The Child Rat Race

Several years ago, an experiment was conducted at UCLA where mice were put on amphetamines to determine how much of the drug was needed to cause an OD and kill them. The results were amazing! They found it took 20 times more of the drug to kill a mouse by itself then to kill one in a group of mice high on the drug. Better still, mice who had no drugs in their system, placed in a group of mice that were high, died at the same rate as the ones using! What does this tell us? A fast-paced life can kill you!

Never before have we lived in such a fast-paced culture. Parents are crazy busy with their careers and the raising of children. Children are busy with the demands of college-prep schools and one activity after another. Studies show that: recess time at schools has dropped by 50%, the amount of time kids have to spend at a sibling's activity has increased 6-fold (from a half-hour a week to three-hours a week), that anxiety disorders for children has skyrocketed over the past 15 years due the demands on kids.

My wife and I recently considered transferring our son to a different school for his middle school years. The new school had longer class times (meaning more time sitting in a structured setting) and far fewer breaks. The kids had to sit at assigned tables in the cafeteria... never allowed to visit outside their 20-30 class members all year... and then the remaining time consisted of listening to a lecture on a value topic. Ten percent of the time they could sit and talk without structure... but they could not run around and play. Virtually no free time to chill out or burn off some energy! This factor... along with some others... was the reason why we chose to keep him at his present school. There, he gets a 10-minute short recess and nearly an hour lunch, where he can sit with whomever he chooses from whatever grade to eat and do whatever he wishes (play outside, sit and chat, etc) after that. Our children are growing up in pressure cookers of constriction and stress!

Dr. Wendy Mogul, author of the excellent book “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee” writes, “Unsure how to find grace and security in the complex world we’ve inherited, we try to fill up the spaces in our children’s lives with stuff: birthday entertainments, rooms full of toys and equipment, tutors and lessons. But material pleasures can’t buy peace of mind, and all the excess leads to more anxiety. An especially troubling aspect of modern child-rearing is the way parents fetishize their children’s achievements and feelings. We want the child to be successful and we want the child to be happy. The emphasis is on finding ways to keep the child’s self-regard in tact and mood elevated." She sums it up by saying, "I’ve come to believe that many of the problems in the children I've counseled arose from two sources: the heavy pressure in a competitive world and their unconscious recognition of how unnaturally important they were to their parents."

Some suggestions:

1.) One activity per child, per semester (some authors say per year!). If you have multiple children, you probably need to spread the activities over the year so that siblings are not having to sit at practices and games for extensive periods of time. A good day to examine is your Saturday. How many hours are you and your children at organized activities?

2.) Year after year, studies have consistently shown that the most important activity for good child health is the sharing of a family dinner on a consistent basis. It is amazing how benefitial this one shared activity is! It has been shown to improve academics, prevent alcohol and drug use, improve social competencies, improve physical health, and more. Three to four nights a week, dinner at home, with Dad! The benefits are worth it!

3.) Control media! Children should never have a TV or computer connected to the internet in their rooms, never. Parents should never have a TV in their rooms either (bad for the family and marriage.... plenty of studies show this... get it out!)! Children should have limits on media (TV, computer, cell-phones, game boys, etc.).

4.) Increase your family fun time together and be creative in play with kids.

5.) Allow your children to have imaginative play-time... time to play by themselves and learn to entertain themselves.

5.) Don't forget the chores. Many chores allow the child to daydream and reflect on life. Reflection is a thinking skill that is becoming lost in our culture, yet it's through reflection that individuals learn to problem solve and think more deeply.

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."
Proverbs 4:23