Fourth-grader Talia has quite the busy schedule. She has volleyball and gymnastics most evenings, and don’t forget weekend games and tournaments, including out-of-town competitions. When I had Talia and her parents zoom out and look at her week as a whole, they all recognized at least one incredibly important activity that was missing: Play!
High school sophomore Jess’s schedule is worse. She has cheer practice every day, games each week and competitive dance team practice most evenings. On week nights, she doesn’t get home until around 9:45 p.m., and her day doesn’t end there. She wolfs down dinner and then plunges into hours of homework, often not turning out the lights until around 2 a.m. What’s missing from Jess’s day? Quiet, calm and self-care.
Unfortunately, these overly scheduled and stressed out girls are not alone. Kids have absorbed cultural mantras like “more is better.” Girls in my counseling practice push back when I talk about the benefits of down time because they don’t see it as productive. The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation added a new item a few years ago to their list of environments that make it harder for teenagers to succeed. The prior list included items like poverty, trauma, domestic violence, parental addictions and racism. The new factor was labelled “excessive pressure to excel,” which often results in high levels of stress, alcohol and drug use, anxiety and depression.
Parents are pushing kids to become overfocused on the future. Kids get anxious because they’ve been conditioned to believe that everything they do now will affect them later. Everything they participate in is motivated by looking good on their college applications. Children have lost activities that used to be stress reducers: you can’t just draw, do sports or play an instrument because you enjoy it. They’ve become a means to an end. We are mortgaging their childhoods to achieve some amazing future.
A healthy childhood needs to contain lots of unsupervised, unscheduled, autonomous play time. Kids need time during the day to relax and refuel their tanks. According to research cited in Daniel Pink’s book, When, the most productive breaks include three factors: you need to get off your butt and move, go outdoors in nature and unplug from technology. Teenagers like Jess need to learn to cultivate quiet, alone time to reflect and to gather themselves. This time could be spent drawing, writing, listening to music or taking a walk. Do whatever you need to feel more grounded, relaxed, fully present and fulfilled.
There’s a wonderful story about a young man who joined a group of lumberjacks in order to make some money. He was paired with an older, grizzled veteran, and the young man was motivated to prove himself. He skipped breaks and took a quick lunch. At the end of the day, he was shocked to see that the old man had cut far more wood than he had. Exasperated, he asked the man, “How did you do it? You took a break in the morning, two in the afternoon and a long lunch.” The old man smiled and replied, “What you failed to notice was that every time I took a break I sharpened my saw.” Teach your kids to regularly sharpen their saws by modeling it and valuing it.
Tim Jordan, M.D., is a Behavioral Pediatrician who counsels girls aged grade school thru college. Listen to his weekly podcast, Raising Daughters, to gain information on raising strong, resilient girls. For more info on Dr. Jordan’s retreats, summer camps and books visit drtimjordan.com.
