Are you over-scheduling kids?
Are you overscheduling? There's a lot that goes into managing a child’s schedule
As a mom to two young girls I know what goes into putting together and managing your child’s schedule. (It’s a lot!) A question I often ask myself is how do I make sure I balance my children’s schedules so amongst school and extra-curricular activities they also have enough time to just “be” - oftentimes it’s the unscheduled moments where a child’s creativity can thrive and they learn what their interests are.
With school ending at 3PM and activities starting anywhere as early as 4PM the afternoons where we have an activity can feel like rush hour. Get home - wash hands - have snack - complete homework- off to activity - come home - eat dinner -bath- relax-off to bed and then start the cycle over again. It is not a pace of life I wish to instill for my girls or myself for that matter!
My girls are 8 and 5 and their interests vary. What’s worked for us is to limit their activities to 2 weekday activities and then piano lessons on the weekends. (The teacher comes to our home which makes it easy!) Once the two activities are chosen that is it for season, Even if the other kids are playing soccer or trying a cooking class and we have a little FOMO we stick with what we chose and don’t add more to the schedule. We also all agreed that when we start something we finish it out for the semester and if we don’t want to continue we take what we learned and move on from it.
I believe the open space we leave in our child’s schedule allows them time to decompress, daydream, and relax, which is so important. Even if I get the occasional “I’m bored” I always remind my girls that boredom breeds creativity. (Ha, that sounds like such a mom thing to say!) By finding balance between the doing and just being we teach our children that life isn’t about rushing or doing what everyone else is doing - rather some of the best moments come from the unscheduled and unstructured spaces in our day.