By Dr Eugene Brink

When I was growing up, there were only a handful of extracurricular activities kids could do. The rest of the time was for playing, and even watching TV was a luxury.

Today there is a whole cottage industry of specialised activities (along with a myriad of TV choices) to cater for all needs and tastes. Kids have so much to choose from, yet they face the same challenges as anybody else: a scarcity of time and energy. And after all, kids need to be kids and just play in an unstructured fashion as well as do their homework.

It is noble to allow kids to try a range of activities and see what they like, but too many could lead to burnout and a lack of focus. “Whatever the reason, a child’s extensive list of extracurricular activities seems to be a badge of honour among middle-class parents. And families who can’t fund them fret that their children are losing out,” writes Sheila Wayman in The Irish Times.

Signs of too many activities

Kate Chandler, contributor at Kidspot and mom, lists some warning signs that kids are simply overstretched in terms of the number of activities they are involved in:

• The kids are doing a lot of things, but not many of them at their full potential.
• There is only one school night a week (Friday) when no one has anything on.
• There is hardly any time to just hang out together or have a mate over after school− this is probably the worst thing of all.
• We don’t have enough time during the week to get homework done satisfactorily.
• The kids are getting emotional and naughty because they’re tired, so everyone is crying and yelling far more than they should be.
• It is getting harder and harder for the kids to unwind at night and even harder for them to get up in the morning.

Gauging the quantity

“There is probably a fine line between striking a beautiful balance of music/arts/sports activities and ‘overscheduling’ our children to the point of exhaustion,” says Dr Moira Kennedy, an educational psychologist and director of the Children’s Clinic in Dublin. “As a psychologist, my advice would be to step back and examine your child’s weekly schedule and look at the quality of life of the whole family.”

She advises parents to ensure that their children’s activities are not preventing them from getting enough sleep, interfering with family meal times or depriving them all of unstructured playtime  and family time. “If a child is pressurised to continue with an activity they don’t enjoy, it can be counterproductive,” she says, and adds that not finishing something could be a new opportunity to try and do something new and exciting.

As a rough guideline, she says, one activity per day or two extracurricular activities in total is not a lot.

Corrina Vangewen, parental expert at Today’s Parent, agrees and says factors such as quality of life, interest and planning should be the priorities. “Learning about what your child’s interests are takes trial and error. And if those interests change, that’s OK.”

Christina Rinaldi, a registered psychologist and a professor of educational and clinical child psychology at the University of Alberta in Canada, says in terms of cost and time it is neither practical nor necessary to let children do everything to prepare them for every eventuality in life. Kids learn a lot at school, at home and during time spent with friends and family. “It doesn’t always have to be in a formalised extracurricular platform.”

Sources

Corrina Vangerwen, 14 August 2019, “Extracurriculars: How many is too many?”, https://www.todaysparent.com/kids/school-age/tips-for-deciding-how-many-extracurricular-activities/.

Kate Chandler, 3 July 2014, “How many extra-curricular activities should kids do?”, https://www.kidspot.com.au/parenting/primary-school/how-many-extracurricular-activities-should-kids-do/news-story/766e3ddfe2d4318c096a48ed169884c3.

Sheila Wayman, 4 September 2017, “How many after-school activities should a child do?”, https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/parenting/how-many-after-school-activities-should-a-child-do-1.3198073.