Simplicity Parenting (25 page)

So these trends and the debate around them have been with us for
nearly thirty years. But just how much have things changed in that time, in essentially one generation? How do today’s kids spend their days, compared with how their parents spent theirs as kids?

Some activities have remained fairly constant since the early 1980s: kids ages six to eleven still spend a good chunk of their time every week watching television, though they now pass increasing amounts in front of a computer screen, too. They are in school about eight hours a week more now than they were in 1981, and the amount of time spent in structured activities (for example, sports, art, classes, church, social activities) has doubled: from 11 percent in 1981 to 20–22 percent in 1997.
¹
Time spent doing homework has also doubled. Fifty-two minutes per week did the trick in 1981, while kids ages six to eight spent 128 minutes in 1997, on average, completing after-school assignments. And that was before “No Child Left Behind;” a 2006 poll of parents conducted for America Online and the Associated Press found that elementary school students were averaging almost an hour and twenty minutes
a night
.
²

Overall there is less free time for kids today; as much as twelve hours a week less.
³
According to University of Michigan researchers, in 1981 the average school-age child had 40 percent of the day for free time, after sleeping, eating, studying, and organized activities, but by 1997 the figure was down to 25 percent.
⁴

Some parents, Carol included, feel that they’ve been unfairly blamed for these changes. And is it really so bad to be busy? Why aren’t their busy kids seen as fulfilled rather than frantic? What is wrong with wanting your children to have as many opportunities as possible? I don’t think blame is instructive or productive here. I don’t think the central issue of “overscheduled kids” is motivation—either the parents’ or the kids’. Most parents are driven by good intentions. Very few moms or dads (except, perhaps, on a bad day) would claim to keep their kids busy just to be left alone. Even given the very real, daily difficulties involved in juggling family, work, and personal responsibilities, most parents would take offense at the notion that they were rushing their kids, shortchanging them of a childhood. In wanting to provide for their children, here again parents act with generous motivations. But just as too many toys may stifle creativity, too many scheduled activities may limit a child’s ability to direct themselves, to fill their own time, to find and follow their own path.

We’ve all known kids who need an organizer—between school, classes, sports, clubs, meetings—to keep track of where they need to be
when. Or toddlers who have full schedules with varied child-care arrangements during the week, on the go and adjusting to different caregivers and social situations. Or kids whose days are so programmed that unscheduled time—even a spare fifteen minutes—seems strange, instantly “boring.” Are such relentlessly busy kids happier when they enjoy what they’re doing? Absolutely. But is there an emphasis on enjoyment, or accomplishment? Satisfaction, or competition? And motivation is difficult to untangle between parent and child. Is a child motivated by their own love of what they’re doing, or is their motivation colored by a desire to please? In either case, I don’t believe a child’s love of an activity protects them from the stress of doing too much of it, too young. I think an interest, if genuine, is sustainable over time. What’s more, a healthy interest requires time and the ballast of leisure and other interests for it to deepen and endure.

Balance
and
control:
These are the words that come to my mind when I think about overscheduled kids. Three words, actually:
balance, control
, and
fertilizer
. Children need free, unstructured time. They need time to do “nothing;” time to do handstands. Or to figure out a way to get the ice-cream truck to continue straight down the block without
always
turning at the corner. Or to make a good ice-cream truck plan while practicing handstands. How balanced can life be without free time? Not very. We understand this, but we also value productivity. Childhood and parenting are thoroughly examined now, much more than thirty years ago. Since childhood has become a “thing” (preparation for adulthood) and parenting has become a “thing” (what we do to
not
do things like our parents), we seek to control one with the other. Surely we can improve these “things.” Surely we can add more choices. And there must be ways to increase productivity. (Handstands abandoned, she’s lying down, splitting a blade of grass and blowing it like a kazoo.) This time—this afternoon, this childhood, this child—could be enriched! That’s it! Enrichment. As parents, we’ve discovered fertilizer. And we’re applying it by the ton to childhood.

Crop Rotation: Balanced Schedules

It was in the early 1950s, with the advent of chemical fertilizers, that farmers were able to bring greater control and productivity to their fields. They could enrich their fields, freed from the slow natural cycle of fertility. Fertilizer—fertility in bags—made it possible to dispense with livestock and manure, and with varied crops. Farmers were able to specialize, to plant acres and acres of densely packed monocultures. Miles of corn as far as the eye can see. Enriched soils meant greater outputs in shorter amounts of time.

The analogy has its limits, I agree. For example: Do three soccer practices a week equal one bag of fertilizer? But it provides some insights, and it can be a good guide to increasing balance in your children’s schedules. What about motivation? Well, the farmer’s motivation—to increase yield—is understandable, especially given the larger context. After all, the farmer is being pressured, too: How will his crops compare to those of the neighboring farms? In a fast-paced, competitive world, doesn’t it make sense to seek an advantage? To try to exert some control?

Unfortunately, there are costs to applying industrial principles to nature. The price of overfertilizing is exhausted, depleted soil. Land stewardship involves time: it requires more trust than control. Sustainable farming involves rotating crops, balancing crop fields with fields that are completely fallow, and those with a legume cover crop. The same can be said about kids; there are costs to controlling their schedules, to “getting more out” of their childhood years. They are leading superphosphated lives, busy with activities from morning to night. Excess “enrichment” is not soaking in; it’s running off, polluting their well-being. Activity without downtime is ultimately—like a plant without roots—unsustainable.

How does crop rotation apply to a “sustainable” childhood? Let’s dig a little further into it, as a new way of looking at our kids’ schedules so we can simplify them. Crop rotation is a model of balance and of interdependences. The bounty of the crop depends on soil that has rested and soil that has been aerated and replenished by the nitrogen of long-rooted cover crops, or legumes. Rest nurtures creativity, which nurtures activity. Activity nurtures rest, which sustains creativity. Each draws from and contributes to the other.

In terms of our kids, the “fallow field” is leisure and rest. It is the
much-lauded “downtime,” kicking-around time, hanging out, mucking about. It is time for contemplation, for staring off, for trying to whistle a recognizable tune when you can only whistle blowing in, not out. It is time that exists beyond the school bell, beyond the long arm of homework. It may seem like parallel universe time, existing beyond piano practice, dance classes, and even washing up for dinner.

I think of the legume, or cover crop field, as deep play, losing oneself in the flow of something deeply engrossing. It is the type of involvement—whether with an art or construction project, or reading—when time stands still. Self-consciousness and frustration fall away; your child is focused and in control. They are connected with what they are doing, but also connecting with who they are. This is the deep-rooted quality of creativity.

In simplifying schedules, I suggest to parents that they create a visual image of their child in deep, creative play. Very often this image will have something to do with art or nature. When is your child completely focused? When do you and their larger surroundings disappear, as their attention is completely drawn to what they’re doing? This time is not more or less important than leisure and activity; they are all interdependent. I emphasize it, though, because sometimes as parents, by not recognizing it, we haul our children right out of it. Like turning on the radio in church, we cut across it; don’t honor it. This is some of the most valuable time for your child to process sensory stimulation, and children who don’t experience it can be more nervous, less able to relax or sleep.

One more, small point about this deep play, or legume crop. As a parent I try to be mindful of when my children are fully involved in their play. It is something you can make space for and honor, but you can’t “control” it. Trust trumps control. As Dr. Spock said, “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” It doesn’t do to “instigate” deep play. You can’t direct it; you can only leave time for it and trust that leisure and activity will nurture your child’s creativity. It doesn’t work to schedule scores of art classes for your child, to “boost” and “enrich” their creative output. Your vision of creativity may not be theirs. Their creativity, as with their identity, is evolving. But you can recognize and honor this crucial middle ground between “full on” and “full stop.”

Activity—school, classes, sports, chores, socializing—is represented in the planted, or “crop field.” This involves normal “daily life” busyness: activity and interaction. It also includes the “good stress,” or slightly euphoric, elevated busyness of a class play, a sports competition or game, a
musical performance, parties, even exams. A full and rich afternoon, or a day. On the go, and in-the-mix time.

Activity and interaction are crucial, in balance. Just as rest nourishes action, vigorous activity feeds sleep; it also feeds the imagination. But a schedule that is 90 percent activities is out of balance. As parents there is no need to get out the stopwatch, portioning your child’s time into even thirds. But as we’ve seen in the past couple of decades, as a society we’ve “enriched” our kids’ schedules, ironically, to the point of overuse and depletion. The overscheduled child is like soil that has been constantly and exclusively cropped. Without rest and replenishment, without the deep roots of legumes to aerate and pull nutrients down into the soil, it becomes compacted, a dust bowl.

So how do we step off the “overscheduled” merry-go-round? How do we “oxygenate” our kids’ schedules and simplify their daily lives? I’m going to assume that most parents today don’t need help adding to their child’s—or to their own—schedules. We’ve tipped the scales so far in that direction that many parents struggle to know how to slow down. They don’t know how to simplify their own time, and they’re increasingly at a loss about simplifying their child’s.

Awareness is the first big step. We’ve worshipped at the altar of scheduled activities so dutifully that some parents only think of play in terms of playdates (a word that didn’t exist twenty years ago). If we begin to recognize the value of leisure time and creative time, we’ll make space for them. If we honor the importance of unscheduled time—of kids doing “nothing,” but on their time and terms—then we’re on our way. We’ll open up their schedules, simplify. When we see a free afternoon as a glorious opportunity—the neighboring kids are out, Jed’s frog eggs are turning into tadpoles, Mary’s found an open spot behind the lilac bush where she can just squeeze in and not be seen at all—then the unexpected has a place. Pleasant surprises can take root. After all, it’s not just what you make of your time, it’s whether you have the time to make it your own. I hope to increase your awareness of balanced time
in this chapter and suggest ways to make your children’s schedules more sustainable, so there is time for them to
build
inner resources—energy, preferences, interests, resiliency—as well as expend them.