Children with overloaded schedules

Why do I have to go for so many classes, Mommy???

Are you guilty of being your child’s chauffeur to a myriad of extra-curricular activities every week? Or perhaps you send your driver into doing the dreaded task? What are the consequences of children below five having a jammed packed schedule? Heck, it’s not even healthy for the above fives! When is it OK for them to have lots of different activities? Or is it ever OK? With Kuala Lumpur coming up with more and more children activities everyday, parents need to brace themselves despite how tempting it is to have their children learn everything. I personally know an almost four year old who has seven days of activities apart from school everyday that includes TWO sports, TWO foreign languages, music, Sunday school, a brain enrichment programme, art and speed reading. If you do the math, you’d realise that on some days, the kid goes for THREE activities!!! When does she shower??? I can only imagine that her meals are ‘on the go’ at minimum.

And it isn’t Tee.

Do you think she’ll be on her way to becoming the Prime Minister of Malaysia? Hey!!! Maybe that’s what our Prime Minister did!

Not only do parents not have any time for themselves but the poor kids have no time to fully enjoy any of the activities as they’re just too tired!!! There is just no way that overloaded kids get time to revise anything they’ve learnt from any of those classes AND they frequently get sick. Why do parents do this???

If you are sending a four year old to more than two activities per week, you are hindering your child’s development.

Children need time to play. They need the option of doing nothing. They need the option of changing their minds to doing something else for the day. They need the flexibility and freedom to decide if they want to spend their free afternoon jumping on the bed or practise writing their ‘E’s. Tee happens to be a child who loves doing workbooks and I keep telling her no, no….go play! But she doesn’t want to. She wants to do her workbooks. *faint* When we were in Australia, she would do her workbooks every morning without fail whilst I continued sleeping. Such discipline despite the cold, tsk tsk. But when she’s in the mood for playing, she’d go play. What do I do? At least I know I’m not forcing her to do anything!

You may find this hard to believe but the best qualities that will put your child onto the global arena and compete at international business level, strengths like creativity and lateral problem solving skills, strengths like being a confident conversationalist with independent thought, all develop best when your child has time to PLAY, dawdle, do nothing and laugh. Really!!!

Of course, some children get bored easily and need a Blackberry calendar for their activities but as parents, you should moderate this. Moderation is the golden key. Don’t think that by sending your children to 10 activities with them holding an important leadership post in 5, will fast track their entry into a good university or make them any smarter. Firstly, universities these days require good recommendations. It is so competitive now with everyone getting 13A’s for the SPM and being involved in at least 5 extra curricular activities, but educationists from top universities say that they are looking more for students with a passion for something and being able to make a difference. It is through university entrance interviews where entrance examiners suss out the good from the not so good, the happy from the sad. So how your child responds via his thought process is critical. He is not going to learn this from being sent to many, many activities.

Parents usually send their kids for many activities to get the kids out of their hair. But some also do it because they think it is something they never had. Some do it out of peer pressure, some do it out of their own insecurities, but whatever the reason, it is damaging for the child. Resist the pressure from society and the media. And your friends and family, for goodness sake.

As parents, our job is to prepare our children for life, not make them perform.

You mean I really don’t have to go for any classes today??? I love you, Mom!

When we spend our time with our children doing nothing in particular, we are sending signals to our children that we find them more interesting just the way they are and that they are more important than anything else in the world. It’s OK to do productive things too, just as long as it is something your child wants to do. The key is to do something where there is no end goal, all free and easy.

Look, if your child is busy and stressed, he won’t excel. Remember that empty hours of nothingness will teach your child to create his own happiness, and with happiness, excellence will follow

The end.

*bow*