Overscheduled Parents

By now, any parent worth their salt has heard the term “overscheduling” when it comes to putting your kids in extracurricular activities. While parents understandably want to provide their kids with opportunities, it’s definitely possible to push things too far. Our own ‘policy’ has been to keep our kids out of organized sports until they start kindergarten.

On top of holding them out of things until they start school, our kids never play more than one sport at a time, and the balance of their commitments have been pretty lightweight. Beyond this, we don’t put them into any ‘official’ activities in the summer.

Right now things are still pretty easy, but still… We’re already wading through schedule conflicts — soccer games/practices at the same times but in different places, soccer running in opposition to Cub Scouts, etc. And when I have to travel? Fuggedaboutit…

As crazy as things seem, it’s hard to believe that we’re really only mutiplying by two right now (thanks to our first and third grader).

Just imagine how things will look in year or two, when our preschooler get in on the act. And what about five years from now, when our youngest is in first grade (and thus Cub Scout eligible), and our oldest in eighth grade? My head is already spinning just thinking about it.

My wife and I already keep pretty detailed calendars, but we’re obviously going to need to start synchronizing them far more religiously than we do right now.