Parenting Tips and Thoughts : Are we ‘overscheduling’ our kids?
We’ve seen advertisements everywhere around us.
Art classes. Chinese classes. How to be an ‘early reader’. Maths. Soccer. Swimming. Piano lessons. Violin. Ballet classes.
In many parts of the world, especially in Singapore – where it is common to see children as little as 8 months old are being sent to attend ‘classes’ – the issue of ‘extracurriculars for the kids’ (ie. what extra classes, how many should one attends, and from what age should one starts attending) tends to be far from simple and straightforward.
Notice what your children do when nothing’s scheduled. Do they wander off to entertain themselves with a game, hobby or project, or are they bored and restless?There are so many options these day.
Too many perhaps.
And we parents want the ‘best’ for our kids, don’t we?
So, what should we consider?
I come across this good article from Familyfun.com called “Overscheduled Kids” that I’d like to share today.
Please do take the time to read the whole article.
It has lots of good insights and thoughts! Things that I believe would help us – at least a little bit – in working out how our kids’ schedules should probably be like.
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Here are a few quotes from the article:
If you’re signing your child up for one enrichment activity after another because you believe an early start will secure a lifelong interest or give your child the competitive edge in high school sports or music, think again.
Notice what your children do when nothing’s scheduled.
Do they wander off to entertain themselves with a game, hobby or project, or are they bored and restless?
One result of too many scheduled activities is that some children don’t know how to manage themselves when there’s nothing planned.
Please realise that kids, just like adults, need downtime–it’s called play.
Children between the ages of two and seven incorporate new experiences into their minds through imaginative play.
If your child is overscheduled with activities, when will he have time to absorb all that he’s experiencing?
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What are your thoughts on this?
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Interesting, Leonny.
I am not sure myself how to bring out the best in our children. Noelia is still 11 mos old, but she loves her once a week baby class with her friends.
Recently, my friend in France told me about the book by John Holt – “How Children Fail”, he said;
“Is it possible that our modern way of teaching, all gentleness, persuasiveness and human contact tends to make children get themselves and their work all mixed up?…….Maybe it was easier for children to grow up in a world in which, when they impinged on the world of adults, they were treated firmly, impersonally and ceremoniously but were otherwise left alone.”
I think as parents, we have lost the trust to our children to play. We even find it difficult to communicate our thoughts to them about bringing out their best. Maybe we shouldn’t try to make our kids interpret their world through our eyes.
The persuasiveness of modern teaching and modern parenting such as the modern trend of feeling that children should be ‘entertained’ 24/7; doing things together as a family, spending time at parks, the zoo, etc.
I am doing the research on how parenting should be at the moment. But I know I would like to stay away from marketing garbages of children programmes on building their confidence and social skills. I know I need to back off from my children for awhile and let them play on building their imagination. Parents can create positive environment and provide a safe place for them.
more and more parents are sending their kids to school earlier and earlier.
i rem we only started K1 at 5yrs old.
after tt they started to hv pre-Kindergarten aka nursery which starts at 4yrs old.
now tt ive my own kids then i realised they now hv pre-nursery at 3yrs old.
my kid is qualified for pre-nursery next yr (for those born in 2006). but he’s a sept baby, so tt makes him only 2yr 3mths old in jan 2009.
im definitely not going to send him to school tt early. it’s scary. but a lot of my friends (who hv kids of same age and mth as my kid) are going to. reason being to learn something and to become more independent.
personally i dun understand why must they be independent at this age? why must they know a lot of things at this age? cant they learn anything at home? cant they learn to be independent at home?
i feel the stress of being a kid of this generation.
oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my goshhhhh…….anya is so pretty hereee….(not that she is not pretty without her ballet attire)…For sure, Ballet is not one of the ‘oversheduling’ thing for her…..she loves ittttt…..that doesn’t count, right? hihihi…
tau gak gue lagi mau ambil adult ballet again next week..gila can’t imagine how stiff I am tapi tetep aja gak tau malu untuk persue my long lost dream!!! =p
Hi!!
It’s so nice to see the many sharing and stories from parents here! Hope we can get more discussions and thoughts going ya.
Personally I think the article highlights to us that it’s not about enrolling our kids to ‘zero’ extracurricular activities, because such activities are fine and different kids have different needs and preferences (ie. what they ‘enjoy’ to do)
What’s more important I think is the parents’ ‘motivation’ when they send their kids to such classes, and whether the kids are attending ‘too many’ for their age.
The topic of ‘when’ and whether Anya should attend extracurricular activities also was discussed at our home this year.
And so our decision is that, she joins the once-a-week chinese enrichment class straight after school (our consideration: knowing Mandarin is a must here in Singapore and we’re totally clueless about the language and can’t practice the language with her at all).
I’m comfortable with the fact that it’s held at her school (thus, no change of venue and she’s in a familiar place, with familiar friends), AND the lessons are taught in a fun way (through singing, role-playing, story-telling, etc).
And right now, she also has a ‘pre-primary’ ballet class (something which she’s been wanting to do since she’s 2yo), which is more like a ‘music and movement’ fun session. That’s once a week, 45mins, on a weekday. And if she really loves ballet and wants to seriously go into it, then she’ll join a proper ballet school in the future.
So far as much as possible, we choose to avoid weekend classes, so that we’re free to go out and enjoy our time as a ‘complete family’ (something we can hardly have on weekdays)
Frankly, I don’t know how things will be next year and in the many years to come when both Anya and Vai enter Primary school etc. The tough reality is, Singapore’s academic expectations are high, and it’s not easy to ‘swim against the tide’.
We hope that we can learn to maintain a healthy balance between academics-related activity, creative play at home and outside, music-related exposure and of course on top of it all, family & bonding time.
Nice photo of Anya…
How about her ballet class???
Delima
For this article i personally 100% agree with Leonny, because we see in singapore not only in working environment have competitive but also in our kids school…My goodness…the parents are sometimes only think about how our kids can get the full mark, band 1…so to get this mark most parents want their kids to enroll so many tuition.. in the end nothing no result only make our kids stress and regret.
This article also make us as a parent to think over again why we should enroll our kids to tuitions? Any benefit?
Personally, my son, Ian until now no tuition, until next year K1 I enroll him for chinese tuition, only once a week, 1 hour, after that I allow him to play indoor or outdoor.I don’t want make my son very stress for study.Let him enjoy and have freedom to play, for age 2 to age 7, make him play imaginative play such as playing Lego, puzzle, drawing, and tracing. For practising and review for school work and homework I only give about half an hour only. Overall still in our control for timing to bed, eating dan quite time.
Thanks for your article, Leonny, ya.
Have a good day.
Delima
hi leonny, thanks for linking the excellent article but just some food for thought. Just last week, my hubby was suggesting to pull jodie out from music class as I mentioned she’s growing resistant towards the keyboard during lessontime. My view is that my intention is to introduce musical concepts such as rythm, notes, note values at an early age so it’s easier for her to pick this up later as she would have absorbed the knowledge at a young age. When she’s more adept with her fingers at four, she’ll then be able to read music scores and play the piano with considerably less effort.
My question to my hubby was: does it mean everytime we feel she’s not enjoying something, we give her the option to give up? Learning requires perseverance to a certain degree and may not be always fun. As she grows, she may come to hate certain subjects. It may be english, mandarin, math or science, history, geography, art or literature. Do we then give in to the option of her giving up the subject? We all know that’s impossible given some of these subjects are critical for moving on to the next level of education.
I explained to my hubby she’s enjoying all the music class activities, except keyboard time. So I will ask the teacher not to press her to go to the keyboard if she is not ready. Jodie has shown great interest in music and movement since young so I know the interest is there. The thing is, learning the piano will be a very long journey and there will be many times she may tell me she wants to give up, esp when the pressures of school life sets in in pri school. So do we parents encourage and support them to press on, incalcating self discipline, determination and perseverance in the process or do we go with the child’s decision and lose out on an opportunity to develop not just a useful life skill but also, important life values?
ya…. poor kids, too many demands and expectations… they aren’t doing what they should be doing at their ages. i supposed in s’pore it’s even more obvious with all those classes being offered at such a tender age. they do it more subtly here. if i were to live in s’pore, i probably would feel obliged to comply with all that standards.
i agree completely! which is one of the reasons why i like it here in Switzerland – no pressure whatsoever for extra activities – u do what u like for the benefit of your child & yourself. They even start “official” school later here.