We’re lead to believe that our kids need to be scheduled, their time accounted for. But, what they really need is freedom. White space. Time to be little. Is the fear of missing out preventing us from simplifying our kids’ lives?
Photos courtesy of Andrea Skidmore Photography
I felt like I stepped back in time this afternoon.
After chatting with a friend last night, we decided to meet for a local hike with our kids. Today, she called me to say she was on her way. My son and I grabbed our jackets, drove to the trailhead and met for a wander in the woods.
It was simple.
Uncomplicated.
It didn’t require 37 texts to negotiate the time and place. And we didn’t cancel on each other 5 times over a two-week period before finally meeting.
I’m still smiling. Because it reassured me that life can be easy. It reminded me of what life was like when I was a teenager; the manmade barriers thrown up by busyness didn’t seem to exist then like they do today.
Our kids didn’t need to be enrolled, entertained, scheduled, supervised, coached, or assessed in an adult directed activity to be happy. They led the way and we followed. They were free to take their time. Collect sticks. Throw rocks. Navigate the trail. Find their balance. Get dirty and have fun.
It left me craving more.
I’m conscious of the benefits of a slow childhood so I intentionally avoid over-scheduling our son. But, in our modern world I’m acutely aware that I’m the odd parent out. And that makes it hard.
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When we go to our local park on weekdays it’s either empty or if it’s after school it’s chock-full of organized sports with no space remaining for free play. Our neighbor’s kids don’t jump the fence like we used to and even if they did, they’re only free on Tuesday between 4pm-5pm; every other time slot is filled with gymnastics, hip hop and music lessons.
Developmental Psychologist David Elkind reports that kids have lost more than 12 hours of free time per week in the last two decades. A report titled, Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need Play in School, published by the Alliance for Childhood, reported that kindergartners in New York and Los Angeles spend nearly three hours per day on reading and math instruction, and less than thirty minutes each day on “choice” or play time.
Children are spending more time in organized sports which has been shown to significantly lower creativity as young adults. It’s not the organized sports themselves that destroy creativity but the lack of down time. Even two hours per week of unstructured play boosted children’s creativity to above-average levels.
With kids being carted from one activity to the next, the days of kids being kids and playing all day long has been erased from our society’s collective memory. We’ve devalued what children need most and replaced it with excessive adult control.
Perhaps, of all the elements of simplifying childhood that I’ve written about, simplifying schedules seems to be the one that causes the most controversy. Yet, it’s a relatively easy thing to do; there are no secrets or special tips you need to do it. It’s as simple as paring back and saying NO.
I think what stops us from simplifying is fear. Fear of missing out. Fear that we may be impeding our children’s future success. Fear of what other’s may think.
It takes a leap of faith and a brave parent to trust that simplifying our children’s lives and giving them down time to play, connect with their families and create simple joy is what our kids really need. We need to protect them from society’s time thieves as they will only keep taking more and more from our kids.
I’m heartened by my experience today. Because no matter what choices we make in life it feels better when we feel like we’re doing it as part of a community, even if it’s small or virtual. As Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Let’s find the courage to “miss out” together so that we can create white space in our children’s lives and give them the freedom to paint it with the vibrant colors they choose. I have no doubt they’ll create works of art beyond our wildest imaginations.
Do you crave simplifying your child’s life but don’t know where to start? Claim your FREE GUIDE today for Four Simple and Actionable Tips to start simplifying childhood TODAY. And connect with Tracy of Raised Good on Facebook and Instagram.
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Really lovely! We’re working on our first right now and we’re already talking about how we want to move somewhere more accepting of letting kids simply run around outside and get dirty once s/he is old enough.
Congratulations and good luck Natasha – kids are the best 🙂 And funny you say that as we are doing the exact same thing at the moment – planning a move to a small town. Thank you for reading!
We just moved to Utah and I see sooo much more of what I experienced in childhood here. Kids playing for hours outside! Playing with neighbors, riding bikes to school. There is so much nature to explore that our family does that every weekend. The kids find sticks, jump streams, skip rocks. It’s paradise for kids. Utah was never on my radar but my husband got a job here and I’m so glad he did. Check it out!
Love this article. But what if my child chose to watch tv during down time?
Set up an agreed-upon weekly TV schedule before-hand, then it’s already established. You can perk their interest with options, but let them lead.
I raised three children and am now partly raising two grandchildren while their mom is in school . We are tech people, not so outdoorsy, so we’re all on our computers and tablets a good part of the day. We like to go to the beach in the summer and live in an urban centre so the grandkids and their parents walk everywhere. No guilt here. Not everyone can/or wants to live in the wilderness or country. We’re an urban environmentalist family who happen to like technology. My kids work as: lawyer, mathematician, and nurse. Don’t worry about your kids watching TV on their downtime. It’s what we all do after a hard day of living or sometimes in the middle of it and we’re all braniacs not sports enthusiasts. (We eat only organic or local though so we’re not couch potatoes in the normal sense 😉
Oh, and we’re also unschooling.
I also wonder how this affects parents. We’ve limited our girls to one activity each, aside from school, but that’s three evenings right there. Plus I work, go to school, teach one night a week, and get together with friends once a week. My wife has her own schedule. I know I often feel overwhelm and frequently have to decide what can give so our obligations can get done. Maybe beyond the purview of this blog, but just struck me.
Completely understand Steve and you are not alone. Paring back on schedules, adult and child, can be beneficial to all of us. There is only so much we can do and the restorative effect of down time needs to be prioritized more for all of us I think.
Steve, We have three kids as well, and also limit to one activity each. But that can still take over our evenings and weekends. I’ve started limiting to no more than one (occasionally two) scheduled activities during a time period. For example, this year my middle son played winter basketball and winter football, my youngest son played fall and spring soccer, and my oldest son chose not to do any sports or other activities this year, but could have in either fall, spring or summer. It’s hard to “deny” them opportunities, but I felt I had to do it this way to prevent all of us running ragged. And that’s a huge benefit. With more down time, the boys have learned how to play with each other again! I also think it’s a good lesson for the kids to learn that they have to sacrifice sometimes for their siblings. If any of them become passionate about an interest that requires year round practice, I’ll deal with it when it happens! In addition to that, I’ve found my children can pursue many of their interests on the internet in their own time. For example, they have learned and practiced origami, made their own fidgit toys out of legos, and have practiced cooking recipes.
This speaks directly to my heart! I believe this with my whole being, but it can be so hard to not get sucked in to all the activities. My girls are 3 and 5 and everyone asks what the do in terms of lessons. When I say they don’t, I feel like I am doing something wrong. As an early childhood educator I know it’s not wrong, but it is so easy to be influenced. Thank you!
I might be going against the grain here too, but I also think that young children being load with homework at night after a full day of school cuts into the time the where kids are allowed to be kids and also cuts into family time too.
I agree. School seems long enough.
Couldn’t agree more Danielle! We are yet to get to that hurdle but I think if we do I’ll be the parent pushing back on homework. It seems to be going that way more so I hope homework will become a relic for little kids soon.
Definitely fight the homework fight, Tracy! There is ZERO scholarly evidence that homework in primary grades yields any benefit, and sufficient evidence that it’s actually harmful. It imposes on family time, it burns out young children, it creates tension between the child and parental “enforcer” of the homework, and has no place in K through middle school. High school is a different story. But little children are learning to love learning. They should be read to nightly and that’s that. We have been successful fighting it in our school by sharing relevant articles and our personal stories/struggles.
I don’t give homework and I am a teacher. I encourage the children to do things they enjoy or see some cultural event in the city. Then we write down what they’ve done or experienced for their vocabulary of the week
And to learn sentence structure.
We live on Hamilton Island, Australia & we are all for our kids being kids. Having the safety of a small community allows our kids to wander the island or play at the beach. Creating independence ??
Oh nice Nicole, I’m jealous 🙂 I’m from Melbourne but lived in QLD for uni and absolutely love the beach. Would love to visit one day. We’re thinking of moving to a smaller community at the moment too – craving more simplicity. Thanks again for reading.
I agree with downtime and I do like organized sports at the same time. My kids love sports and ask to play. Baseball even though it is on a schedule is such a fun summertime activity that I used to love and now my kids do. My kids often play their sports in the yard imagining a large crowd is cheering them on or that they got a home run and it’s adorable. I choose both and don’t schedule my kids outside of the sports. I have friends that seem to do the random stuff but on a schedule. Contacting me to set it up and setting time constraints or parameters. I do notice religion seems to be a scheduling thing also now. There’s religious ed night , Vacation bible school and a bunch of activities at church in addition to church. I think everyone sort of finds the thing that works for them in raising kids. Friends think I’m crazy that I don’t drop my kids off at VBS since it’s free. I follow my kids lead in what they seem interested in and say no to the rest. I’ve had friends over the years that really try to get me doing things that I don’t want to do or my kids don’t want to do. I say no to most of it and sometimes feel alone as a mom in my decisions but I don’t regret it. If it doesn’t serve our needs or genuinely help someone in need then I say no as nice as I can.
I agree and disagree with this article. I believe both are equally important as long as they spend time socializing with friends. For many children, shyness prevents them from socializing so the extracurricular activities give them a place to find common interests and in turn attract friends. If they are shy and are only involved in family activities they turn out to be socially awkward and lack the ability to socialize with peers which sets them up for lack of social skills as an adult and difficulty being motivated to compete in a society which is unfortunately based on social skills and at least some competition. I truly believe u need extracurricular activities (one), family time and friend time. You dont get 1 and 3 if you only do family related activities.
Hi Mary, I encourage you to read Hold onto your Kids byGordon Neufeld. He explains that children learn to socialize by socializing with people in general. It can actually be detrimental for the to socialize with peers because peers are usually just learning themselves and therefore make poor role models. My little guy is three and he’s excellent at socializing but can never understand why his peers don’t answer him half the time. It can be very confusing. Adults are much better role models ?.
I agree with both Haley and Mary. Adults are indeed much better role models AND also children need to learn the skill of negotiating with their peers.
Personally, I love the idea of benign negligence as a hedge against (my)
tendancies to overparent my kids. Allowing kids to problem-solve first and access the parent as a back-up…
Also, of course sporting type activities don’t increase creativity. That is what art and music are for. What they do is help children to socialize, teach them to work hard to accomplish something and build the foundation of teamwork.
You are so right Tracy. There is a lot of pressure to put your kids in all sorts of activities so that there is no free time and we did not want to be ruled by our daughter’s schedule so we said no for many things. I laughed when you said it was nice to not have to plan far in advance and cancel/reschedule several times because I found it ridiculous trying to set up playdates for our daughter. Everyone acts like they have a child prodigy so no wonder they grow up with an entitlement mentality.
Thanks so much Kimberly and happy you enjoyed the post! Yes, it was like a breath of fresh air to meet up with a friend so easily – it’s become rare. Good on you for following your own path and keeping things simple for your family!
I will most likely allow my boys to join sports if thats what they are interested in. But I’ve made the decision that they won’t be doing them until they are older. Right now I want them to learn to play, to be creative, to use their imagination! Right now I enjoy seeing them riding bikes, digging holes, building forts! There is such a small window in life where they can be carefree.
Great post. I wish we could just go back to basics with our kids! I wish we could figure out a way to have more relaxed weekends, less scheduled activities, more downtime etc. etc.
Children are missing out on the basic building blocks of a successful life; things like social skills, manners, confidence, and integrity.
My summer project with my three kids is to get back to basics without technology and focusing on these basic building blocks. Blog post coming soon on my website http://www.thesmartplaybook.com 🙂
I hated the rush, rush feeling and wanted my kids to have time to frolic and ponder. Something DID have to go– but for my family it was school. Now that we homeschool we can maintain a productive pace similar to that of traditional school, enjoy our extracurriculars, AND have unstructured time to think, play and dawdle. For us, homeschooling is more a lifestyle choice than anything else.
Marci,
I made the same lifestyle choice to homeschool, and for the same reasons. We homeschooled for two years. Then life situations and finances required me to go back to work, and my children to return to traditional school. We did this for three years, and once again were reminded that our family thrives and functions the best when we are homeschooling. I was able to cut down on my hours and go back to homeschooling, and I am so grateful to be able to do so. I have seen my children’s creativity, love of reading, and free play slowly return over this year- It’s so wonderful to see how my children grow with adequate downtime!
I like this. Along these same lines… forcing kids to do things so you can post a “Making Memories” post on Facebook. Do these parents not even notice how damn bored their kids look in those pictures? Let them be kids.
So true!
I agree and disagree too. I have a child with special needs, and while free play time is definitely important and is almost all my typically developing child needs, my child with special needs DOES need to be “enrolled, scheduled, supervised, coached, or assessed in adult-directed activit[ies]” in order to develop to her full potential. Your post sounds lovely for children with no extra struggles. <3
I had the exact same thought. Glad to see I’m not the only one.
Love this article.
I have recently gotten rid of 90% of my kids toys and ALL scheduled activities (kids are 2 and 4). Since doing so, I have noticed that my kids and I are a lot more relaxed and happy. They now play together for a lot longer, help each other out, and are more loving towards each other.
They don’t rely on me to keep them entertained. Instead, They look around and find something to do themselves.
I dred the day they start kindergarten because I know play time is almost non-existant in primary school.
In the mean time I will enjoy watching my kids be kids
I’m the grandma without any grandchildren. I watch the new parents and wonder if their children are even allowed to catch frogs and get dirty, play in puddles and bring their muddied boots into the living room.
I hear the soccer Mom’s talk about the importance of sports early so their children can get soccer scholarships for college and it sickens me. From the start, these little kids are taught to play well….instead of play for fun and do their personal best. I have seen children grow thru their sports with so much pressure that it not only made them hate sports at some point but it was how they measured their own worth. What happened to playing for fun….even if you aren’t great?
How many kids are given basic tools….a hammer, some hardware and some cast off wood or building materials and set free into the back yard to build a fort? When there is a snowstorm….what do parents today do? They panic! Oh no….no dance or swim class or piano lessons…what will we DO? Some of the best memories I have with my kids were because of snow! We had giant igloos that the neighborhood kids built together and we closed off the rest of the house to pull the sofa-bed up in front of the fireplace where we tossed aluminum foil wrapped potatoes and a pot of soup onto the burning logs. We slept there and read there and ate there. We weren’t worried about missing a practice….non of us were destined to be Olympians but there was another chapter to read in the mystery novel or maybe even a few entries into a personal journal after a long day in the snow. I’ll take a snowball fight any day over the 30th soccer practice of the season.
Kids need to fish. Kids need to kick at the pavement and discover odd rocks. Kids need to lay in a field and wonder out loud. Hey! That cloud looks like an alligator eating a mouse! We need grocery bags opened up flat and taped to the kitchen floor so a toddler can draw while dinner is being made. We need kids who still sprout beans for science projects and build card houses and raise goldfish. We need kids who discover their passions through play and the outdoors. We need kids less sports, less scheduled groups, less time in front of devices and more time to scratch their heads and say….” Gee….I wonder….”.
Thank you so much for sharing Ruth Ann! Beautiful. 🙂
I am a big supporter of free/unstructured time for children. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of playing outdoors, on our bikes, in the woods, making dens etc and I want that for my kids. my children are 5 and 3 and they will spend a whole day in our garden, in the mud kitchen and on the trampoline, lost in their own imaginary world and they get along so well. They come in for snacks and drinks and that’s about it. They both do swimming lessons once a week and for now that’s enough. We have lots of friends over and love play dates at the park too because we love socialising and I believe that is just as important too.
#takingitbacktosimple
ABSOLUTELY. I always feel kind of lame when folks ask us what our kids do for activities — and we’re homeschooling, so we get that question an awful lot — and I go through my pat answer of no, we don’t do sports, but we’re really involved in 4-H, blah, blah, blah. I go ahead and tell a select few that running the kids around to every club and sport under the sun conflicts with what we want our family culture to look like, and even those (carefully screened) folks often look at me like I have 3 heads. But I remember the hours and hours of unscheduled time I had as a child with great fondness, and I am constantly looking for ways to further simplify our already relatively un-busy-ness so that our kids can have MORE opportunities to be bored, to daydream, to play a pick-up game of football or baseball, to ride their bikes, to plant fairy gardens, read a non-school-related book, draw a picture, or write a story, or a letter — whatever they choose to do. Even if it’s take a nap! That’s priceless time right there. So, you’re not alone. 🙂
My son has never wanted to play organized sports, and part of me secretly loves this. We don’t do the practice/game rush and he prefers to play freely, something I did so much of growing up.
This is a very Montessori way of looking at children. Dr. Maria Montessori said to follow the child and really it is amazing when you allow that to happen.
This resonates so much to where I am trying to get with my kids. We currently live an apartment in the city, and I have spent the last few months looking for a new place with some land to let the kids roam and learn on their own. It’s hard trying to let kids develop naturally and freely with everyone and everything pulling each and every way. Especially in the rat race of the city. Thank you for this post it is so relieving to see I am not alone in what I want for my kids.
I so want this but when I offer my kids unstructured free time it seems like they always end up fighting, getting injured or breaking something! Then I get exasperated and start planning more activities!
What do you do if there is no one for your child to play with? I live on a street with several families, a forest behind us and a park in front. My son, unfortunately, is always the only kid outside. He doesn’t stay out long if he’s by himself. What do you suggest?! Ps. He does have a sport he participates in 2 days a week for an hour.
I am an “odd” mom from Argentina , who lived in Alberta few years ago and let my kids play free as much as I can and because they ask for that. Loved your post !
Such a great post. I am the “odd” mom out in NYC, although I’ve found a small, merry band of moms like me (mostly from Europe) who let our kids (oldests are now in 5th grade) run free in the afternoons. It’s amazing how counter-cultural it can feel, although in my experience NYC kids play outside and freely in greater numbers than many kids in smaller towns and suburbs, where parents have to be involved (driving to and from) and gathering together in groups is not as easy. I do agree, it’s much easier to “miss out” together.
As a behavioral health clinician and consultant I have to say this article is spot on. Over scheduling paired with the idea we must always be in contact with the entire world via cell phones and the internet is changing the brains of our children and reshaping our society, for the better in some ways, but mostly for the the worse. Kids must be allowed to be kids and play, be free, understand the joys of childhood to be well adjusted adults. More people need to read and understand if we schedule the free time out of the lives of children we delete creativity, flexibility, and a healthy ability to think outside the box out of their future.