Overscheduled Child May Lead to a Bored Teen

Many kids are more frenzied than ever because of overzealous parents who think the more activities a child does, the greater the likelihood of creating a trophy child: Scouts. Little League. Music lessons. Dance recitals. It's not uncommon to see a well-marked kitchen calendar of scheduled events that is just as crammed as many CEOs.

What happened to pickup games at the local Y? They may still be there, but what's packing them in more recently are yoga classes for children as young as 3. Not for fitness, mind you, but to help them chill out from their countless other organized activities.

"We're just responding to the needs of the community," says Lynette Lewis, family program director for the YMCA in Ridgewood, N.J. "We live in an area that's saturated with organized activities for children, and our residents take full advantage of that. We're finding that kids don't have enough down time to unwind ... just like their parents."

So in her suburban Manhattan burg, as well as the YMCA in Golden, Colo., and other facilities in between, kids from preschool to middle school are getting structured lessons in stress reduction -- both with and without their parents -- to better help them deal with their overstructured lives.

"Kids no longer go outside and hit the baseball. They have a game. They no longer sit and color, they go to art class," Lewis tells WebMD. "There is no doubt that they are spending their time in constructive activities that provide them with fun and useful skills. But they are spending a lot time in these activities and everything is so structured that everybody is stressed. Parents spend several days a week, sometimes every day, rushing from one after-school activity to another."

And notice who's sitting in the back of that minivan.

That might explain why in the past 20 years, the number of children who participate in organized youth sports has doubled -- yet teens who try out for their high school's sports team has reached an all-time low.

"By the time they reach high school, they are bored and burned out," says Alvin Rosenfeld, MD, former head of child psychiatry at Stanford University and author of The Over-Scheduled Child. "And it's because their parents have the well-meaning idea that the right way to parent is to overschedule them, with hopes of keeping them busy, active, and out of trouble."

Overscheduling Can Lead to Burnout

But what happens? By age 13, statistics show, three of every four children who participated for several years in organized activities have permanently shelved their cleats, Scout uniforms, or music books. Often, Rosenfeld says, it's those who started these activities before first grade.

"We see it in early adolescence, kids are bored from these once-beloved activities because it's no longer fun for them; they've been playing for so long," says David Elkind, PhD, professor of child development at Tufts University and author of The Hurried Child.