“Hyper-parenting” is defined as the obsessive need to plan, enrich, and raise your child the exact right way, and the belief that planning the perfect blend of activities will create the perfect child.
While there is nothing wrong with parents wanting their kids to keep up
with peers in sports and social activities, it can definitely get out of
hand. Below are some questions to ask yourself to determine if you are a
hyper-parent:
• Does your family have regular and frequent family time? Do you as the
parents have your own lives?
• Does your child have plenty of down time?
• Do extra activities affect your child’s grades? Is she able to complete
her homework?
•Does your child ask to quit his activities, or fight you about going?
•Does your child get enough sleep? Is she unhappy and moody, or upbeat most
of the time? Does he get sick often?
•Does your family have expensive toys but no time to use them?
FAMILY TIME
“We invest our time and money on enriching activities and entertainment, but
we often fail to provide what children want and need most to thrive: a
strong sense of connection with mom and dad,” says Vickie Falcone, author of
“Buddha Never Raised Kids and Jesus Didn’t Drive Carpool.”
“As parents, we may love our children, make sure they eat healthy, enroll
them in the finest schools, and yet never know their souls,” Falcone
continues. “Study after study has concluded that a feeling of
‘connectedness’ is the single most important factor in a child’s success and
happiness.”
Over-scheduling takes away from the unplanned time it takes to develop
quality family relationships.
“Family time should be as important as education, athletics, social activities and other outside commitments,” say Rosenfeld and Wise.
Kids also need to see their parents enjoying time together. “I have friends who never get a night out because they’re too busy with their kids’ schedules,” said Deanne Orlando, Livonia parent and teacher. “A kid is over-scheduled if the parents have no lives of their own because of the running and money it costs to have an involved child.”
DOWN TIME AND CREATIVITY
According to Rosenfeld and Wise, in hurrying and over-scheduling kids, we
are grooming them to be over-achieving workaholics who believe that down
time is wasted time.
“Often they go along achieving for years, get accepted into the best college and even graduate, and then break down,” say the authors. “The problem: for years they ignored the stress and left no time to relax or enjoy themselves.”
Everyone needs unscheduled time. It is healthy to be unproductive for part of your life, to just “be” and not necessarily “do.” Your child and your life are meant to be enjoyed, and the unhurried family activities are often the most enjoyable.
Spontaneous family activities that build relationships include playing
board games, playing catch, hiking or watching movies. The sky is the limit
once you unlock the family’s collective imagination.
“Hobbies and passions are great, but they are supposed to enrich lives, not
cause stress,” say Rosenfeld and Wise. “Empty hours teach children how to
create their own happiness - and that is an important skill.”
Elaine Peterson, Ann Arbor mother, agrees. “Self-esteem and confidence can come from skill building in music lessons, dance, karate or sports,” she said. “Social skills are important, but so are creative and imaginative thoughts from unscheduled time.”
In addition to alone time, kids also need time with friends when no adults are micromanaging their activities. If an adult is always coaching or organizing, the child is unable to fully practice and learn the skills necessary for friendship and relationship building.
EDUCATION
Education is another area that often gets short-changed if a child is
over-scheduled.
“As a teacher, I think it’s really important that education comes first,
before extra activities,” Orlando said. “It's the parents’ responsibility to
recognize over-scheduling, but often it’s the parent who creates it.”
Orlando gives the example of kids who wake up at 5:00 am to get ice time for hockey or skating. After school, these same children take religious education on top of two or more other activities simultaneously.
“The kids with those schedules are usually the kids that struggle to
complete homework,” she said.
Many parents make the mistake of prioritizing sports before education.
Coaches will convince parents that if their child practices enough, they
might be part of the 1% that receives college scholarships for sports, even
though almost none of that select group ever makes the pros.
“Their lives will depend on education, yet they spend so much time
practicing sports that in college, they often have to choose between
education and sports,” say Rosenfeld and Wise.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently warned parents and doctors about
the dangers of kids competing in demanding, competitive sports. They
strongly advised that children play multiple sports, and specialize in only
one sport after puberty.
Instead of putting so much emphasis on sports or other activities, it’s important for parents to realize that childhood is a preparation for adulthood, not a performance.
“Somewhere along the parenting ride, I realized that my long-range job was to "catch' the moments from life in which my child's eyes light up and head spins around,” said Kate Anderson, Highland mother, grandmother and teacher.
"When I noticed this attraction, I could encourage them to recognize and pursue their interests.” When teaching, Anderson uses the same tactics, and believes that these magical moments help children determine the purpose for their lives.
QUITTING
What if your child fights about going to a class or activity? Should
children be allowed to quit?
“When I was growing up, the rules were black and white. Whatever you
started, your stuck with,” said Carrie St. Michel in Good Housekeeping
Magazine. “Most parents tend to be more flexible now.”
It’s important to teach a child to fulfill his commitments. For example, she
should stick to a team she has committed to for the season, but there’s no
reason to force him to take piano lessons indefinitely.
"Parents need to give children a chance to experiment, to find out what they like and don’t like,” says David Elkind, Ph.D. author of “The Hurried Child.” “Sometimes a child wants to quit an activity because she has too much to do. “If that’s the case, dropping out can be a good thing.”
Mary Burck, a Farmington Hills mother, agrees. “I think two planned activities a week are plenty,” she said. “I make sure that these are things my son really enjoys doing. If I notice that’s it is becoming just another obligation, I don’t hesitate to have him quit.”
MOODS, HEALTH AND SLEEP
The fact is most children do not get enough sleep. Growing bodies need 9-10
hours of sleep per night, according to doctors on www.webmd.com. Yet the
total average sleep time for school-aged children is around 7-8 hours.
"This is a much bigger problem than people think," says Richard Simon,
M.D., of the Kathryn Severyns Dement Sleep Disorder Center. "They
underestimate the problems of being sleepy in the daytime and how it impairs
mood and affects performance."
In addition to affecting mood and performance, sleep deprivation is not
healthy. If your child gets sick more than twice per year, it’s possible
more sleep is needed.
To combat this sleep deprivation, many high schools now offer later starting times. However, this may not solve the problem.
“The overall culture -- including the student's home life -- has to
change,” says Amy Wolfson, Ph.D. of the National Sleep Foundation.
"We live in a very fast-paced society….when we have expectations about the
homework teenagers do and the activities they participate in, we need to
take into account the fact that they need time to take care of their
bodies."
MATERIALISM
Don’t all good parents want to raise their children to be productive and
successful? The problem is that we keep raising our expectations on how much
money it will take to make us happy.
“The materialism of our generation has led us to believe that expensive educational toys and high priced extra-curricular activities will help us to better raise our children,” Feldman and Wise explain.
Burck disagrees with this materialism. “What do kids have to look forward to if they’ve already been in a limo at age 7? To me, these parents project onto their kids what they wish they had when they were young.”
WHY DO WE HYPER PARENT?
In addition to trying to live our dreams through our children, we are the
oldest, most educated generation of parents ever. However, according to
Feldman and Wise, we have yet to realize that “raising children is not like
writing a dissertation, or putting together a marketing plan…Childhood
needn't be an endless treadmill of productivity and self-improvement.”
Some people may hyper-parent because they came from large or busy families and felt insignificant. Therefore, they make up for this by giving their own children every possible “opportunity.”
Technology also plays an important role in the parental desire to over-schedule. We plan and follow our pregnancy in detail. We check our children’s progress charts and compare them to others to predict their success in life. We then measure our success as parents based on our children's successes.
TRUST YOURSELF
Of course there is no one right way to parent. Every family is unique and
has its own characters, priorities, traditions and interests.
Orlando believes that “Kids, like adults, are all obviously different. Some thrive on busy schedules, other stress over them. My two girls are a good example. If the two traded schedules, neither would be pleased.”
When it comes to your family, you are the expert. In the words of Dr. Benjamin Spock, "Trust yourself. You know more than you think you know.”
In other words, don’t listen to others’ ideas about how many activities your children should have. Instead, when weighing the benefits of participation in a new activity against the costs, include not only money but also time, energy, effort and stress.
“Essentially it all boils down to the fact that all the parts of your life have to mesh,” Anderson philosophizes. She also believes in advance planning.
Orlando agrees that planning and communication are essential. “Every Sunday night, our family sits down with our planners,” she explained. “We put each others’ plans on our own schedules so we know everyone’s whereabouts and how we can support each other.
“We have done this for the past few years and it does work well,” she concluded. “The few weeks we skipped our family meeting were more disorganized and stressful for all of us.”
Secrets of Happy Families
These secrets were discovered in “Happily Married with Kids” by Carol Ummel Ph.D., and “100 Simple Secrets of Happy Families,” by David Niven, Ph.D.
•Connect with your family members through conversation, eye contact and
simply giving them time!!!
•Attend each other’s performances and show interest in others’ activities.
•Spend plenty of time with extended family and family friends.
•Make sure parents get enough “adult time.”
•Parents should also schedule regular time with each of their children
separately.
•Listen without judgment.
•Deal with issues as they arise, and communicate often in a positive manner.
•Eat family meals together.
•Establish and maintain family traditions.
•Have family meetings to discuss a family vision, goals, priorities and
issues.
•Spend time working together on common projects.
•Watch family videos together and look at family pictures.
•Raise a pet, which increases family togetherness and happiness.
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