Parenting Active Kids

Like any well-meaning parent, Margaret "Bugs" Peterschmidt never missed an opportunity to sign her two children up for a new experience that would make them more well-rounded than they already were. "Boy Scouts? Great! Church youth group, advanced math class? Don't want to miss that!" recalls Bugs. "All the while, my husband and I are working, the kids are in school, and I'm thinking I'm doing the right thing. Within one year, I got into two little fender benders, rushing from one thing to another."

Finally, it was the kids who put on the brakes, telling their mom, "We're tired of running around."

The Peterschmidts became one of a growing number of overburdened families struggling to slow down. By scaling back their children's organized activities, they're gaining family time and downtime. Gymnastics, ballet, piano, softball, tae kwon do, and choir are good -- but in moderation, says Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, coauthor of The Over-Scheduled Child (St. Martin's Griffin, 2001). "We're buying into an overscheduled lifestyle," he says. "It's burning kids out."

And our priorities are out of whack, says Dr. William Doherty, coauthor of Putting Family First (Owl Books, 2002). "A warm and limit-setting family is the most important element for kids and that requires a lot of time, time not spent running around," he says. "Children need time to daydream, to chill out. We've reversed it all."

Today's children spend twice as much time playing structured sports as kids during the early 1980s, according to a University of Michigan national survey. Kids have 12 hours less free time a week, eat fewer family dinners, have fewer family conversations, and take fewer family vacations. Particularly overloaded are families with elementary and middle-school students who try many activities -- and need a driver. More working parents need supervised activities for their children. These activities have intensified, becoming year-round and requiring more practices, games, and travel. Plus, "parents think their neighborhoods are more dangerous, so they're less likely to have their kids just go out and play," says Doherty.