People piss and moan about how busy they are with their kids. I want to talk about that.First let me say, this post is not for the families that have to work multiple jobs to keep the roof up, or for people with special needs kids who are run off their feet medically or rebuilding a broken child. This is for typical families that are running themselves into the ground to serve their children up to the altar of ambition and achievement.
Kids are so highly scheduled these days that they are hardly given the chance to be little heathen free wheeling discovery monsters that they are meant to be. If you are shoving a snack or a bag of fast food into your child’s gob running from soccer to dance 4 nights a week, you need to stop for a minute. What exactly are you teaching your kids?
Are we training them to busy, ambitious, driven and regimented in order to prepare them for life? Or are we telling them that is what life is? Does your 7 year old really have to specialize in Celtic dance, or violin or hockey? What does it do for them to have 5am practices on Sundays if you have to drag them there? Is your child actually so highly motivated or are they somehow channelling what you want? What about the money? And it is A LOT of money.
When I ask people why their kid plays on multiple teams 6 nights a week, and spends weekends and holidays at tournaments, I get a the same answers. “We do it as a family”, or “he made the team”. I just kind of wonder what the driving force is. It could well be that the child is in control of that, but who knows.
In Canada, it is about hockey. Everybody thinks their kid is going to make the NHL. If you read the stats, you can safely assume that they won’t. In fact, according to the book Outliers, unless your kid is born in the first three months of the year, the chances drop to “powerball lottery winner” level odds.
The physical checks need to be done as well. In our school, there are 11 year old girls who need physiotherapy on their knees from soccer. When is it too much? I know exactly ONE parent who had their son make the all glorious “rep” team. She said “Nah, he can play local so we can have a life”. He got over it, she saved $5000 and the world didn’t end.
I know that some countries take tiny little kids and put them into Olympic track training and they perform until their bodies give out for the glory of a medal count and national pride. We don’t do that, surely we have a different view of child development?
It is so great that kids remain active and physical. It is even great when they find something they have a passion to do. What isn’t ok is that the culture of the family gets so locked in and committed to that activity, that the child feels trapped. If you just paid for 5 years of high level football, and then your son said “Meh, I am done” you would pop a clot. You have built your social circle around that team haven’t you?
Keep driving them where they want to go, cheering them from the rainy sidelines of a Spring soccer field, or attend yet another excruciating violin recital, because that is what good parents do. BUT do your own self check and make sure you aren’t just teaching your little ones to be performance robots. Make sure that if the child wants to quit and try something else, they are free to do so… truly free to do so. Because THAT is what good parents do.
Now go take a black marker to your family calendar and clear our some space for your kids to breathe.
Advice with a twist: www.magnoliaripkin.com
2 Comments
love. i am forwarding this to parent friends everywere!
I liked the text, simply true, this should be read by a lot of people.