quote:Contrary to popular belief, a heavy load of scheduled activities does not increase children's levels of stress, says a research team led by the University of Maryland. Instead, the researchers find that very active children thrive emotionally. The study is the first to examine how many children actually lead lives crammed with extracurricular activities.
"The notion that we're raising a generation of young children stressed-out by overscheduled lives doesn't appear to square with the facts," says University of Maryland sociologist and principal investigator Sandra Hofferth, who directs the Maryland Population Research Center. ...
"Even a high level of structured activities does not appear to be emotionally stressful for children," Hofferth adds. "Highly active children don't differ from children with a more balanced set of activities. Contrary to popular belief, children who are most at risk of being depressed, anxious, alienated, and fearful are those with no activities."
That's awesome. And it makes sense - even the criterium for "busy" isn't THAT busy. I'm certainly happier when I'm busier, so I like that it apparently works for kids as well.
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A very interesting finding, though the criteria for being 'hurried' in the article I would only characterize as 'fairly busy', assuming they mean some two day period each week, not every two day period.
I think the stress comes less from being over scheduled and more from certain types of parents who introduce too much pressure that also tend to be the sort who schedule a lot of activities. But there are many parents who encourage children to participate in a lot of activities who are not that sort of parent.
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Often the problem with too many activities is not that the children get stressed out but that Mom or Dad has to cart them around all day. And pay for all the activities, which get more and more expensive. Loading on the scheduled activities can start to disrupt family life pretty fast. There is precious little time for the whole family to be at home together anyway.
We had this discussion recently with our oldest, when her ballet studio moved across town and the cost of lessons went up. Just getting her there twice a week would have meant dragging everyone along in the car for almost an hour, back and forth, or into the waiting room at the studio. My wife, quite understandably, balked. We switched her to a gymnastics class that costs less, is less demanding on time, and is about 2 blocks from our home. It works out much better, and my daughter has a blast there.
I do believe in getting our kids involved in things, and we do, but we have to weigh the time of all the family members and family finances along with the schedules.
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Indeed. afr said it well. And I should add that maybe if kids had more chores they wouldn't need as many scheduled (and paid for) activities. Just a suggestion on behalf of my mom, whose response to "I'm bored" was always "I've got some laundry you can fold" or "Here's a mop, clean the kitchen floor." Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Reminds me of this NPR piece that I found through Hatrack.
quote: According to Berk, one reason make-believe is such a powerful tool for building self-discipline is because during make-believe, children engage in what's called private speech: They talk to themselves about what they are going to do and how they are going to do it.
quote: Unfortunately, the more structured the play, the more children's private speech declines. Essentially, because children's play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids' toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren't getting a chance to practice policing themselves. When they have that opportunity, says Berk, the results are clear: Self-regulation improves.
I think keeping kids busy is good and having schedules is great, but the activities in the schedules should be less regulated.
I think that study you linked might encourage parents to schedule so much structured activities that kids don't engage in private speech enough.
EDIT: Maybe your study wasn't talking about toddlers, my children's age group.
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(in a low growly voice) "What you doing?" (in a high thin voice) "I freaking out!"
repeated until Abba caught her to put her to bed.
Emma last year:
(as self) "No you do not hit people, tape. Now you go on the couch, you are on time out!" (as roll of tape) "I don't like time out!" (as self) "Yes you do, now go sit on the couch!"
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Indeed. afr said it well. And I should add that maybe if kids had more chores they wouldn't need as many scheduled (and paid for) activities. Just a suggestion on behalf of my mom, whose response to "I'm bored" was always "I've got some laundry you can fold" or "Here's a mop, clean the kitchen floor."
That's our response to "I'm bored."
Chores are tough to enforce, at least in our home. But the overall results have been positive. My wife and I have found new reserves of patience, humor, and persuasive power. I am sure the kids have benefited somehow as well.
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I'm a big fans of chores. I'm also a big fan of activities. I can see reading as an activity, but not watching TV.
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Brief review of the study. Concerns: - Small study with small power: 36 families - Limited study by population studied: 93% white, Midwestern, two communities targeted - Selection Bias of those who participated: 19 and 34% response rates. Many factors that might affect their results could also affect response rate. As they point out, people with higher stress are less likely to respond. - Interviewer bias: These were scored by the quality of the answers. It doesn't sound as though scoring was checked by multiple people for consistency. - Confounding factors: Unfortunately I'm not familiar with how to read their tables (I'm used to confidence intervals. These coefficients are confusing me). Someone else might have to interpret how well they looked into confounding factors. If you control for family discord, or academic performance, or family pets do you still see this split?
I think it's more of a pilot study than a true myth-buster.
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Not to mention the question of whether "happiness" (or "lack of stress") is the only or even the best qualifier for a well-developing child.
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quote:Brief review of the study. Concerns: - Small study with small power: 36 families
Uh oh.
quote: - Limited study by population studied: 93% white, Midwestern, two communities targeted
uh oh
quote:- Selection Bias of those who participated: 19 and 34% response rates. Many factors that might affect their results could also affect response rate. As they point out, people with higher stress are less likely to respond.
..
quote:- Interviewer bias: These were scored by the quality of the answers. It doesn't sound as though scoring was checked by multiple people for consistency.
Nice .. detective work, there. Yeah, uh. This is a bad study.
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quote:I'm inclined to agree. Stress was never what I was worried about.
quote:Aren't watching TV and reading books "Activities"?
Yeah, it seems to me that this study is based on a strawman argument. I value unstructured time for my kids because I didn't want them to be dependent on others in order to be busy and fulfilled. It's similar to why I didn't have a TV while they were growing up. I didn't want them to rely on TV to keep themselves entertained. Read a book, play an instrument go out and make some friends and use your imagination. Make up your own rules instead of following someone else's.
On the other hand, my kids were in scouts, as opposed to sports, because while scouting has a structure, it's more of a framework. If you're in a soccer league, you play soccer. But if you're in scouts, you plan your next event. And the scouts decide for themselves where they're going to go, what they're going to do, which boy serves what role in preparation, and how are you going to pay for it. The kids still have schedules, but to a great extent, they schedule themselves.
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The study isn't definitive, but it isn't worthless.
I think it's interesting that those with different parenting philosophies immediately seek to discount the study.
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I find it interesting that pretty much every statement in this thread is consistent with the results of the study.
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The concerns I've heard about over-scheduling children have never included high stress levels. From my perspective, this study doesn't do anything to address the real concerns parents and psychologist have about over scheduling children.
There is one important factor this study didn't and probably couldn't easily control for in the US today. That factor is how busy the children's friends are. When I was a child, we would just go out and knock on the neighbors doors and ask if they could come out and play. If I was restless, I'd ask my mom "Can I invite Anne over to play, I'd make a phone call or two and in 15 minutes I'd have someone to play with". Because few children had very many scheduled activities and the neighborhoods I lived in had lots of children, there were lots of spontaneous gatherings of kids to play kick the can on the street, play hide and seek in somebody's basement, or a game we made up. We might just cruise around the neighborhood on our bikes until someone came up with a more interesting idea.
In an era where kids have "play dates" scheduled days or even weeks in advance that kind of spontaneous play with other children doesn't happen. It may be that children's only opportunities to play with other kids are at scheduled events. I think that in a community where most kids are on a schedule the kids who don't have scheduled activities end up socially isolated and unhappy when the outcome might be the reverse in a community where very few kids had scheduled activities.
[ October 06, 2008, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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Yes, I agree with Dr. Rabbit. I think the sort of childhood we had was ideal. Our time was unstructured but there was always something fun to do in the neighborhood. Lots of kids were home all day in the summer. We played hide and seek every evening outside. We built forts, dammed the creek, climbed trees, built treehouses, rode bikes, played tag and freeze tag and stop-light-go-light. We drew various things with chalk on pavement and played games of physical and mental skill on the patterns so made. We collected and studied various bugs, salamanders, guppies, lightning bugs, and centipedes. We played in sprinklers and built homemade boats that usually sank. We flew kites when it was windy enough, skated, skateboarded, swam, and sledded at various times of year. We jumped rope and devised intricate clap patterns to perform together to chanted songs. We opened both ends of large cardboard boxes and crawled around inside as unstoppable tank-treads. We pulled all the canned goods out of the kitchen shelves and walked around using them as stepping stones. It was glorious. And none of it was scheduled or structured. We just had fun all day long. I feel so sorry for the kids today who aren't able to do that.
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My kids do many of those things listed in Tatiana's post, but they do it with each other. Advantage of a pretty large family, and three of four kids all close to the same age, I guess.
It is difficult to plan things with their friends. Rabbit is exactly right about that.
However, I'm a big fan of scheduled activities, including sports and music. I think gymnastics has done wonders for my middle daughter, dance and color guard have done the same for my oldest, and my son is getting a lot out of piano and scouts. His twin sister is involved in Girl Scouts.
The key, for us, is that kids activities are not just kids activities. They are FAMILY activities. I go to practice and every meet with my gymnast daughter. My husband and my mother alternate coming with me and sometimes the whole family goes. We all attend Friday night football games to support my daughter and her team. My husband is my son's cub scout leader. I go to the Brownie meetings with my daughter and work with her and the girls. We go together to all their activities (this next month it will be helping out in a RAce for the Cure event).
In other words, my kids don't have activities, we as a family have activities. And while unstructured play is great, and I support it and have been known to kick my kids outdoors with the command "Go play," I submit that there are important lessons learned in participating in organized sports or activities one doesn't get in unstructured play. Lessons which I am glad my kids are learning.
I sympathize with my oldest daughter when she comes home and complains that some members of her squad aren't practicing, and she's frustrated with them, but inside I'm also happy she is learning to work together in a team environment with less than ideal team members. Good lesson for life. I like it when my daughter struggles so hard to learn a new move on the uneven bars, falling 100 times before she ever gets it right - good lesson for life. I could go on.
Unstructured play has it's place, yes, but so do organized activities, and I personally haven't seen a negative side for our family from all our activities.
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We had structured activities when I was a kid too. I took piano lessons and dance lessons, I played flute, I was in Brownie scouts and involved in church activities. I think those activities were valuable. The key thing is that I never did all those activities at once. I never had more than 2 afternoons or evenings a week for structured activities. Many of those activities went on hiatus for the summer or part of the summer. I don't think the choice is between children on a regimented schedule and children whose lives are totally unstructured, its about balance.
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This survey looks at elementary school kids. I'd think the stress comes more into play as they get into middle school - that's the point where activities start being more demanding.
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Scouts is meetings once a week with activities on weekends. Piano is once a week. Color guard is every day, but only for football season and two weeks of band camp in the summer.
Gymnastics is year round. We take off one week at Christmas and one more when school lets out for the summer. Even on holiday weeks, like 4th of July, we would only take off the one day for the holiday. There are two competitive seasons, in the fall and again in the winter, but the summer, when we don't compete, we are working new skills so we don't usually take time off.
And yet, I would submit that the daughter in gymnastics gets the most out of her activity because she is required to put the most into it. I'm not so sure that breaks or hiatuses off from activities is necessary. My oldest would do winter guard if they had one available at her school - she actually complains of being bored and missing football season when it's over.
I know many an athlete that plays three sports - so they are playing something year round. Even if you only play one sport, there are opportunities to play year round - my nephew who plays baseball plays fall ball and winter ball - there is seldom a time when he's not practicing or playing baseball.
So, while I get that it may require a balance, I think it's possible to be involved in a year-round activity with no real break and still be successful and happy.
The balance does become trickier in middle school because of higher demands at school. I've known a few gymnastst who had to leave practice early because there was homework to be done. My daughter is in 5th grade, and manages to get all her homework done on the bus ride home now, so it hasn't been an issue for us. School definitely comes first, but all the girls on my daughter's team are A-B students. I think being part of a structured, regimented sport helps invoke self-discipline and a good work ethic - I've found that many devoted athletes or musicians are also great students.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I don't think the choice is between children on a regimented schedule and children whose lives are totally unstructured, its about balance.
posted
I had all these great responses to that article and then everyone else pretty much came in and said it for me!
Basically, my concerns with **over**scheduling (which is not the same thing as having no planned activities) are:
1. MY stress level. 2. Cost 3. Less time and motivation for imaginary/creative play. 4. Children who do not know how to entertain themselves. 5. Lack of family interaction -- most of these activities are at dinner time for goodness sakes! What happened to the family meal? 6. Speaking of no time to eat -- no time to eat right. Most of the people I know who overschedule spend a lot of time at McDonald's. Don't know if there's a study about that, but it's just one of my concerns, not necessarily something I (or anyone else) has researched. 7. Sometimes overscheduled children never get the chance to follow their own passions, but rather their parents'. (This isn't directly the fault of overscheduling, of course.) 8. Fewer children in the neighborhood for my children to play with. I'm kind of worried what they're going to do when they are school age in the summer if I DON'T want to spend thousands of dollars on activities. 9. Not enough sleep.
That's just off the top of my head. Note: my children's stress levels aren't even on the list. Actually, I want them to be a little stressed sometimes and learn how to deal with it. It's good for them for so many reasons...it's stressful to have to think for yourself.
As for the study itself, I'm glad dabbler took the time to parce the problems with it so I didn't have to. I would just add to this to thelist: It may not be getting at the heard of the problem many parents have with over-scheduling.
ETA: Of course, let's not forget that there is a balance to life. Some activities are good for children, especially if it is something they truly love. I only have a baby and a not-quite 3-year-old at the moment, but we do have play dates every couple of weeks and MOPS twice a month. The oldest goes to mom's day out once a week. I've also toyed with the idea of enrolling the older one in soccer when he's 3 because he seems to like kicking balls. But all of that gets us about 2-3 planned activities a week and lots of time for free play.
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One cool thing about living in an apartment complex is that I CAN send the kids out to play. (I watch them from a bench with the baby, but they can play with other kids who live in the complex in a safe courtyard where there are no cars or drug dealers or anything; the most danger they face is someone leaving the pool gate open, which I can check for, or someone smoking, which the people in the complex try to do AWAY from the area where the kids are playing, which I appreciate.)
We are also one block from a park with a playground where they can play with a different group of kids who are regularly there (as well as the occasional visitor.)
And yes, my four year old takes dance. That would have been unheard of in my house, where you didn't get lessons or EC activities until you were 7, including Scouts-- and you got to choose ONE (my mom couldn't afford more.) But then again, we went to preschool and after school care. Since we're homeschooling my daughter, I think it's important she be in groups of other kids, preferably without me, and so as they get older they'll get opportunities to do more lessons or clubs or whatever they want. The great thing about that is, we can schedule those around OUR schedule, and do some at times that allow for her to come back and play with other kids without structure later on. And yes, I agree that having more kids allows for more of that within the family as well.
In the end, I don't think there's a "right" or "wrong" way to schedule activities or not for your kids. Or rather, not that there's one right or wrong solution in general. Each family will work out what is best for their own family, and change that if need be. And in the end most kids come out functional and undamaged. That' probably more a testament to kids' resiliency than how they were raised considering how many different parenting styles there are!
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quote:Nice .. detective work, there. Yeah, uh. This is a bad study.
I don't think I'd say this is a bad study. It's not a study that's generalizable to the general population, and I don't think it's one that should dismiss all concerns of over-scheduling. Less than 1/4 of the children in the study participated in three or more activities. When you're starting with 30ish participants, that's what..7 children?
Interesting findings- needs more to back it up. I'd like to see a look at children who are in 3 or more activities of different parts of the US and looking at how this affects the whole child and family interactions.
One of the things that's always stood out to me with Elkind's Hurried Child theory is the effect of scheduling on parent stress and how that affects the child...
I agree with Christine's list of effects of overscheduling- well put. Posts: 862 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Belle, How old are your children. If I'm remembering your oldest who is in color guard is in high school and the daughter in gymnastics is also a teenager. Is that correct? How many scheduled activities were they involved in when they were younger. How young were they when they first had scheduled activities more than one night a week?
The reason I ask is that I think there is an enormous difference between young children (under ~ 6), older children (6 ~ 11) and teenagers. The study Kat referenced looks specifically at children 9 -12. Informal play is far more important developmentally for young children. Teenagers, even those who don't have busy schedules, rarely engage in informal creative play the way younger children do.
From what I understand, the big concerns about the "hurried child" are really focused on a group much younger than those included in this study.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Belle, How old are your children. If I'm remembering your oldest who is in color guard is in high school and the daughter in gymnastics is also a teenager. Is that correct? How many scheduled activities were they involved in when they were younger. How young were they when they first had scheduled activities more than one night a week?
The reason I ask is that I think there is an enormous difference between young children (under ~ 6), older children (6 ~ 11) and teenagers. The study Kat referenced looks specifically at children 9 -12. Informal play is far more important developmentally for young children. Teenagers, even those who don't have busy schedules, rarely engage in informal creative play the way younger children do.
From what I understand, the big concerns about the "hurried child" are really focused on a group much younger than those included in this study.
The one in color guard is 15, so yeah, definitely a teenager.
The gymnast just turned 11. She first began taking gymastics more than one night per week when she was 7. She didn't move into the current schedule, where she practicies three nights a week, for three hours each night until last year. So, she is right in the range of the ones being studied, but she did begin multi-night practices when she was seven years old. Even so, nine hours a week is considered "light" for a gymnast - many at her level practice four-five nights per week. But this amount works for us, and we have no desire to move her to another gym with a more rigorous schedule.
Even though she began multi-night practices at a pretty young age - 7 - I still think it was appropriate for her. She thrives in this type of environment. Not all kids do. But I think kids will let you know when there is too much on their plate. What you have to do as a parent, is listen and respond and not project your own desires on them. I let my daughter quit dance, even though I would have loved to see her continue her study of ballet, but she was no longer committed to it. Instead she found color guard and that seems to be her niche - she's very happy. (And all those years of dance training have certainly helped her be successful there, too!)
I've seen parents force their daughters to continue gymnastics when it was obvious the child hated it and didn't want to be there any more. It's very sad and upsetting for me to watch. Regardless of the acitvity level and the intensity of the schedule, it should be about the child, not the parent.
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posted
I can't read Samprimary's tone of whether he appreciated my post or was mocking it. I think he was mocking it.
I never said it was a bad study. I read through it, and looked at what I felt were the problems with the methodology. I think that's an important thing to do when you read a study. Certainly it's incorrect to say any of these statements: 1. This study proves that many activities make happy children. 2. This study is a bad study, therefore children shouldn't be in many activities.
It's interesting. It seems more of a pilot based on a larger study that didn't ask the questions they were interested in.
I don't think you can generalize these results in a particularly robust or useful way. I don't believe something as individual as hobbies and stress should be determined in one's family based on Scientific Research.
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It was a potent list of red flags. It really was good detective work.
I came into the thread and was reading the list of methodology issues you found and was literally going "Uh oh. [read read read] ... uh oh."
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quote:Originally posted by advice for robots: Often the problem with too many activities is not that the children get stressed out but that Mom or Dad has to cart them around all day. And pay for all the activities, which get more and more expensive. Loading on the scheduled activities can start to disrupt family life pretty fast. There is precious little time for the whole family to be at home together anyway.
As a child in the middle of 4 children all within 4 years of age, I was part of a great, great many scheduled activities, many of which were not of my choosing or my liking, and many of which were stressful. I don't think my parents ever fully appreciated that the times in our lives when things were extremely difficult and time consuming were quite stressful on us, or at least on me. My parents would cart us to karate lessons I hated, or take me along on the activities of the other kids and have me wait for hours at a time with nothing to do, regularly, for years. That's why I have vowed to myself never to have children close in age, and doubt I could ever have more than two of them. I know how very hard it is to be one of many voices.
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quote:Originally posted by Coccinelle: Interesting findings- needs more to back it up. I'd like to see a look at children who are in 3 or more activities of different parts of the US and looking at how this affects the whole child and family interactions.
One of the things that's always stood out to me with Elkind's Hurried Child theory is the effect of scheduling on parent stress and how that affects the child...
I remain fully convinced that the stress of my early childhood experiences, along with my parents' particular motivations in pursuing all the activities they did with us, has permanently damaged my relationship with them, or even our simple abilities to communicate. That may seem very selfish, but I'll tell you that my mother cannot hold a conversation with me, cannot allow me to say three positive things, without informing me that at least one of those things is foolish or not positive, and I we could be talking about anything. I remember these interactions coming out of sitting in a car- where everything was turned to the negative; everything good was counterbalanced with the bad. She was working for all of us, all the time, but seemed to resent that fact greatly. Now, the fact that I refuse to rely on my mother for anything is equally difficult for her to bear. I believe a lot of that comes out of over scheduling and over stretching our time throughout our lives.
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