Latest news with #overscheduling
CBS News
06-08-2025
- Health
- CBS News
The dangers of over-scheduling, what parents should be aware of this back-to-school season
While parents love to watch their kids at their best in after-school sports and activities, whether it's sports, dance, chess club, or theater, that can be a lot all at once. However, all of that can take its toll if they're not careful. Structure is good for young people, but there is always the risk of over-scheduling. Some children in grade school or high school grow through having to get their homework done before practice, some get their best grades during theater season, but again, too many extracurriculars can be inundating. Dr. Anthony Mannarino at Allegheny Health Network said that children doing more is more common than in previous generations, and said that social media may be part of the reason for that. He said that some parents have the urge to compare their kids to others. For parents, they should be looking for signs from their kids that over-scheduling is becoming a problem. Are they anxious, are they more tired because of having too much on their plate, and are they complaining about having to go to practice? At the beginning of the school year, there is a lot more to worry about with kids getting themselves back into the routine of being at school once again. Dr. Mannarino said a good strategy is to start small and then take it up a notch. "Start with one or two in the week, if your child is handling that well, ramp it up to another one," he said. "Just see how they do instead of just starting the school year with every after-school booked with something." Generally, the younger your kids are, the fewer activities you want to put on their plates. For example, little kids between six and 10 probably shouldn't be doing more than one or two activities. Either way, Dr. Mannarino said parents have to be the ones to keep that open line of communication with their kids. Simply put, be aware of what your child is like and what you think they can handle.
Daily Mail
25-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I'm a pediatric nurse... here is the common parenting practice that is extremely harmful to children
A pediatric nurse has revealed the common parenting practice that is actually extremely detrimental to children. Mother-of-two Mary Catherine, 36, from Louisville, Kentucky, has had over 13 years of experience working with children in the medical field. Over the course of her lengthy career, she has learned a lot about what's good and bad for kids. And according to the expert, there's one thing that tons of moms and dads do that she believes is extremely harmful: scheduling kids for a ton of activities at a young age. While chatting exclusively with the Daily Mail, she explained that parents love to put their kids in art classes or get them involved in sports really early. But she warned that 'overscheduling' a toddler can 'impact both their physical and emotional health.' 'Young kids, I'm talking prior to elementary school, need unstructured free play every single day,' she stressed. 'This is how they "learn" and develop their mind and bodies. In their free play they learn how to label and express emotions. 'Young children also need rest and downtime. Their bodies are rapidly growing physically and they need the rest (hence why most of this age group still naps daily).' The pediatric nurse added that being busy all the times often means parents 'miss out' on chances to 'connect' with their kids. 'We are meant to sit down and eat dinner together as a family most nights, not be running from one ball field to another or from work to gymnastics to home just in time to bathe and get in bed,' she continued. 'This is stressful for most kids, and adults, when you slow down to actually think about this impact.' If you want your child to try out an activity, Mary suggested focusing on one thing at a time so it really gives them a chance to discover whether or not the enjoy the hobby. And when it comes to sports, she reminded parents that it's meant to be 'fun' and should not be about winning when they're young. 'I also think travel sports (and the intensity that comes with them) should not be allowed until kids are much older, middle school to high school age,' she added. She encouraged embracing a 'slower-paced life,' and if your child is getting bored at home she suggested getting them involved in household chores as they make them feel important and can even be fun to young kids. When it comes to sports, she reminded parents that it's meant to be 'fun' and should not be about winning when they're young (stock image) 'Involve [them] in the tasks at home like laundry and cleaning,' she recommended. 'I'm not saying we all have to be homebodies and never schedule events, but having something on the calendar nightly should not be the norm. 'We've created a culture of overstimulation, even us adults, we can't sit down without scrolling our phones. 'The current busy culture tells us it's not okay to rest. We as parents have to learn to rest and slow down too, so we can model that for our kids.' She also spoke to the Daily Mail about how dangerous 'unsupervised screen time' could be for kids. 'I think using screens to pacify kids' boredom is a huge issue,' she said. 'I constantly see kids scrolling their parents' phones on TikTok or YouTube in my clinic and it pains me.
The Guardian
10-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘Kid rotting': why parents are letting their children go wild this summer
Name: Summer kid rotting. Age: The name is new, but long school summer holidays started spreading in the 1840s, thanks to the US educational reformer Horace Mann. Appearance: Laidback and a little messy. What's this Kid Rot then? Does Kid Rock have a brother? No, it's a 2025 way of describing 'letting your kids do nothing in the summer holidays', also known as a 'wild summer'. American parents are fighting back against (or giving up on) expensive, overscheduled summers of camps and activities for their offspring. 'What if, some are daring to wonder, my kid does nothing?' the New York Times reported. A return to the old ways, huh? When I was young, we were sent out with a penknife, a tin of pipe tobacco and a bottle of dandelion and burdock on the day school broke up. It was strongly suggested we should not return home until 1 September. No, you weren't. No, OK, we weren't. We spent six weeks bored out of our minds, watching TV and fighting. We'd have loved expensive, overscheduled summers! Well, some US parents are sick of paying through the nose to keep their kids out of trouble – one interviewed by the NYT spent $40,000 (£30,000) on occupying her three children for eight weeks. Inflation is making summer camps unaffordable for many: a survey found 30% of parents go into debt or defer payments. And while the situation isn't as bad in the UK, it's still a struggle for parents: research last year found UK summer childcare costs £1,000 a kid on average. Ouch! And kids don't even seem to enjoy organised summer stuff much: 'It was a fight every day to get them to go,' one parent told the NYT. 'He cried every single day at drop-off,' a journalist at the Cut said of her son's summer camp. Maybe a bit of boredom isn't so bad. Being bored is being rebranded as the better option for pushy parents. 'I tell them their kid will be more 'ahead' with their own experimentation,' a US educational consultant reassures her anxious clients. But 'their experimentation' will be whatever the algorithm decides – kids will be glued to YouTube, won't they? Yes, screen time is a concern, and if the little darlings manage to enable in-app purchases, your iPad could prove a more expensive babysitter than the fanciest camp. If they're going to be screen rotting all day every day, parents could at least put them to work - give them a bitcoin and a day-trading account and see how much money they can make by September. A bitcoin is currently worth 81 grand – you'd get a lot of fancy summer camps for that. Do say: 'We're having a wild summer.' Don't say: 'Yeah, we're going large at Glasto, microdosing in Mykonos, then an ayahuasca retreat in Peru. What are the kids doing? No idea.'
