How Many Activities is Too Much for Your Child?

In a world of active lifestyles, where over scheduling seems the norm, how do you know when your kids are involved in too many sports, groups or clubs?

There are many more ways to tell whether or not your child is sick of running the rat race. And, it could also be a combination of other external things as well, but this list is a quick-check way of knowing that something is wrong.

6 Common Sense Signs of Kids Who are Over Scheduled:

Declining grades
Excessive tiredness
Inability to focus
Moping, sadness or lacking interest in activities all together (forgetting pieces to uniforms, dragging to get ready, very slow in getting started on the field)
Inability to achieve advanced level in current sport or activity (think Karate belt graduation or next level in piano playing)
Sudden sicknesses when practice/game day comes

Listen to your children, if they say they want to quit, don't take it personally, don't chastise, just talk it out with them. It could be a passing moment of being overwhelmed, a difficult stage of the sport, a big test coming up, a bully on the team, or they may actually be sick of 'running the rat race'. (Not all kids are the same; some kids need several extracurriculars while other's need more down time.

Find the balance and you will have happy kids.

Here are some additional resources on this topic:

Over scheduling = Stress

Overbooked?

Mom's Talk: (Video)

How many extracurriculars does your child participate in?

Do you think it's too many, too few?

How many hours do you think is too many?

Please leave your comments below.

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