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August 2009

Too Much, Too Soon

Keep Activities Age-Appropriate

By Lynne Ticknor, M.A.

Kids are often encouraged to participate in so many organized sports, arts or other activities that their childhood may become an overscheduled blur. In the past 20 years, structured sports time has doubled, time for unstructured children's activities and vacations has decreased and, in many homes, family dinners are almost nonexistent. No longer is there time to play kick-the-can, search for earthworms or bakes cookies with grandma.

“I see a lot of what I call 'cults' out there in the world of children these days,” says Julie Shields, a mom of two in McLean. “It is easy for children to become overly involved in anything that becomes a serious interest.”

Brent Reynolds, a father of four children in Springfield agrees. “The best activity we can 'schedule' is unsupervised free time.” Reynolds wants his kids to do things like bike, skate, fish, build and create artwork. “But our society seems to work against this effort.”

The problem may be that some well-intentioned parents are signing their children up for activities that aren’t age-appropriate. A team of kindergartners playing competitive soccer? Individual piano lessons at age 5? Earning a black belt in karate at the ripe old age of 7? Most child development experts would agree that starting younger is not necessarily better.

David Elkind, a child psychologist and author, says, “Parents are under more pressure than ever to overschedule their children and have them engage in organized sports and other activities that may be age-inappropriate.”

How do we know which activities are best for our kids? On the top of the checklist should be these two questions: “Is this activity developmentally appropriate for my child at this time?” and, “Will this experience be fun and intrinsically rewarding for my child?” (Your child may need to try the activity for a while to answer this one.)

Cognitive Development

Most child development experts agree that children under the age of 8 aren’t ready for competitive organized sports, because before this age, children's thinking is very black-and-white. Although they may conceptually understand the complex rules of some sports, they can’t easily put them into practice. More complex thinking and the ability to understand strategy occurs around age 9, although most experts believe children aren’t ready for competitive organized sports until 11 or 12.

Additionally, young children’s attention spans are short. Stand on the sidelines of any baseball field of young players, and you’ll hear coaches and parents shouting, “Heads up!” or, “Look alive out there!” while players watch airplanes fly by or dig divots in the outfield. Or try getting a young child to focus on piano drills for 30 minutes a day without getting distracted by her surroundings.

When is it too much? “You know things are out of balance when you look at your child's schedule and your stomach knots up,” says Howard Kohn, the commissioner of the Takoma Soccer League. “If you feel stressed out, there's a good chance your child does, too.”

Social and Emotional Development

Children learn social and emotional skills through natural, unstructured play. Issues of power, sharing, cooperation, compassion, status and appropriate responses to others are learned on playgrounds and in backyards. Solving disputes, negotiating differences and listening to each other are all skills that young children need to learn--without the interference of constant adult supervision. When playtime is thwarted by too many structured activities, children miss out on the fun and learning that takes place from “just being a kid.”

“Unstructured play is critical to the development of skills children will need and enjoy later on, including resilience, how to deal with frustration, creativity, problem solving, and an ability to create your own fun,” says Shields, who is an attorney and author of How to Avoid the Mommy Trap.

A policy statement recently reaffirmed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) states that when children specialize in a competitive sport at an early age, “Anecdotal reports suggest risks of 'burnout' from physical and emotional stress, missed social and educational opportunities,and disruptions of family life.”

Adolescents may whine that they don’t want to go to practice, lessons or activities because they just want to “hang out” with their friends. And most of us have witnessed or experienced firsthand the family stress that occurs when evening meals are eaten on the run and family time is spent organizing schedules and carpools.

Physical Development

There’s no denying the benefits of having children involved in physical activities. Better fitness levels, muscle strength, coordination, flexibility and the fight against childhood obesity are all reasons to encourage children to be involved in some type of physical sport or activity. Just keep in mind the importance of variety and exposing young children to numerous physical opportunities.

As summarized by the AAP, “Children involved in sports should be encouraged to participate in a variety of different activities and develop a wide range of skills. Young athletes who specialize in just one sport may be denied the benefits of varied activity while facing additional physical, physiological and psychological demands from intense training and competition.”

Kohn recommends just one practice per week, plus a weekend game. Add to that a round of playing with Mom or Dad or the kid next door, and you've got a balanced approach to sports. Keep the focus on having fun, not winning. “Most kids put enough pressure on themselves or feel it from their teammates or their coaches. Parents should be the refuge from that pressure.”

Family Life

One drawback of too many activities too soon is the negative impact it has on families. The more structured activities, the less time there is for family. As difficult as it is for busy parents to hear, children spell “love” “T-I-M-E.”

And, if we really admit it, some of these activities are more for the parent’s benefit than the child’s. After-school enrichment classes keep children safe and supervised until Mom and Dad get home from work. Day camps and extracurricular activities relieve the burden of keeping restless youngsters busy during summertime, evenings and school vacations. But too many of these activities are not so “enriching” when viewed from the child’s perspective.
In The Hurried Child, Elkind use the term “hurried” to describe the overscheduled and often stressed child who is shuffled from one caretaker to another, from one activity to another, from one achievement to another.

Elkind observes, “Young children (ages 2 to 8 years) tend to perceive hurrying as a rejection, as evidence that their parents do not really care about them.” This perception isn’t true, of course, but it’s the child’s perception that matters. When we shuffle kids from one activity to another, expecting them to perform in recitals, win the playoffs and earn blue ribbons for artwork, kids get the impression that they aren’t good enough as they are. They begin to believe that what they do matters more than who they are.

To keep her children from feeling this way, Shields and her husband sit down with their two daughters, ages 10 and 12, and talk about which activities they want to do. They set limits and let the kids make their own decisions within those limits. Additionally, Shields has learned to distrust her initial instinct, which was to want to do everything. “I try to take the time to plan things out and say, 'No,' when it does not make sense for us, no matter how valuable or prestigious the opportunity might seem.”

Here are some age-appropriate guidelines for choosing activities. And, be sure to check the sidebar on the signs to watch for when deciding how much is too much.

Age-Appropriate Guidelines

Under age 6

Ages 6-8

Ages 9-11

How Much is Too Much?

Watch for these signs:

Lynne Ticknor is a certified parent educator with the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP) in Kensington. She writes frequently about parenting and child development for national and regional publications. PEP offers parenting classes and workshops for parents with kids of all ages. For more information, visit PEPparent.org.