and your unscheduled kid plays alone every day? Have you texted parents of classmates and their friends and asked them for a playdate? (Do your kids have friends?) Invite them over -- I don't believe you that no one has time for some playdates. My kids do lots of activities and so do most of their friends (we like it this way, thanks) and we arrange playdates all the time. My kids have several a week. Surely you have the bandwidth to do this since you are not dealing with EC activities. You could even also sign them up for a few afternoons of school aftercare (I'm not even kidding) -- it's typically just unstructured playtime.

Aftercare at school is not the same thing at all. School has rules and guidance for what kids do and how. At our school, the paras yell at kids for climbing up the slide instead of sliding down. Very different from 2 or 3 kids tooling around outside unsupervised and having to think, argue, cooperate, decide, keep track of time, etc.

Also, jeez, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. My point is that there are plenty of way to get your kid unstructured playtime even if you don't have some idyllic neighborhood that you have created in your head and even if it doesn't look precisely how you describe.

That is my point. You seem to think my desire to have kids play together on their own is some weird, old fashioned ideal. Um it’s the easiest thing to do. You let two kids of a similar age outside in the yard and let them play. It’s just hard for me to do as the parent of an only child in a town full of extremely scheduled young children. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with aftercare. Im saying that doesn’t address the issue at hand.

+1 thats a great way to put it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the folks that highly value unstructured kid-led playtime (I think it's important too!), but have been disappointed that kids are not outside roaming the neighborhood for your kid to play with, what have you done from there? Just given up and your unscheduled kid plays alone every day? Have you texted parents of classmates and their friends and asked them for a playdate? (Do your kids have friends?) Invite them over -- I don't believe you that no one has time for some playdates. My kids do lots of activities and so do most of their friends (we like it this way, thanks) and we arrange playdates all the time. My kids have several a week. Surely you have the bandwidth to do this since you are not dealing with EC activities. You could even also sign them up for a few afternoons of school aftercare (I'm not even kidding) -- it's typically just unstructured playtime.

Aftercare at school is not the same thing at all. School has rules and guidance for what kids do and how. At our school, the paras yell at kids for climbing up the slide instead of sliding down. Very different from 2 or 3 kids tooling around outside unsupervised and having to think, argue, cooperate, decide, keep track of time, etc.

Also, jeez, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. My point is that there are plenty of way to get your kid unstructured playtime even if you don't have some idyllic neighborhood that you have created in your head and even if it doesn't look precisely how you describe.

That is my point. You seem to think my desire to have kids play together on their own is some weird, old fashioned ideal. Um it’s the easiest thing to do. You let two kids of a similar age outside in the yard and let them play. It’s just hard for me to do as the parent of an only child in a town full of extremely scheduled young children. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with aftercare. Im saying that doesn’t address the issue at hand.

I care about unstructured kid playtime a lot! I'm the PP who said she has fairly structured kids who have fairly structured friends, and yet we parents all still reach out and arrange playdates for them all the time, and they have several a week. You have not responded to that; you are fixated on what I said about aftercare.

A lot of neighborhoods don't look like your ideal these days for all sorts of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with kids being in ECs. Arrange playdates for your child! Playdates are unstrucutred time in my circle -- we send the kids off to play outside or the basement or wherever and don't intervene at all. The problem here might be that your child has not made friends. Aftercare or like one activity could be a place to start. Or just text the parent of a classmate he likes to play with at recess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the folks that highly value unstructured kid-led playtime (I think it's important too!), but have been disappointed that kids are not outside roaming the neighborhood for your kid to play with, what have you done from there? Just given up and your unscheduled kid plays alone every day? Have you texted parents of classmates and their friends and asked them for a playdate? (Do your kids have friends?) Invite them over -- I don't believe you that no one has time for some playdates. My kids do lots of activities and so do most of their friends (we like it this way, thanks) and we arrange playdates all the time. My kids have several a week. Surely you have the bandwidth to do this since you are not dealing with EC activities. You could even also sign them up for a few afternoons of school aftercare (I'm not even kidding) -- it's typically just unstructured playtime.

Aftercare at school is not the same thing at all. School has rules and guidance for what kids do and how. At our school, the paras yell at kids for climbing up the slide instead of sliding down. Very different from 2 or 3 kids tooling around outside unsupervised and having to think, argue, cooperate, decide, keep track of time, etc.

Also, jeez, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. My point is that there are plenty of way to get your kid unstructured playtime even if you don't have some idyllic neighborhood that you have created in your head and even if it doesn't look precisely how you describe.

That is my point. You seem to think my desire to have kids play together on their own is some weird, old fashioned ideal. Um it’s the easiest thing to do. You let two kids of a similar age outside in the yard and let them play. It’s just hard for me to do as the parent of an only child in a town full of extremely scheduled young children. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with aftercare. Im saying that doesn’t address the issue at hand.

It’s not hard to put your kid in an activity or two. If you can post here you clearly have free time. My only should not do activities just to be your child’s playmate because you refuse for your kid. My parents refused me activities and they were super selfish. I’m not doing that to my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the folks that highly value unstructured kid-led playtime (I think it's important too!), but have been disappointed that kids are not outside roaming the neighborhood for your kid to play with, what have you done from there? Just given up and your unscheduled kid plays alone every day? Have you texted parents of classmates and their friends and asked them for a playdate? (Do your kids have friends?) Invite them over -- I don't believe you that no one has time for some playdates. My kids do lots of activities and so do most of their friends (we like it this way, thanks) and we arrange playdates all the time. My kids have several a week. Surely you have the bandwidth to do this since you are not dealing with EC activities. You could even also sign them up for a few afternoons of school aftercare (I'm not even kidding) -- it's typically just unstructured playtime.

Aftercare at school is not the same thing at all. School has rules and guidance for what kids do and how. At our school, the paras yell at kids for climbing up the slide instead of sliding down. Very different from 2 or 3 kids tooling around outside unsupervised and having to think, argue, cooperate, decide, keep track of time, etc.

Also, jeez, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. My point is that there are plenty of way to get your kid unstructured playtime even if you don't have some idyllic neighborhood that you have created in your head and even if it doesn't look precisely how you describe.

That is my point. You seem to think my desire to have kids play together on their own is some weird, old fashioned ideal. Um it’s the easiest thing to do. You let two kids of a similar age outside in the yard and let them play. It’s just hard for me to do as the parent of an only child in a town full of extremely scheduled young children. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with aftercare. Im saying that doesn’t address the issue at hand.

I care about unstructured kid playtime a lot! I'm the PP who said she has fairly structured kids who have fairly structured friends, and yet we parents all still reach out and arrange playdates for them all the time, and they have several a week. You have not responded to that; you are fixated on what I said about aftercare.

A lot of neighborhoods don't look like your ideal these days for all sorts of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with kids being in ECs. Arrange playdates for your child! Playdates are unstrucutred time in my circle -- we send the kids off to play outside or the basement or wherever and don't intervene at all. The problem here might be that your child has not made friends. Aftercare or like one activity could be a place to start. Or just text the parent of a classmate he likes to play with at recess.

This is why I don’t allow play dates because parents don’t supervise and mine got hurt. Kids need supervision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:in my case I have 3 kids. Each kids is not overscheduled, they do 1-2 activities each but that’s about 5-6 activities I am driving them to. I am overscheduled, but each kid is not. They are of an age where I don’t have to take all of them with me all the time so they stay home and play with each other, do homework, whatever. But they aren’t available to run around the neighborhood or have playdates with other kids if I can’t be home or I can’t pick them up later due to a conflict. I don’t see any kids running around anyway in our neighborhood. It’s the parents stretched thin in cases like mine.

In this case, I have my kids do the same sport/class at the same time (even if different levels). I am not willing to have every minute of every day centered around my kids. I need my own time/hobby.

My parents were like you. Their stuff came first. They suck as grandparents and cannot understand why we barely see them despite being close but I and the kids are not a priority even in retirement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the folks that highly value unstructured kid-led playtime (I think it's important too!), but have been disappointed that kids are not outside roaming the neighborhood for your kid to play with, what have you done from there? Just given up and your unscheduled kid plays alone every day? Have you texted parents of classmates and their friends and asked them for a playdate? (Do your kids have friends?) Invite them over -- I don't believe you that no one has time for some playdates. My kids do lots of activities and so do most of their friends (we like it this way, thanks) and we arrange playdates all the time. My kids have several a week. Surely you have the bandwidth to do this since you are not dealing with EC activities. You could even also sign them up for a few afternoons of school aftercare (I'm not even kidding) -- it's typically just unstructured playtime.

Aftercare at school is not the same thing at all. School has rules and guidance for what kids do and how. At our school, the paras yell at kids for climbing up the slide instead of sliding down. Very different from 2 or 3 kids tooling around outside unsupervised and having to think, argue, cooperate, decide, keep track of time, etc.

Also, jeez, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. My point is that there are plenty of way to get your kid unstructured playtime even if you don't have some idyllic neighborhood that you have created in your head and even if it doesn't look precisely how you describe.

That is my point. You seem to think my desire to have kids play together on their own is some weird, old fashioned ideal. Um it’s the easiest thing to do. You let two kids of a similar age outside in the yard and let them play. It’s just hard for me to do as the parent of an only child in a town full of extremely scheduled young children. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with aftercare. Im saying that doesn’t address the issue at hand.

It’s not hard to put your kid in an activity or two. If you can post here you clearly have free time. My only should not do activities just to be your child’s playmate because you refuse for your kid. My parents refused me activities and they were super selfish. I’m not doing that to my child.

It's not that easy for some ppl to just put their kids in activity or two. I'm sorr y your parents refused you, maybe they had reasons, beyond they were selfish. Maybe not all kids want to be in activities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the folks that highly value unstructured kid-led playtime (I think it's important too!), but have been disappointed that kids are not outside roaming the neighborhood for your kid to play with, what have you done from there? Just given up and your unscheduled kid plays alone every day? Have you texted parents of classmates and their friends and asked them for a playdate? (Do your kids have friends?) Invite them over -- I don't believe you that no one has time for some playdates. My kids do lots of activities and so do most of their friends (we like it this way, thanks) and we arrange playdates all the time. My kids have several a week. Surely you have the bandwidth to do this since you are not dealing with EC activities. You could even also sign them up for a few afternoons of school aftercare (I'm not even kidding) -- it's typically just unstructured playtime.

Aftercare at school is not the same thing at all. School has rules and guidance for what kids do and how. At our school, the paras yell at kids for climbing up the slide instead of sliding down. Very different from 2 or 3 kids tooling around outside unsupervised and having to think, argue, cooperate, decide, keep track of time, etc.

Also, jeez, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. My point is that there are plenty of way to get your kid unstructured playtime even if you don't have some idyllic neighborhood that you have created in your head and even if it doesn't look precisely how you describe.

That is my point. You seem to think my desire to have kids play together on their own is some weird, old fashioned ideal. Um it’s the easiest thing to do. You let two kids of a similar age outside in the yard and let them play. It’s just hard for me to do as the parent of an only child in a town full of extremely scheduled young children. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with aftercare. Im saying that doesn’t address the issue at hand.

It’s not hard to put your kid in an activity or two. If you can post here you clearly have free time. My only should not do activities just to be your child’s playmate because you refuse for your kid. My parents refused me activities and they were super selfish. I’m not doing that to my child.

It's not that easy for some ppl to just put their kids in activity or two. I'm sorr y your parents refused you, maybe they had reasons, beyond they were selfish. Maybe not all kids want to be in activities

Mine is in two activities but I still think unstructured play is important. App our neighborhood friends have kids in activities 6 days a week and sometimes more than one per day. Add in birthday parties and family time and there’s no time for play.

[Anonymous]

Unstructured play is so overrated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unstructured play is so overrated

What? It's criminally underrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unstructured play is so overrated

I remember going into a neighbor’s basement for unstructured play and he proceeded to introduce us fellow 1st graders to strip poker. I got my socks off and then hightailed it out of there. So much for that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:in my case I have 3 kids. Each kids is not overscheduled, they do 1-2 activities each but that’s about 5-6 activities I am driving them to. I am overscheduled, but each kid is not. They are of an age where I don’t have to take all of them with me all the time so they stay home and play with each other, do homework, whatever. But they aren’t available to run around the neighborhood or have playdates with other kids if I can’t be home or I can’t pick them up later due to a conflict. I don’t see any kids running around anyway in our neighborhood. It’s the parents stretched thin in cases like mine.

I think neighborhoods are different. I have friends who live walking distance to the school and they have impromptu play dates even though kids all do many activities. We used to live in a house where my son was in the same class and BFFs with the kids at the bus stop. They would play right after school and before sports or be on the same soccer or bade team and carpool.

We now live in an area where families are more affluent, attend different schools and not many young families because young families can’t afford to live here or would not pick this type of neighborhood as a starter home.

My friends who live in a townhouse hang out everyday at the local playground in their community.

My kids are too old to hang out a playground after school. That all stopped after about 1st grade.

Kids stop playing at the playground in first grade?

Pretty much. Most people have more than 1 kid and all this works up until about that age. Then when you add in varying kids ages it all kind of fizzles. The older kid doesn’t want to play at the park, or there’s a toddler or new baby and it just doesn’t work out. This was a blip when my oldest was about that age when we had the time and inclination and then circumstances changed.

Wow, that just seems so young.

My third grader would not be excited to go to the playground.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unstructured play is so overrated

I remember going into a neighbor’s basement for unstructured play and he proceeded to introduce us fellow 1st graders to strip poker. I got my socks off and then hightailed it out of there. So much for that!

I'm very sorry that happened to you, but i don't think thats typical