Overscheduled Families
My guest today is my blog friend, Sheila Wray Gregoire from To Love, Honor and Vacuum. I have learned so much from reading her blog. I love how frank she is and the way she tells it like it is. Her and I share very similar views on overscheduled families only she writes and gets her point across so much better than I do. For that reason I’m thrilled to have her here today to share on this topic. Welcome Sheila!
A fundamental premise of Economics is that everything has an opportunity cost . If I buy a chocolate bar, I’m not buying a pop with that money. But while we’re used to opportunity cost when it comes to money, we don’t tend to think of it when it comes to time. And yet the time crunch can be just as acute as the budget crunch. When you schedule your own lives, or your kids’ lives, with many activities, you’re simultaneously denying yourselves whatever else you could have done with that time.
So much for Economics. Now let’s turn to Math and calculate how much disposable time the average mom with school-aged kids has in the course of a week. Weekday mornings, before school, with the chaotic rush are a write off. Kids get home around 4, and most are in bed by 9, so that leaves five hours per weekday, assuming parents are home that whole time. On the weekends, let’s give you twelve hours a day. Over the course of the week, that adds up to forty-nine hours. For comparison’s sake, the kids spend about forty hours in school and with school peers. So it’s almost even.
But if you subtract an hour a day for chores and hygiene, an hour each weekday for homework, four hours a week for meetings or time with other adults, and the two hours a day minimum the average child spends in front of a screen, you’re down to about nineteen hours a week. In those nineteen hours you have to teach them to become independent, to be responsible, to not give in to peer pressure, to handle money well, to be nice to their friends, and to get along with their siblings. That’s a heavy task.
That’s why I’m adamant about family time. It is more important than sports lessons, music lessons, or even extra academic work. And the more time your child spends away from your family, the more time he or she spends immersed in a culture which is often anti-family, consumer oriented, and shallow.
I was talking with some parents who have their daughters in competitive skating. They’re at the rink four nights a week, all over the dinner hour. I asked one mom, “How do you ever eat as a family?” She laughed and admitted, “Oh, we don’t. We just grab food on the run.”
Their daughters may be enjoying skating, but when they’re adults, what will matter most is not whether or not they could land a double axel but whether or not they were emotionally healthy and responsible. And that kind of character is forged in the family. Teachers and coaches can help, but kids need their parents.
Let’s stop tying our kids to a schedule which denies them so much family time. They may enjoy it, but in the long run, what is the most important goal for you as a parent? Some families may be able to squeeze everything in, and more power to you if you succeed! But I have seen families who have thought they were doing it well, only to find fifteen years later that their kids really struggled. It’s a big risk. It may be one you want to take, because your child is gifted at something. Just realize it’s a risk. Count the cost first, so that you can be sure that you are doing everything you can to preserve your family life in the time you have left. But I hope most of you may choose just to hang out at home and maybe, occasionally, throw a football around together. Personally, I think that’s more rewarding.
Sheila Wray Gregoire is the author of five books, including the upcoming The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex. A syndicated parenting columnist and popular speaker, she still spends most of her time homeschooling her two teenage daughters. You can find her at To Love, Honor and Vacuum, where she blogs everyday about marriage and parenting challenges!
While I have to agree on the importance of family time…I adamently disagree on the having to eat dinner thing or sacrificing activities for it…if scheduled family time is of importance in your life, then it will be important to your child. As a former competitive, 4 or 5 night at the rink kid, I can say that I value my family first…and just under that the memories of my rinkside family and the lessons learned through figure skating (or whatever the sport may be). Just because you don’t eat formally at the table 7 days a week, doesn’t mean a thing. Memories of a quick meal between sessions in the car with my mom mean as much as the sit down meals. The other thing to think of is that some kids thrive in hectic scheduling – if I wasn’t busy as a child 24/7, I became irritable and grumpy. I am the same as an adult.
Its about finding balance and instilling a family devotion is beyond sitting down for family time every night. Again, if your child sees you value family time, they too will value you it – no matter how it’s instilled 🙂
While my children aren’t teens yet, 2 hours a day MINIMUM screen time seems so excessive. Is that really the norm? If a family is really worried about creating that family time together, I’d think it would make more sense to knock out the TV time and spend it together rather than stopping an outside activity. We have family movie night on Fridays and the rest of the weekday evenings are spent sans TV. I wish we had more hours in the day to spend together; I really enjoy my kids.
I agree with the first two commentors.
Both of my daughters are competitive athletes. We spend our early mornings at the pool and our evenings at the dance studio. My girls attend a virtual school in which I am their learning coach. This not only allows for the best education possible in our area but it also allows us to spend the majority of our time together. School is a family event and it happens daily, not to be constricted to the Mon-Fri school week. Schooling at home also affords my children the extra time and flexibility required for their schedule. I firmly believe that a family meal can happen anywhere, it does not need to happen at home around the table. We have wonderful conversations in the car, on the bleachers or sitting around the table in the lounge at the studio. My girls know that family is first, they also know that family can mean many things and that their teams are a whole different family. Being part of a team teaches so many things and we as parents are on that team with them. They learn commitment, dedication, sportsmanship and independence to name a few.
We also do not watch a great deal of television in our home. We have a movie night and it is something we do as a family or with a group of close friends.
I do realize that we as a family are not what would be considered the “norm” as my girls are with us during the day. That was a choice that we as a family made because family is important to us. My girls are wonderfully gifted athletes and they are both honors students. We chose the path that gave our family the balance that it needs.
I think you hit the nail on the head. When deciding for our son his schooling options, my husband and I stopped and considered the time-cost analysis. I was a college student and dh was/is working FT and also a student. We knew with just sending our son off to school (no outside activities) our time with him would be minimum since I had homework at night and dh works overnight shifts. We are now enjoying our 3rd year of homeschooling and it has worked out better than we could ever imagine! I am now graduated and at home all day…my husband and I shared the school load previously and this has allowed my son to learn from both of us and spend lots of one-on-one time together. Since our schedule has lightened up, we are now able to “afford” some outside activties (like soccer, swimming, etc). Before we enter into an activity, we go back to assessing the time issue and how it will affect our family. I feel this makes for a more relaxed family atmosphere in our home. I am a multi-tasker by nature but I begin to get frazzled very quickly if I am pulled in too many directions.
I agree that family time is very important. As my children (now 13 and 15) have gotten older, I’ve found myself missing the days that they were younger and at home more. At the same time, sports, music lessons, and any other extra-curricular or academic activity IS teaching them independence and giving them skills to use as an adult. If my parents hadn’t enrolled me in piano lessons as a child, I’d probably be working a minimum wage job right now. But because they did – and devoted much time and money into my training – I’m able to support my family (as a single mom) by teaching music.
Much of our family time is spent driving to mine or my children’s music activities/lessons/competitions/performances, but we use that time to talk, hash out problems, find out what’s going on in each other’s lives… My kids are now at the age that they can help me teach – another way of spending time together AND teaching them to use their gifts to help others. Plus, they’ve been able to meet other musicians and make new friends by tagging along at my performances. It’s a great life!
Yes, we eat dinner on the run many nights; but we have never once sacrificed family time for something pointless. Each family has to find what works best for them and not be “guilted” into someone else’s idea of what family time should look like.
We find ourselves struggling for family time, and there is a trade off involved. We can’t afford private school, so our options are either a very horrible middle school we are zoned for (high gang and crime rate), or the charter school our kids are attending now. This charter school is driving us all insane.
My 11 and 12 year old children are up most nights till 10 or later doing homework. 11 year old not as often, but my 12 year old has been up as late as 2am. His social studies teacher has them flying so fast through their curriculum that it is taking that much time (example, textbook has 13 chapters total. It’s not quite December 1st yet and they are almost done with Chapter 11).
Afterschool clubs.. this was important to me because it allowed all three of my kids (we also have a 6 year old) to do things without any travel time involved. Girl Scouts, chess club, one act play, debate, spelling leaque and science olympiad (split between the 3 kids – they go T,Th,F). Each is working on skills they need to BE responsible adults and/or help out in areas they are weak in.
I just found out my son has been assigned to “mandatory tutorials” every Monday afternoon because his math benchmarks weren’t up to par. *bangs head on desk* It’s not optional. Detention and eventually expulsion occur if he doesn’t go.
The only non-school activities they are involved in are karate 2x week and my son has a mentor in Big Brothers/Big Sisters. They don’t have any free time during the week and very little on the weekends – there is NO tv time during the week because there isn’t any time. We’re so packed, I haven’t been able to even get them in for haircuts since before school started in August O.o
I have no idea what to do. If I take away the after school clubs or karate, I think I’m taking away the only things keeping them sane right now! Nothing else is withing my control to change w/the school except switching schools.. and I think I prefer overscheduling to the possibility of one of the kids being harmed at school. 🙁
I don’t know what your financial situation is, but I was wondering if homeschooling was an option for you. My husband & I live way below the poverty line but have no debt so we are able to make it on one small income. We don’t represent the societal norm, but we sacrifice the things like new cars we have to make payments on for older cars we own, etc. In exchange, I get to teach our children at home. I don’t know if you could work towards being debt free so you could live on one income and be able to teach your kids at home where you have lots of family time and then the activities you do wouldn’t be taking from your family time. We really enjoy this as a family and find freedom in it. It is more committment & sacrifice on my part, and I don’t have tons of “me time” but I value time with my kids more than coffee dates & whatever else I would be doing. And God graciously gives me many outings with friends, too. It’s not a popular choice for everyone, but it may be one you could consider.
Both of my daughters are autistic and receive therapy and an aide each at school, which our finances do not afford us to do at home (nor does our insurance cover it lol – 30 visits OT/speech *combined* hard limit per calendar year…ugh!).
We are debt free, live on one income, and our cars are paid for. We’re in that area where we don’t get as much assistance as we need with the girls because our income is too high, but where we cannot afford to pay for it ourselves.
I don’t know if it’s just my kids struggling with the workload, or if the school/certain teachers are expecting and assigning too much; I need to make it to a PTA meeting
(been down with bronchitis and or pnuemonia for over 2 months, bleh). I have talked “at” the teachers a lot but I need to hear from the other parents.
I totally agree! We home school so our time is a bit more flexible but it’s still really easy to pack in the activities if we’re not careful. Right now our kids do Scouts on Thursdays and gymnastics on Tuesdays. We have occasional field trips and play dates. As my kids are getting older we’re carefully evaluating each activity opportunity. One thing is sacred though – family dinner. We do that every night and I refuse to give it up.
I’ve been a private school teacher for 22 years, a parent for 21, and an empty-nester for 4 months.
Looking back at our family calendar and our parenting choices (which included having our kids attend the schools where we taught, homeschooling, and afterschooling), our primary regret is BEING TOO BUSY.
None of what we did was “bad.” In fact, we were very busy doing very good things! Much was done out of dedication to our church and from of our desire to help develop our “gifted” children’s natural potential.
But we failed to model down time. Silence and solitude. Reflection. We were always on the go, always surviving one high-adrenaline event so we could jump into the next.
I see so much stress and so many stress-related health issues in the high school students I teach. Sleep disorders are rampant. Anxiety is the new “normal.” They’re so used to going full throttle that they don’t know how to gear down; worse, they don’t see any value to slowing down.
Our kids’ favorite way to spend family time is still around the dinner table, around the family game night table, or around the fireplace reading aloud. These can not be done quickly, while dashing from one good event to the next.
Hi everybody! Laura, thanks so much for publishing this guest post today! I do agree that many extracurricular activities can have benefits, and we can bond with kids in the car. But just because something may be good, does that mean it’s the best?
I think what Cheri says is so right on–we need to model solitude and downtime.
By the way, the two hours of screen time is not an exaggeration. The average child over age 11 spends 4 HOURS in front of a screen everyday. I was being generous by only allotting 2 :).
I wrote more about the debate about extracurricular activities here, and I go into a lot more depth (hope you don’t mind me leaving the link, Org Junkie!).
I appreciate getting to “meet” all of you today.
Sheila from To Love, Honor and Vacuum!
Some of our greatest conversations were around the table, but secondly they happened in the car! I do agree that protecting family time is important and each family must decide what is best for them. So many just let life happen and run on autopilot. Be intentional with your choices as to how they affect your family.
Thanks Sheila!
Bernice
8 ways to reduce stress this holiday season
Keep in mind that once your children get to be teenagers they may not want to spend as much time with you!
If I had not been involved with competitive sports 4 nights a week and all day saturday I can’t imagine what kind of trouble I could have gotten into. I have 4 friends who had their own kids in high school and one who did so many drugs he can’t support himself and has to live in a group home because of brain damage. My feeling is if kids don’t have a positive outlet they will find a negative one!
I would like to add one more comment…just this past Thanksgiving, we had extended family that couldn’t make it because their daughter had to cheer in a football game. Another part of the family had to leave early b/c their son had basketball practice….all during Thanksgiving weekend! I am still in disbelief that extracurricular activities can have such high value placed on them that they outweigh the benefits of spending time with family. I wonder if those kids will think down the road that they are really glad they didn’t miss the game or practice during the holidays or will they wonder, “Why wasn’t I in that family photo?”.
We aren’t against outside activities in our house…just when they start to put pressure on and dictate the family schedule.
As a former competitive skater, I agree with the first two commenters. Once I got to where I was competing on the national level, I was often at the rink twice a day. Often from 8-midnight.
I have had a great life, and it was skating that shaped it. Skating that taught me to meet goals. Skating that helped me become a strong individual. Skating that kept me fit and not in front of the television.
I couldn’t have eaten dinner with my whole family, anyway. My dad was at sea for months at a time and my mother has MS and was often done for the day by 4pm. Your contention that family dinner is how a healthy and responsible child is created is insulting and rude.
Especially since we spent our entire summers together on the coast of Maine. I didn’t skate in the summer, and my dad arranged his schedule so that he didn’t work in the summer. I’d take a whole summer of Maine over year-round family dinners anytime.
“Each family has to find what works best for them and not be “guilted” into someone else’s idea of what family time should look like.” Commenter Christina is wise.
With my own children, I’d sooner take them out of the waste of time that is public school than abridge the activities that actually help me shape their character and keep them fit. I can do in 3 hours a day (or, let’s be honest, less) what can be accomplished in a full school day. And since I’m a former teacher, I get to say that. 😉
As a former competitive skater, I agree with the first two commenters. Once I got to where I was competing on the national level, I was often at the rink twice a day. Often from 8-midnight.
I have had a great life, and it was skating that shaped it. Skating that taught me to meet goals. Skating that helped me become a strong individual. Skating that kept me fit and not in front of the television.
I couldn’t have eaten dinner with my whole family, anyway. My dad was at sea for months at a time and my mother has MS and was often done for the day by 4pm. Your contention that family dinner is how a healthy and responsible child is created is insulting and rude.
Especially since we spent our entire summers together on the coast of Maine. I didn’t skate in the summer, and my dad arranged his schedule so that he didn’t work in the summer. I’d take a whole summer of Maine over year-round family dinners anytime.
“Each family has to find what works best for them and not be “guilted” into someone else’s idea of what family time should look like.” Commenter Christina is wise.
With my own children, I’d sooner take them out of the waste of time that is public school than abridge the activities that actually help me shape their character and keep them fit. I can do in 3 hours a day (or, let’s be honest, less) what can be accomplished in a full school day. And since I’m a former teacher, I get to say that. 😉