I’ve often quoted our family therapist, who has fast become our parental guru, across all topics. Never mind that we see her primarily for my daughter’s anxiety – some days we go off-topic and I’m in for a whole new lesson in motherhood. One day the discussion at hand was: Kids and Days that are Too Long. Naomi * declared that from a developmental perspective, kindergarteners are only able to tolerate school for four hours a day. Knowing full well that no elementary school in the world has that brief of a schedule, she was pointing out that children are simply being pushed beyond their limits. Parents convince themselves that their kids will be bored if they don’t have enough school or an activity, so they hyper-schedule them as much as possible. And what did I do with this valuable information!? Oh, I’ll tell you. I ignored everything she said and signed my first-grader up for the following: Ballet/Hip Hop, Jump Rope/Hoola-Hooping, Art at a friend’s house, Beginner Tennis and the kicker… private violin lessons. Now, I’m wondering: do I get brownie points for leaving weekends “free?” And by “free” I mean, orchestra at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with my mom twice a season, play dates and birthday parties.
You’d think I would have my daughter come home to quietly piece together a puzzle, construct a collage, or possibly even meditate. But just like every other parent, I dread that whiney “I’m borreeed” and justify all the extra activities by telling myself there are only so many creative projects I can come up with, only so many green muffins we can bake, only… The girl might as well be challenged and instructed by a specialist. Right? Well, this is what I tell myself when I go to sleep at night.
To counter my blatant disregard for Naomi’s over-scheduling lecture, and to over-compensate for my guilt, we put Special Time into place, one of Naomi’s pillars of parenting. She believes that kids are “filled up” in a unique way by one-on-one time with parents. Bath time doesn’t count. Errands will score you a big, fat zero. We’re talking memory games, coloring, building, the nitty gritty. You only need ten minutes per day (each parent, with each kid, that is) and it must be an activity of his or her choosing. Monster tea party, monster trucks, pretending you’re a monster – whatever it is, it’s on.
Once we put this into practice, all my shame about hyper-scheduling kind of melted away. I realized that after-school programs didn’t need to take the place of quality time at home (even though Naomi would argue that it’s just “too much,” in general). And that quality time really is a thing. But most selfishly of all, I found out that “Special Time” not only fills the kids up, but it fills me up as well. So tomorrow, after art class, I plan to read our “Midsummer’s Night Dream; Shakespeare For Kids” book to my daughter for a good ten minutes, even if she falls asleep from exhaustion.
*Names in this piece have been changed to protect the individual’s privacy. Ha! Just kidding. But her name isn’t really Naomi.
