December, 2007 Over Scheduled Kids

December, 2007

I just finished reading The Over-Scheduled Child thinking it would be interesting to see how and why other parents push their kids so hard. I could never understand such a mindset. From before we were married, I was more concerned about being The Over-Scheduled Parent. My kids were only going to have piano lessons. Period. Then I had kids. I resisted over-scheduling, but each kid wanted to be in band, in sports, in Bible studies, playing piano. Not each one every year, but they all wanted to do what their friends were doing. As a result, we put nearly 30,000 miles on the car the other year. To justify, I attributed it to having five kids.

The book talked about this trap where American parents are presented with so many opportunities for their children. Thirty years ago, sports were offered in junior high and high school only. Now grade schools have all kinds of after-school programs and many communities offer sports often beginning at age three. Music lessons used to start in grade school, but now with Suzuki, your child can be a prodigy before they are potty trained. Even preschool was a rarity. Now we can’t even watch the evening news without being told we are negligent if we don’t send our kids to preschool. Don’t believe it? Consider one commercial which begins with a doctor’s face morphing into in college student’s face, morphing into a high school student’s, all the way back to a preschooler wearing a mortarboard. Meanwhile, the voiceover explains only preschool will make your child successful. It doesn’t go to the extent of declaring it child abuse if parents opt out of preschool, but it comes close. I thought the commercial ludicrous until I remembered that I had sent my daughter to preschool to “improve her social skills”.

Parents, brainwashed by commercials such as these, sign their kids up for preschool while they are still in utero. Ridiculous! At least I waited until my first daughter was four months old. And then it was for the preferred kindergarten, not preschool. Oh. Yeah. Maybe it’s not just other parents. I, too, had been duped.

As I read further, I realized I fell in other areas too. What parent hasn’t played Mozart next to a slumbering infant or put headphones to a bulging belly in hopes that it would improve their child’s math score? Who hasn’t, as they were reaching for a fun, song-filled video, changed their minds, choosing instead one that had songs AND was educational? What parent hasn’t purchased a black and white mobile to stimulate the child visually – as though the world weren’t stimulating enough after nine months of darkness?

The problem is I’m older and wiser now and I’m still giving in to “the wisdom of the experts” or to just ordinary peer pressure. Recently Emma wasn’t getting a math concept and her grade went down. A lot. The news often talks of how America is “falling behind” in math and the sciences. We are made to panic if our kids aren’t finished with algebra by 5^th grade. (Well, maybe that’s a little exaggeration.) Nevertheless, I succumbed to the panic and called my sister who has her kids in a math tutoring program. I know tutoring is OK for kids who have a tough time with a subject, but many enrolled are actually good students whose parents just want them to get a “leg up” on the competition. I doubt most of those will be engineers or other high-math careers.

So what’s the big deal? Who cares if America falls behind? Aren’t we supposed to be more concerned about the quality of kids we are raising rather than their SAT score achievements? Is this really as big a crisis as what the media wants us to think? Emma is a creative type. She loves dance and has a great imagination. Does she need an A+ in math? Most dancers only need math to be able to count to eight. (I’m not dissing dancers, so put down your arsenal. What I’m saying is the world needs all types.) We wrestled with the idea of tutoring, but after one week of parental (actually, grandparental) help, she was off and running again and her grades bounced back just fine. We shelved the tutoring.

Another day I heard that the cost of Ian’s karate class was one price for up to four practice times. He was only going once a week. “I think we should sign him up for another night or two,” I suggested to my husband. His immediate response was a simple “Why?”

Technically it wasn’t to get our money’s worth. I had been satisfied with one night a week at that price. But here was an opportunity to improve. And aren’t we obligated to follow through on every opportunity?

“So he’ll get better, of course.” Wasn’t that obvious?

“Why?” he asked again. Then he gently reminded me that Ian was in it to have fun – and to burn off some excess testosterone. “Who cares if he gets better?”

OK, now there were two examples of having been duped. Then I started thinking about the trip I took with Abby this summer. Originally we thought up the idea to give each child some one-on-one time with a parent before our babies fly the nest. (We came up with what I thought to be a fair arrangement: I take all of the girls; Mike takes all of the boys.) But the trip wasn’t enough. I felt guilty for just having fun. Shouldn’t I be teaching her something as well? Maybe we should visit a ministry or two while over there. I was doing it again. She’ll be a “better” person spiritually if we add in a ministry component. It took a monumental act of the will to remind myself of our intended purpose. It was to have fun, enjoy each other, build our relationship, and peep inside her heart. Don’t get me wrong. I – of all people – think it’s important to build a mission-minded heart in our children. But I let my product-minded outcome overshadow the process of relationship. So now we are going with no agenda but to discover a deeper relationship with each other.

Do we have to provide our children with something just because we can? Do they have to “maximize their potential” in every area? It took me 40 years to learn the concept of everything having a season. Maybe I’ll save my kids some grief if I can teach this to them earlier.

Like a rock,

The Submissive Despot

Amy Louise

Amy Shane