Today giggle girl, daddy and I are having a day just chilling out at home.
It makes me feel for families who always have something on. Be it soccer or ballet or music or medieval costume design lessons.
I know giggle girl is still very little and we haven't got to the stage when she asks to do activities on weekends.
It makes me wonder if over-committed children are missing out on just being kids? I know that learning a music instrument or playing a team sport can have lots of positive benifits to a childs development but I mean when there are fingers in far too many pies.
I went to a small private school for the first part of my high school years. It was for kindergarten to year 10 students and although I was part of many extra after school activities but nothing compared to the student I was a mentor for who was in year 6. (schhol program, not my idea!)
this little girl who was only about 11 or 12 years old at the time but she did flute lessons one afternoon a week (plus practice) violin lessons one lunchtime a week and had about 3 different tutors for different subjects. She also played junior netball (practice one afternoon a week plus weekend games) and swimming squad two afternoons a week.
I don't know when this little girl got to play with her friends. I know that her parents were just trying to the best for her and you can't fault them for trying, but putting too much on her plate can be just as bad as doing nothing at all.
How many activities do your kids do? And do they still have time to be kids??
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2 comments:
This is one of the reasons I want to home school. Between school, homework, sleep, and extracurricular activities, when do we get to see our children? Especially if the parents have work and activities too.
I've been a full-time mom for almost 5 years, and I don't see why I need to hand my child over to strangers to spend a large portion of their wakings hours with them. Right now, my children are just being children. We don't have schedules, hell we don't even have a loose routine, lol. I don't sit down and try to force them to learn anything. My 4 year old is learning to read, write, do math, etc., simply because she is naturally curious and we LET her learn, rather than forcing her. It comes so naturally. Just playing, reading, answering her endless curious questions. Learning doesn't have to suck. I hate the idea of someone sucking the passion for learning out of her. Confining her to a desk for 8 hours a day and forcing her to learn what they want her to, when they want her to, how they want her to. Training her to be a good little consumer. Over-scheduling her.
My child learns more in an hour with me than she does in a week at her lame pre-school, and I don't even TRY. We just go about our day.
Let them be children. If they want activities, let 'em have at it, but know where to draw the line. We have the rest of our lives to live by the clock and calendar. I'm in no hurry to force them into that.
We are a home/unschooling family, with a loose schedule and really no curriculum, yet my kids are bright and my older son is reading well....so a lot of our days are, lazy sundays :) I love it this way!
We just signed our boys (4, 6.5)up for gymnastics, our 1st real activity. We considered local organized baseball and soccer, and the thought of the organized events and gung ho parents and coaches freaked me out, I am so not ready for that!
I agree, I know moms who are constantly running from one activity to another after working all day...I could not imagine...but to each his own, that is just not for us :)
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