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Extracurricular burnout More families are joining a movement to stop kids' 'overscheduling madness'

By Karen S. Peterson
USA TODAY

Ever worry that your child's various coaches and tutors are spending more time with him or her than you are?

Increasing numbers of grass-roots groups are calling for time out. No more scheduling kids from breakfast to bedtime. The concerned are creating formalized family days, offering Web sites to support parents who want to reclaim family life and linking up with influential experts who are parents themselves and want to give kids time to do what they used to do: play.

Fledgling organizations including Family Life First; National Family Night; Take Back Your Day; and Turn off TV, Turn on Life! are making headway with a simple message: Get to know your kids again. Stop the competition with other parents for the busiest child. Stop the drive to create a list of activities designed to impress a college admissions board.

The latest effort comes from Putting Family First (www.familylifefirst.org) a Minnesota-based organization that recently mailed a local guide to about 4,600 families in achievement-oriented Wayzata, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis. In part, the consumers' guide pinpoints how much time and money certain local extracurricular activities require so families can evaluate the commitment involved.

''Our children are scheduled like CEOs,'' says William Doherty, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota and co-author of Putting Family First and Take Back Your Kids: Confident Parenting in Turbulent Times. ''What is lost is family time, dinners together, bedtime talks, visits to relatives, time to just hang out.''

More might be at stake, say those with a dire view of shrinking family time. A large, federally financed study in 2000 of American teens found a strong link between regular family meals and success in school, better psychological adjustment, lower rates of alcohol and drug use and reduced chances of early sexual behavior.

Overscheduling is ''becoming a cultural problem,'' Doherty says. ''Parents are not villains. But we have ratcheted up this competitiveness of childhood to the point it has gotten out of hand.'' In his book Putting Family First, he cites more intense sports programs, especially for girls; pressure on today's kids to succeed; parental peer pressure to hone a child's competitive edge; colleges' emphasis on ''well-rounded'' students; and increasing numbers of working parents who need to fill kids' after-school and vacation hours.

Margaret ''Bugs'' Peterschmidt, 45, of nearby Plymouth, Minn., helped birth both the children's guide and Putting Family First. It was her own children who first perceived a need to chill. ''It was the wisdom of my kids that got us back on track,'' she says. When the soccer sign-up forms arrived in January of 2000, her son and daughter, then 11 and 7, asked to junk them. The kids already were involved in a total of seven activities outside school.

The children took a sabbatical that summer, squelching all activities. They gave up TV and computers after dinner. Peterschmidt, a cake decorator, cut back on her volunteer time. When the kids got bored, she pulled out her list of chores, and they were suddenly inspired to make their own fun. ''Max got out his book of magic tricks,'' she says. ''He built a fort with a neighbor boy, rode his bike, and at night the kids played tag with flashlights. And they learned some life skills. Max became proficient at making omelets.''

Now the kids have modest after-school schedules. Betsy has piano lessons and recreational soccer; Max has violin lessons and two after-school clubs. ''We seem to have fewer blowups,'' Peterschmidt says. ''Homework doesn't seem overwhelming anymore. They are doing better in school. They are rested. What a novel idea.''

Says Max, who gets up at 5:45 a.m. for school: ''I got tired. It got better when we stopped doing all this stuff. And I get to hang out with my friends.''

Not all children are ecstatic when their parents pull the plug. ''We still hear some grumbling,'' says Emily Scott-Lowe, 48, of suburban Los Angeles. Her younger son, 11, is worried that he will have fewer trophies than his brother, 15, because their participation in team sports has been scaled back to make room for more family time.

''We are going against the grain. But we are firm,'' she says. When she pulled her son from the all-consuming all-star soccer team, the coach's wife called Scott-Lowe to beg her to relent. But her sons, she says, know her values: ''Family, church, school and then athletics.''

Other parents are hanging in there. Alvin Rosenfeld is ''a hyper-parent in partial recovery.'' He still battles the ''enormous pressures'' to overschedule his own children, ages 15, 12 and 9. A child psychiatrist, he also has done something about it. Rosenfeld is the co-author of The Over-Scheduled Child: Avoiding the Hyper-Parenting Trap. And he has started the National Family Night Organization (www.nationalfamilynight.org) ''to stop the overscheduling madness'' and urge families to set aside at least one night a month.

Well-meaning parents think backing away from activities and lessons ''is just a hair away from child abuse,'' he says. ''Parents rush so much to pay attention to activities that they neglect the relationships. And all the data shows the relationships (with parents and friends) make the difference.''

Although Rosenfeld and Doherty are spearheading organizations urging less organization, the idea goes back to the pioneering 1981 book by David Elkind, The Hurried Child: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon.

Elkind, a child development specialist at Tufts University, still worries about too-busy kids. He is writing The Overprogrammed Child, the child who has no time for spontaneous play. ''Baby-boomer parents are future-oriented,'' he says. ''They want to do what is best for their kids, so they put their children's noses to the grindstone'' with too many plans. That may benefit those who run ''overprogrammed team sports,'' but it is bad for the child who spends hours in adult-run activities with no time to develop his own creativity.

Amanda Richards, 44, of Wayzata, Minn., helped create the local guide to kids' activities. She says she and others in the trenches are not opposed to activities in general. It's the ballooning number of them that can cause havoc. ''There are two sides to the coin. The kids need to be involved and active. It builds character, discipline and responsibility. But you can build that in the family, too. ''And,'' she says, ''the family connections we develop last for a lifetime.''

Create time for family

Family advocate groups are asking parents to rethink the pace of family life, if only for a day or week at a time. Their ideas include:

* Citywide family night. A family services agency in Ridgewood, N.J., organized a family night in March. The school system canceled athletic practices and homework. National media covered the event, recording families playing checkers and making cookies together.

* Blank TV sets. The non-profit Turn off TV, Turn on Life! (www.tvturnoff.org) persuaded 6.4 million to turn off the tube and tune in to one another over a spring week in 2002. They hope to do better during TV-Turnoff Week next April 21-27.

* Rebalanced lives. Take Back Your Time Day (www .timeday.org) is a new, nationwide initiative that calls for a change of pace on Oct. 24, 2003. Rallies similar to those on Earth Day are planned to say ''no to the overwork, over-scheduling and overstress that threaten to overwhelm our lives,'' the Web site says.