A Matter of Time
“I let my kids choose one activity this fall. My kindergartener has a weekly swim class he loves, and my third grader is crazy about Jumping Jack Rabbits, her three-week track class. I tell them I don’t want our lives to feel hectic.” As the fall season with its shorter days sets in, we often reexamine priorities and schedules and how busy we want to be. In our area, it’s popular for children to be involved in an abundance of extracurricular activities, and parents sometimes feel pressured to make the “right choices.” They report that in social gatherings people often ask, “What is your child doing?” rather than “How are they doing?”
It’s wonderful when parents can articulate the values that underlie their scheduling choices, especially to their children. The mom quoted above tells her children she doesn’t want their family to be too busy, and she wants to opt only for activities each one really enjoy. Another mom explains, “Our family believes in being physically active, and we sign all three kids up for the same sport, and we do it together.” One reason for talking about our decisions is it helps children think about their own choices and develop a sense of agency about the way they want to spend time. “If I have an afternoon free, what do I want to do?”
Since there is social pressure to do more, it’s important to listen to children as they develop a sense of what they like and don’t like. In an environment where sports participation is highly valued, we don’t want a child who elects not to play soccer to feel bad about themselves. Making choices is a way of knowing themselves. One mom, a former athlete, said that her fourth-grade son doesn’t like sports, and she honors that. “He likes cooking,” she says, “and we try to let him experiment.”
Discussions about what children want to do and don’t want to do can be complex. One father said, “I don’t want my daughter not to try something because she thinks she won’t be good at it. I want her to try new things. However, when she chose not to take theater class again so she would have quiet time to read at home, I thought it was a great decision.”
There’s also a myth today that we need to start children on activities early. Our experience at school belies that. One of our graduates who became a professional ballet dancer didn’t take his first class until he was fourteen. My grandson didn’t enjoy structured extracurricular activities, but he loved looking for bugs on the hillside of the big playground and fishing after school. Now, he works as a full-time wildlife filmmaker.
Let’s applaud children’s ability, and our own, to reflect on the way we spend time so we discover those things in life that bring us real fulfillment and joy.
