Activities Sometimes Overwhelm
Several months ago, I wrote a column on the “Frantic Family Syndrome” - the hectic lifestyle that results from racing children to and from various after-school activities.
A number of journalists from around the country have since asked me a number of follow-up questions, several of which I reprint below, along with my answers. (A copy of the original column can be had by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to Frantic Families, P.O. Box 4124, Gastonia, NC 28054.)
Q. What has caused so many American families to become frantic?
A. The “Frantic Family Syndrome” is the predictable consequence of shifting the emphasis in child rearing from character development to the development of specific skills. When it was understood that the primary role of parents was that of teaching children right from wrong, to be respectful of legitimate authority, to accept responsibility for their own behavior and so on, it was likewise understood that the most important experiences a child could have took place within the family unit.
Today, because parents tend to think that education in specific skills is utmost, they also think the most important experiences a child can have are those provided by various third parties - coaches, tutors and the like. Of course, the more skills, the better - or so parents think - therefore, the overcrowded “parenting” schedules that typify many of today’s families.
Q. What are the consequences of this to children and families?
A. There are actually two very different consequences - real and perceived. The real consequences are (a) parents and children are overscheduled and therefore overstressed, (b) family communication and intimacy suffer, and most unfortunately of all, (c) children are denied the benefits of something that can never be replaced: that is, childhoods spent in relaxed, closeknit family units in which they have plenty of time to absorb their families’ values as well as just sit back and smell the roses. The perceived consequence is that children are developing all these supposedly wonderful talents.
Q. Why do parents subject themselves to a lifestyle that’s so obviously stressful?
A. These parents are driven, first, by anxiety that if they don’t enroll their children in all these various “opportunities,” their kids will fall behind other children and never be able to catch up. Second, there’s the insidious notion that the more acts of selfless service one performs for one’s children, the better a parent one is. In short, these parents have become caught up in the modern “mob psychology” of parenting.
Q. What do you say to parents who are caught up in “Frantic Family Syndrome?”
A. I point out that if their children grow up with lots of different skills, but lack strength of character and family values, their skills won’t amount to a hill of beans. It’s character that makes the difference in life, and character develops courtesy of an apprenticeship in a loving, relaxed family.
Unfortunately, too many children these days are growing up in the back seats of their parents’ cars, talking to the backs of their parents’ heads and eating fast food while on the run from one largely irrelevant activity to another.
xxxx
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Rosemond The Charlotte Observer