The Parents YAP About: Are The Kids Over-Scheduled?

By Julie Keysor, Lisa Paglierani, Regina Martine, and Melissa Schools and Tasha Schlake Festel. 

Are your kids over-scheduled? It's seems easier than ever to be concerned about that these days. This week, the Moms tackle the question of over-scheduling, balance, and just plain being active. 

Tasha Schlake Festel

So we were going to run this topic last week, but most of us were too busy to write. Ironic? Yeah, maybe a little. It’s been that kind of school year.

I try to keep my kids’ schedules on the light side. We all do better that way. Before I knew better, when they were younger, I used to sign them up for anything that sounded interesting. To be honest, this was mostly because I was terrified to be alone at home with them with nothing to do but play with them. That prospect was far worse than running all over creation, enriching the snot out of them with extracurriculars. We were scheduled to the hilt. And by “we” I mean “they” because my role in the play that was their lives was a supporting one of driving and waiting in the waiting room. I got a lot of reading done. It actually worked pretty well for me.

But they weren’t happy. My kids are not kids that like to have their days filled with scheduled activities. They were stressed out because the never had any free time. And when they did have free time, they didn’t know what to do with themselves. They were completely incapable of keeping themselves entertained. They were so used to others doing that for them that they’d drive me nuts, begging for interaction and stimulation. So I’d sign them up for something else, completing the vicious cycle, continuing to stress them and cripple their creativity and coping mechanisms.

Yay, Mom!

One day my husband made an off-handed comment wondering why every moment had to be scheduled. It wasn’t an indictment. It wasn’t a deep, philosophical observation. It wasn’t said in anger or frustration. It probably isn’t even something he remembers saying. But right then and there it hit me. Why the hell did we have every moment scheduled?

That comment was a turning point. Yes, it’s great to have well-rounded children and expose them to all different opportunities and experiences. Yes, it’s wonderful to have them interact with different instructors, parents, and peers from other towns and schools. Yes, it’s fantastic for them to push themselves and grow and learn and create. But you know what? It’s also good for them to be bored kids, looking for something to do!

To remedy the situation, I went cold turkey. I just ripped off the band-aid. When classes and activities and play groups expired, I didn’t renew. And I didn’t sign anyone up for anything new, either. Our calendar was a terrifying white, marked only by annual doctor checkups and the occasional birthday party. As I watched our calendar clear, all I could think was, “What the hell am I going to do with them all day and all night?”

What was even scarier to me was that I didn’t really know my kids. I was so used to signing them up and handing them off that I didn’t take the time to get to know what they liked to do if they could choose for themselves. And even worse? They didn’t know what they liked to do either!

It was a pretty painful month of over-schedule detox, but we made it. They whined a lot and asked what we were going to do next. But it only took a month and they started to relax and enjoy the freedom of having no plans. Now I limit my kids to one sport per season and one “on-going activity” per year. I try to make sure they have 2-3 afternoons per week for nothing but doing homework and having playdates. They have downtime. They get bored. They fight and bicker because they spend a lot of time together. They are two kids that spend time at home with nothing to do.

But I’m proud of that. I see it as a child-rearing win that my children get bored because then they get creative. They find ways to keep themselves busy. They’re incredibly interesting and interested. They explore their minds and their worlds, and they do it in their downtime, not in their scheduled classes.

They’ve reached scheduling zen. Now I just have to find that for myself. Let me look at my calendar and try to schedule that in somewhere between the rest of my appointments and commitments... 

Julie Keysor

Overcommitted vs. being involved vs. trying things out. Where does one draw the line? My husband and I do strive to have reasonable schedules for our kids. We don’t want them running from activity to activity nor do we want to continually be running them to activities. We want them to have down time to read, play, talk with someone, or draw a picture. We want them to foster friendships with their peers and families.

Our approach from the beginning, even with weekly activities, was to let them choose two activities and then we added swim lessons depending on our overall family schedule. We still follow this general principle though now at least one of their preferred activities has a practice attached to it. Our kids love their activities and we are fortunate that they do well in them. The kids want to do more (more gymnastics, more soccer, more basketball) and even their coaches suggest they pick up an extra day. While I am always temped to have them do that extra day (so they can get that much better; ahhem, to keep physically active), we’ve always ultimately said no noting that we want them to have some downtime.

Those extra “down’ days sometimes end up with the frustrations of cleaning up the house our running errands but when we are fortunate they end up being a nice opportunity to develop family or friend relationships. Yesterday I had some downtown because I worked from home. My husband went to pick up our youngest daughter from Daisy’s, and I happened to show my eldest daughter a couple fun YouTube videos on dribbling and rebounding—more downtime. Those 5 minutes of “downtime with my daughter” led to 60 minutes of shooting baskets with her in our backyard. It was a great mother-daughter connect time—and I don’t get enough of those with my oldest daughter. Thank goodness she had an open afternoon; thank goodness I was home and could make something with the opportunity we had. While I am fully aware that we keep the overcommitted structured activities with our kids to a dull roar in our household—and we are lucky with two kids we can have a reasonable schedule, I am also very clear that my husband and I have our own challenges with being over committed. It might serve us both well to put forward the same rule with our lives—no more than two volunteer jobs at one time. 

Lisa Paglierani

Back in September, I wrote about how my kids are not overscheduled.  I stand by that claim (for the most part), but I’m starting to believe that I’m an overscheduled mom.   I can tell because a few weeks ago I forgot to bring my son to his gymnastics class, and not too long after that, I missed not one but two pediatrician appointments in the same week.  After I missed the first, I called with apologies to reschedule.  Then I forgot to go…again.  My husband is showing the effects, too.  Normally flawless with his memory for details, he is starting to leave a trail of lost articles like one of the kids. 

What can we say?  We have four small lives to manage; no wonder we sometimes feel like we’re losing our minds.  In addition to the daily responsibility of caring for them, we have homework, gymnastics, piano lessons, art lessons, soccer, Learn to Skate, after-school enrichment, and CCD.  Girl Scouts is only once or twice each month per daughter, but when time moves as swiftly as it has been lately, that seems to come up every time I turn around.  We’re a busy family, no doubt about it.  I’m just not sure I’d change anything.

Even the baby has a slot on the calendar:  a weekly parent/child gymnastics class.  Necessary in the life of a toddler?  Not really.  However, she absolutely adores it, and it’s one hour that’s dedicated completely to her.  We play together without distraction from siblings, homework, housework, errands, meal preparation, or (ahem) my phone.  This class with her is both time and money well spent.

My kindergarten son has activities two afternoons each week, plus soccer on Sundays.   It’s nothing that a guy with a 2.5-hour school day can’t handle.  Things get more challenging as the kids get older; one daughter has activities four weekday afternoons, and my oldest girl doesn’t start homework until after 8:00 pm on certain nights.  Even so, there is ample time in their week for play dates, TV shows, and weaving Rainbow Loom bracelets.  Their lives are hectic, not overscheduled. 

Blame it on a lack of imagination, but I like waking up and having a plan for the day, an itinerary to follow.  Also, my kids are at the impressionable ages when I want them exposed to a variety of artistic and athletic activities.   As they get older, they will decide for themselves which activities to pursue, those they are passionate about.  We never force our kids to participate in something they truly don’t enjoy, but we do expect them to try new things and then honor their commitments (completing a basketball season, for example).  When a child has demonstrated that he or she is not deriving any value from an extracurricular, it is cut from the schedule.  Likewise, we would scratch anything that overly interfered with schoolwork or time with friends and family.

How busy we are is relative, and a reflection of our own priorities.  For now, there is still time in my day to walk the kids to and from school, and I will do this until the sidewalks are covered in ice.  But when I see my neighbors in their cars, returning from pickup at the middle school before racing off to their next six obligations, I wonder if they see me with my stroller and think, “It must be nice to have time to walk to school!”  I recognize where I’m lucky, the chunks of unscheduled time scattered like islands throughout my cluttered weekdays.

For now, during the lull between the back-to-school confusion and the holiday frenzy, I have things (mostly) under control.  I’m relying heavily on written and electronic reminders, as well as plenty of help from my friends.  As I said to one recently, “If I ever say to you on a beautiful day, ‘Let’s go to the park!  I have nothing going on,’ please remind me that there is probably someplace I am supposed to be.”   

Regina Martine

My family is not overscheduled. Busy, yes, but I think “overscheduled” implies that kids are signed up for anything and everything that might be enriching whether or not they have the time or interest. That is definitely not the case. My daughters both take dance classes, and play violin, one daughter also plays soccer and is in the Drama Club after school. They are both in Girl Scouts. My son plays several sports throughout the year. They are all engaged in activities that they truly enjoy. Sure, it can get hectic when multiple events fall on the same day, but we seem to manage ok — mostly because my kids are all really good at managing their time. I wish I could say the same for me.

I suck at time management. Really suck. Suck the big suckaroo. I always have. I am late for everything, I make endless to-do lists, I can never get dinner on the table earlier than 7pm, and I never, ever feel like I am getting as much done as I should. Its seems like with all the regular household stuff that needs to happen (the boring stuff — cooking, cleaning, laundry, laundry, laundry, grocery shopping, errands, emptying the dishwasher, loading the dishwasher, over and over and over. The kid drop-offs, pickups, activities, playdates and on and on …) the stuff I want to do never gets done. However, the busier we are, the more efficient I need to be.

When I am working, I manage my time pretty well. I like my deadlines. Somehow, when I have a deadline, all the pieces of what I need to do become clear to me and I can organize my thoughts and manage my time. No deadline? Nothing gets done. For some reason I have trouble imposing deadlines on myself. One of my daughters writes up a schedule of when and how (down to the minute) she will do each piece of a school project weeks before it is due. My husband tells me that I look at everything that needs to be done and get overwhelmed instead of looking at each thing that needs to be done and completing it. He is probably right.

The school and activity schedule makes me manage my time better. My day gets chopped into chunks of time between drop-offs and pickups, which forces me to prioritize what I do with my finite pieces of kid-free time. The busier we are, the more productive and efficient I become. When we aren’t busy, I seem to lose the ability to prioritize anything and end up losing the whole day. I don’t feel like we are overscheduled, but the schedule is the reason everything else gets done.

Melissa Schools

I cannot say that my children are overscheduled. Each of the three school-aged kids plays a sport and has one continuing activity throughout the year, which is Cub Scouts in our family. But, as of this year, those three kids go to two schools (Oh! The paperwork…!) and I still have two younger boys at home. My two older boys also have CCD at our church once per week. It’s not that bad of a schedule to look at it on paper, but I regularly feel like we live in a madhouse.

In our lives today, where electronics are nearly ubiquitous, we enjoy an unparalleled level of possibility and convenience. We can accomplish much more, and more quickly, than in years past. I rely on my iPhone for a clock/alarm, a timer, for email, for internet, as an e-reader, for idea-storage, as my virtual recipe box and, yes, even for phone calls. The downside, of course, is that since this type of technology is widespread and common, expectations for turn-around time on tasks goes waaaay up. I feel compelled to multi-task on a regular basis- just because, technically, it is possible. If something is possible theoretically, I think it translates to a mandate for many people. We feel guilt, pressure, stress to perform, to give more, compare ourselves to others who appear to be doing more. As much as the way we do things has changed, one thing has not: ultimately, I am the only one who can maintain limits on how much I do and how and when I do it. I am pretty bad at this “maintaining limits” thing. Well, maybe I should call it this “staying on track” thing. 

I have had many people offer sympathy and encouragement when I admit I’m frustrated and overwhelmed. They say, “But of course you feel this way/can’t get anything done/are a lunatic! You have five children!” It turns out that there is a fine line, however, between agreeing to stop beating myself up about what I can’t seem to accomplish on the one hand, and doing what I’ve been doing lately, on the other. I’ve kind of fallen into the habit of mentally flashing my “Five Kids Pass” as a way to exonerate myself from any guilt about what I can’t manage. I’ve become indiscriminate about it in a gleeful sort of way, actually.

All this would be fine, except for the unfortunate way Time has of insistently marching on…My indiscriminate use of, “Hey! I’ve got five kids! I need to give myself a break!” has been good for my emotional and mental health, but my house is now trying to swallow me whole! (Okay, that should say, “Trying to swallow me whole more than usual.”) The things I haven’t finished or have put off altogether are piling up. I’m starting to feel like Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory! 

The result, of course, is not good for my emotional and mental health- or that of my kids, for that matter. The daily search for socks has become such a trail of tears, that my kids have stopped bothering to wear matched pairs. There are always plenty of clean, dry clothes-- I’m great at the laundry tasks the machines do-- but sifting through piles of the unfolded clothes of seven people, looking for two matched socks, would drive anyone to despair!

My children are not over-scheduled. I am not overscheduled. (My husband, however, is definitely overscheduled, poor guy!) Due to the number of people in our household, I’ll say that each day feels overscheduled, but in fact, I am just under-organized. And probably under-motivated as well. And maybe a bit over-lazy, too. But, luckily, each day is a chance to start again. Today, I had a really productive day, and a little bit of success goes a long way toward garnering future successes. But I’ll keep that “Five Kids Pass” at the ready, just in case.