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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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?[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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.   [/quote]

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