“It’s a buffet today. There are so many activities to choose from,” says Suzanne Kienapple, mother of three in Waterloo, Ont. But while extracurriculars are supposed to be enriching, fun experiences, she says, they “instead turn into a source of stress.” And not just for the kids who are being dragged to ballet, hockey, piano, Scouts and tae kwon do — after all, it’s mom and dad who are doing all the chauffeuring, fundraising and just plain scrambling to fit meals into the equation. Arghhhh.

“It’s like we’re anti-leisure,” says Alyson Schafer, psychotherapist, parenting coach and author of Breaking the Good Mom Myth (John Wiley & Sons Canada). “Somehow we’ve become convinced we must be stimulating and advancing our children’s potential at every moment.” Schafer says there’s is
a heavy cost to that type of thinking and it’s not just financial. At stake is the Holy Grail of family life: balance.

In fact, parents go from hovering around their children and being their best playmate to the opposite, where the majority of our time is spent shuttling kids to lessons and into the hands of other adults, says Schafer. “If you look at the quality of time spent trying to get a kid ready, most of it is spent yelling, “Let’s go, let’s go, where’s your bag?’ That’s sad.”

Sound familiar? Maybe it’s time to take a critical look at the activities on junior’s schedule and let both of you off the hook.

BUILD IN FREE TIME

“Our family has never bought into the idea that because there is time, we have to fill it,” says Kienapple. “My husband and I have encouraged our kids to pursue one interest at a time and when they were younger, we afforded them blocks of time to fill on their own. I don’t want to be the manager of my kids’ childhood.”

GATHER REINFORCEMENTS

At their busiest, Sandy Miller’s three children were each enrolled in four or five activities. “Our main strategy was working with friends who had children with similar interests,” says the
Winnipeg mom. “We would carpool wherever possible, especially for practices, and then all would attend a game.” Miller and her crew of neighbourhood parents took it a step further and shopped for activities together, deciding on what worked for everyone. “It was quite magical, actually, how it all came together.”

KEEP IT SIMPLE

There are lots of opportunities for families to spend leisure time together and to develop skills in a much more natural way, says Schafer. Think skating en famille at the local rink. That’s exactly the approach Lanny Boutin of Gibbons, Alta., has taken with her two children. “We swim and go for walks together.” And she respects their interests. “My daughter is a people person. She needs to be out with friends. My son loves to be home on his computer.” Extracurricular activities play a minor role in this family’s lifestyle, and that suits them just fine.

GIVE YOUR KIDS A SAY

Schafer’s children are now aged 12 and 13, and have signed up for activities they can manage on their own. “They ride their bikes to piano lessons and they go to singing lessons on their lunch break,” says Schafer. “If it’s stuff they really want to do, they will get creative and do what they can to make it happen.”

Finally, appreciate that saying yes to one more activity means saying no to a family meal, or peace and quiet, or unstructured recuperative time. “Consider the bigger picture,” says Schafer. “I have never had somebody in therapy as an adult telling me about their regrets about quitting tuba lessons.”

Mary Teresa Bitti is a freelance writer and lucky mother of two children who prefer hanging out with their pals to structured play time.

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

According to a recent survey by Kumon/Ipsos-Reid, 86% of Canadian children are involved in at least one extracurricular activity. On average, children will spend 4.6 hours per week participating in after-school activities, team sports being the most popular (57%), followed by individual sports (43%), music (31%), school clubs (15%) and dance (12%).

While there is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to how many activities your child should be involved in, Alyson Schafer suggests asking yourself these questions to determine if your kids may be doing too much.

 

 

• Am I spending more time watching and shuttling my child than actually “being” with them?
• Does my child anticipate her activities every week? Or does she complain about having to go?
• Is my child zonked out after each activity, and does he find it hard to shift gears to something else?