The boys were supposed to begin swim practice three weeks ago. The first week we didn’t go because it was the first week of school. I thought it would be too chaotic. The second week we didn’t go because I was so sick. There was no way I was getting out of bed for beginning/intermediate swim practice. This week, the third week, we had choir practice on the first day of practice and a parent-teacher open house on the second day of practice. On both days we got home after our usual dinner time and by consequence went to bed late. In my case, very late. On Wednesday we could have gone to practice. It was the first day in several weeks where we didn’t have another obligation to meet and the boys had light homework. If ever there was a day to spend two hours at a pool, this was it.
We didn’t go, obviously. I pulled away from the school parking lot and decided we would have a late afternoon/evening of just nothing instead of going home, changing, and then eating a quick snack on the way to practice. Mikey was excited about the idea. Nico, wasn’t as excited. He likes swim practice, but he’s in the beginner’s group. They aren’t exactly on an Olympian training schedule.
For months I’ve been debating what to do about the boys and their activities. Choir is nonnegotiable. We feel strongly that they should be involved in at least one church ministry. Mikey wants to continue with clarinet lessons. He loves it, and his teacher thinks that by 7th grade he could audition for a youth symphony in our area. Nico wants to do an instrument, too, but he doesn’t seem in love with piano. He keeps talking about trumpet/clarinet/drums/violin. So, anything but piano.
If we did choir, music, and swimming, there would be an after school activity Monday-Friday. It’s too much. I can’t do it and we can’t afford it. I guess if we tightened up our belts (more) we could, but the reasons why I should do that elude me.
Our pediatrician repeats at every annual checkup that physical activity is key to healthy childhood, which is why the boys have always been in sports. But the other day I realized they don’t need to be on a formal team to get physical activity. I know that sounds obvious, but I can’t be the only one who has forgotten that you can get physical activity just by playing outside! Riding bikes, playing kickball in the street, shooting hoops, etc. are all ways to exercise. This realization reminded me of a passage from Simplicity Parenting, my favorite book on parenting.
Three out of four kids quit youth sports by the age of thirteen. Too many of the 40 million kids who play organized youth sports get seriously injured, emotionally scarred or simply learn the wrong lessons about teamwork, social cooperation and leadership. It�s downright tragic that at precisely the age when kids are physically, emotionally, socially and neurologically primed to benefit most from team sport participation, they opt out in droves.
This is another interesting excerpt from an article on the decline of risky play in children thanks to our concern they will hurt themselves. (Guilty.)
An ironic fact is that children are far more likely to injure themselves in adult-directed sports than in their own freely chosen, self-directed play. That�s because the adult encouragement and competitive nature of the sports lead children to take risks–both of hurting themselves and of hurting others�that they would not choose to take in free play. It is also because they are encouraged, in such sports, to specialize, and therefore overuse specific muscles and joints. According to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 3.5 million children per year under the age of 14 receive medical treatment for sports injuries. That�s about 1 out of every 7 children engaged in youth sports. Sports medicine for children has become a big business, thanks to adults who encourage young pitchers to throw so hard and so often they throw out their elbows, encourage young football linemen to hit so hard they get concussions, encourage young swimmers to practice so often and hard they damage their shoulders to the point of needing surgery. Children playing for fun rarely specialize (they enjoy variety in play), and they stop when it hurts, or they change the way they are playing. Also, because it�s all for fun, they take care not to hurt their playmates. Adults, who get all wrapped up in winning and may hope for eventual scholarships, work against nature�s means of preventing damage.
Here is a link to the entire article.
Staying home was incredible. I cleaned out Nico’s folder and finished all outstanding paperwork. The boys had their homework finished before dinner, which we ate early. I had time to read with Nico, who really needs my attention in this department. He’s an incredible but extremely insecure reader. Mikey had time to study for an English test until he felt confident with the material. Later, I went through the chapter with him and quizzed him on some concepts. Subject! Predicates! Conjunction Junction, what’s your function? While the boys took their evening showers, I made our lunches for tomorrow. Now I’m writing a post and getting ready to go to bed. If this is life without sports, I might take it.
p.s. I walked into Nico’s classroom at parent/teacher night and knew which desk was his without having to read the name tags on the desks. SIGH. The second picture is an Origami Diplodocus from Mikey.
My son has a health issue which is preventing him from participating in his usual fall sport. I’ve been surprised how heavenly it’s been to come home after school, have a snack, and do homework leisurely. Simply heavenly. I think you are wise in your decision about swimming.
When you end up doing nothing you actually end up doing something more valuable. Nowadays kids are in waaaaay too much. When I came home as a kid, that was my chill time, my free time, my time to do what I felt like (and of course the wonderful world of homework). Parents direct kids a bit too much these days… you are right, playing outside is much more physical then one might think. Ever tried to have a go on the monkey bars at the park yourself? That in and of itself is a feat of physical strength.
I didn’t even play on a sports team until I was in high school (but did many other outdoor things on my own). I Joined the soccer team when I was 15 and loved it. Then I moved to a big city where kids had been playing since they were like 3. Yet, somehow I ended up on the same team as them and seemed a lot happier sometimes then they all did playing already for 12 or so years.
Yes life is short, yes life goes quickly, but sometimes we do the speeding up. You are wise to slow down. Why not do it more and more. Like I said, sometimes when we do nothing what is left in its place is sooo much more valuable! Keep up the great nothingness :)
It is nice when you have the free evenings. I have a swimmer, a rugby player and a girl’s basketball player between 5th and 10th grades. They all only do one sport and not really any other activities except for the occasional school club, but between the 3, it means I am driving at least 3-4 nights a week. Fortunately there are usually only 2 of these sports in active seasons at any given time. There are about 6 weeks where all 3 are in session, and it about kills me every year. That’s when the thought of the oldest getting his license sounds appealing. :)
The issue we have with cutting out the sports now is that our area is highly competitive, and if you haven’t been playing for a long time, you will never make a team in middle school or high school. We’ve got 1000 kids in the middle school and 2700 in the high school. When the are only spots for 20 kids on a team, only the travel kids make it. It is sad. There really aren’t rec leagues for the HS kids so it becomes hard to keep them active without sports once they are past the playing outside years. Their options are to play a sport or go to a health club.
Agreed Susan. We have created a culture in America where literally kids are being recruited at grade school level! I live in the Portland, OR metro area and there are schools here that are always placing the kids that have been playing on travel/club teams on the high school teams and they already know by the time the kids are in 8th grade who will be making Freshman, JV, Varsity- I’m not kidding! (and the kids that are playing at the middle school/junior high level have already been scouted while they were in upper grade school) It’s crazy what we’ve done. *sigh*
I could go on and on about this. I saw an article (maybe New York Times?) about the cost (time & money) of being a club soccer family and while I definitely feel there is value in team sports and being active (DUH), I think we’ve all gone way too far with it. If families invested the money spent on year round travel/club teams think of the college funds (instead of hoping & wishing that your kid gets a scholarship-and even with those.. how many kids are truly getting a full ride? It’s the exception not the rule). I will stop here because I sound like an old crazy lady once I get going and I’m not against sports for kids (my daughter plays VB and has done swim, dance & cheer) it’s just that I think our society needs to reevaluate how we prioritize sports over family time, religious practice, and other non-sport after school activities.
I am with you, Jules. My son plays soccer in the fall. It’s great for him and I love that he does it, but I feel such relief when the season ends at the end of October, just because we’re able to have more of those kinds of evenings you describe here. Too much of a good thing never is.
I’m with you on the active outdoors without schedules chalk-a-block with activities. We actually play a lot after school and before school on the playgrounds. We walk to and from school (it isn’t far 5-10 minutes), and there is a public library & rec centre across from the school. We’re really fortunate that most things are within walking distance from home (with the exception of my new work, which is so much further and hard to get used to, which has led to different scheduling issues in a home with one car).
We’ve generally had one-two activities that the kids sign up for, and with that, we try to have them at similar times. Piano is Saturday mornings, and S has karate twice per week now (which we car pool with another student for). With the addition of the second karate unit, we’ve felt increased pressure (self-imposed) to get O into something else, but something’s stopping us.
With the school strike in BC there’s been a lot more home time than we’re all used to, and it has been an incredibly eye-opening experience. Not that we are about to become full time home-schoolers, but it has been a nice introduction to be really involved in the daily formal learning process of both kids, and there is quite a lot of freedom to do other things during the day in addition to school.
Rambling. Not having to rush around after school is key, it opens a would of relaxed routine, time for reading, studying, making dinners, and tidying-up, it make life as a parent just a little simpler, without taking anything away from building great habits and further building of bonds.
Yay for the unscheduled evening! Last spring was our first seriously busy sports season, with three children in one or two sports each. I thought I was going to lose my mind. We cannot be in two places at once so dinner, homework, rest, reading, together time- all the good things- were put on the back burner pretty much every day for a few months. While each child loved their sports and I loved watching them play, I hated the overall effect. I would sit at practices and wonder how everyone else was managing to pull this off. And why??? We know that children develop coordination and fundamental skills better through play than organized sports. We know they burn out quickly if they do the team stuff too soon and for too long. We know 99% of our children are not going to be professional athletes, nor would I want that for my children. They are really good students and I am not expecting sports to be the thing that helps them get into their college of choice either. So why am I running around like a crazy person, paying so much money, and sacrificing all the best things in our family life? I am seriously thinking about pulling way back until at least middle school, when sports are at least tacked right on the end of the school day (and are cheaper or even free). “Simplicity Parenting” is my favorite parenting book, too, and it has given me permission to do many other things against the grain. I need to man up and muster the courage to follow my gut on this one too, I think. Thanks for writing this post!
Excellent post!!
One kid plays football and hockey, which are back to back so it makes for a long stretch (Aug-March) of busy nights. He’s at the age where we can just drop him off at practice, which makes a huge difference and he really enjoys both sports. I felt guilty for about two minutes, that other than swimming lessons one night a week, we took the summer off while his teammates were improving their skills in hockey camps, Lacrosse etc. Everyone really enjoyed the freedom from a schedule.
BTW- I feel your pain with the seat sack, that was my son’s desk…broken pencils, loose papers. We are now in middle school, skinny lockers with one shelf, many classrooms and teachers. Not a great set up for an extremely disorganized kid and a compulsive organizer mom. :)
Your post reminded me of a book that Anne at Modern Mrs Darcy just posted about yesterday. “That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week: Helping Disorganized and Distracted Boys Succeed in School and Life.” http://www.amazon.com/That-Crumpled-Paper-Last-Week-ebook/dp/B0030CHF0I/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1.
Anne said to ignore the subtitle, that it’s not just for kids. I can’t vouch for it yet, but I immediately stopped at my library on the way home to pick it up. Just for ME. :)
YAY for a day of doing nothing! I have learned that my daughter does best sticking with one activity a season. We tried two and .. ugh. She was burnt out every week by Thursday and so was I. I have also learned that all the activities that I used to schedule to ‘enrich’ her life/learning/whatever were so unnecessary. We didn’t need to be Go Go Go for her to learn or be active. I started saying ‘no’ to things and allowing days for just staying home, playing with the neighbors, crafting, reading, playing with her toys (HA! actual time to play with the stuff she has! Instead of leaving school, going to daycare, getting picked up and running around at night to sports/activities and then having homework) and found out there is a lot of value to just ‘hanging out’.
You know what happened? We had a glorious school year. Who knew? She excelled in class and there weren’t nearly the push me/pull you disputes because she was tired & cranky (or I was tired & cranky).
As Elizabeth mentioned above, I don’t think my child is a prodigy on her way to professional athletics. (If she is, it won’t matter if she’s played from age 3 anyway ). I want her to try stuff out, be active, interact with other kids, have fun and call it good. If she finds her passion and wants to do more? Then I’m here to support her when that happens.
There was a Harvard study a few years back about kids and creative, ‘out of the box’ thinking/learning and how it goes hand in hand with free play time. Structured play & activities are not ‘bad’, but we definitely need to allow for unstructured time in our daily lives. I will always encourage her to be in one activity (music, sports, science) and we already do volunteer work (only a small bit, but still) and I want to continue with that, but the magic of downtime? It’s here to stay as long as I can hold the line against feeling guilty for not having my kid (or myself) signed up for multiple obligations at once. whew. Sorry for the ramble rant.
mercy. afternoons/evenings at home with no plans at all are the one of the best gifts. today is one of those and i can’t wait!
I love Nico’s seat sack. And I LOVED the picture of him with glasses. He is totally Clark Kent and adorable. That boy is loaded with personality. It jumps off the screen. What a gift.
We are not in the sports/activities stage yet (my oldest is 6) and we have plenty of friends who don’t schedule their kids for much, either. It does feel like the crazy stage of driving and eating dinner in the car awaits us. For our family, I like a busy short season and then a “nothing” season. Sort of all or nothing. When we don’t have anything on our calendar for too long, my kids (and I) get punchy and irritable with each other. Plus, I like them being under other peoples’ authority and not just mine all the time.
It is a different ballgame at this stage, though, and I recognize that. Once my kids are in school full-time I know the after-school hours become more precious. We’re just not there yet.
All that being said, it sounds like a great decision to stay in and I’m glad you listened to your intuition on that one. There’s no substitute for staying home when your family just plain needs it.
When you say you know which is Nico’s seat (and my son’s was always identifiable for the same reason), it makes me think of this https://www.flickr.com/photos/12981341@N04/1350739961/
I feel relief when we scale back. Congrats to you and thanks for the book suggestion.
We’ve never over-scheduled compared to many others I’ve observed (we’ve done chorus and scouting, basically – with some years an instrument or choir/plays at church added), but we used to go to nearly every local event, school event, etc. As far as sports, I had read Simplicity Parenting, which reinforced my own take on that. Don’t know if it has to do with the kids turning 10, but I’m just feeling so done – the only thing the kids will do this year is chorus. Most of all, though, I’m so enjoying them at this age. We’re able to talk, share about the books we’re reading, play board games, toss around a ball – I really just want to hang around with my kids as much as much as possible and have that time be as relaxed as possible. I’ve overheard the conversations of the parents who take their kids off to ice-skating or hockey lessons at 6:00 a.m. each day and on the weekends and they talk about how it’s good for the kids to learn determination and self-discipline. Yes, those are valuable qualities, but who is teaching those same kids about balance, putting family first, enjoying downtime, and how to kick back with a good book? I think we all know people who don’t know what to do with themselves if they’re not constantly running around like gerbils in a wheel. I’m so grateful that both my mother and father demonstrated their joy in just hanging out with their family, something I hope I’m now demonstrating for my own children.
We’ve never over-scheduled compared to many others I’ve observed (we’ve done chorus and scouting, basically – with some years an instrument or choir/plays at church added), but we used to go to nearly every local event, school event, etc. As far as sports, I had read Simplicity Parenting, which reinforced my own take on that. Don’t know if it has to do with the kids turning 10, but I’m just feeling so done – the only thing the kids will do this year is chorus and piano lessons, which are intermittent. Most of all, though, I’m so enjoying them at this age. We’re able to talk, share about the books we’re reading, play board games, toss around a ball… I really just want to be able to hang around with my kids – and have them hang out and play with each other and their friends and cousins – as much as possible and have that time be as relaxed as possible. I’ve overheard the conversations of the parents who take their kids off to ice-skating or hockey lessons at 6:00 a.m. each day and on the weekends and they talk about how it’s good for the kids to learn determination and self-discipline. Yes, those are valuable qualities, but who is teaching those same kids about balance, putting family first, enjoying downtime, and how to kick back with a good book? I think we all know people who don’t know what to do with themselves if they’re not constantly running around like gerbils in a wheel. I’m so grateful that both my mother and father demonstrated their joy in just hanging out with their family, something I hope I’m now demonstrating for my own children.
Sorry to post twice, comment did not show up on my Firefox browser, but did on IE – who knows???