Busy Kids

Alvin Rosenfeld, MD, Child and adolescent Psychiatrist, New York; Meredith F. Small, Professor of anthropology, Cornell University (and) Robert Coles, MD, Professor of psychiatry and medical humanities, Harvard Medical School
 

Published August 21, 2004

The election is upon us; President Bush and John Kerry are already debating national issues. So far, their discussion about family matters has centered on their differing positions on abortion and gay marriage, and has ignored much else that concerns American families today.

One serious threat to families of all incomes is the current notion that urges parents to push children early and hard to help them succeed in this country. For some boys and girls, an American childhood has become an appointment book rather than a life stage. In the past 20 years, unstructured children's activities have declined by 50 percent, family dinners have declined 33 percent and family vacations have decreased by 28 percent. All too many children's lives are now dominated by after-school programs, lessons and team sports. This lifestyle has been widely accepted as necessary to produce "successful" children, and yet no empirical evidence has shown that an intensely scheduled childhood leads to a more successful, or happier, adulthood.

It doesn't take a child development expert to see that overscheduling leaves children with far less time to use their imaginations to explore their world, think about it and wonder about life itself, its reasons and purposes--the kind of activities that surely foster creativity in adulthood.

An overly scheduled and competitive childhood deeply affects the minds of our children. Most child psychiatrists would argue that children grow up well adjusted when their parents are satisfied with their own lives. In turn, a good life is measured not only by accomplishments but by being part of loving, peaceful relationships. Kids busy going to lessons and parents stressed about getting to activities on time are not exactly the kind of people who are relaxed enough to talk about what really matters in life (and why), or even to have time for shared silences.

Our presidential candidates would do well to focus their debate about families not only on the unborn but also on the kids who are already here, who need strong leaders who understand what childhood is about.