Busy Burnout

MONDAY NIGHT: soccer practice. Tuesday night: ballet class. Wednesday night: Scouts. Thursday night: piano. Friday night: basketball game. Saturday night: gymnastics. Sunday night: youth group

If this type of nonstop, on-the-go schedule is locked into your Blackberry or permanently posted on your refrigerator, you’re not alone. From sports and Scouts to crafts and karate, more and more parents are finding they could use a timeout to deal with their kids’ stat sheet of extracurricular activities.

Take, Adam Meek, 11, for example.

For the past three years, Adam has spent Mondays after school taking piano lessons, as well as practicing 30 minutes at home each night. He recently expressed interest in learning to play the guitar.

Adam, a sixth-grader from Colleyville, Texas, is in his fifth year of scouting, his first as a Boy Scout.

Now that school has started, Adam is planning to join the math and science club, which meets for an hour after school Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wednesdays will be chess club meetings.

Karl Meek and his wife, Ruth Ann, don’t have a problem with their son’s many activities as long as he abides by one rule.

“We want dinner at home each night,” his father says. “We’re really concerned with making sure we have family time in the evenings and on the weekends.”

Meek says if Adam were to ever feel overwhelmed, he knows all he has to do is say the word.

“If it’s too much, he’ll let us know,” he says. “I’m sure he would.”

For many other families, though, that doesn’t happen. Experts say kids can start to feel like they’re drowning with too many practices, games and recitals. They want to be involved, but they also want their free time. With pressure to build up a solid resume of activities that may eventually look attractive to colleges, and pressure to keep up with what the other equally busy kids at school are doing, finding the balance between both worlds is not always clear for children or parents. The question is: How much is too much? Are you helping your child by encouraging the extracurricular pileup, or putting your kid on the road to early burnout?

The answer can begin with one simple step, says Joyce Anderson, vice president for education and training at Children’s Choice Learning Centers, based in Plano, Texas.

“The balance happens when the children are happy and engaged in the activity they had input in selecting,” she says.

Anderson says parents have to be sensitive to what’s going on with their children and the activity they’re involved in.

“Are they getting enjoyment out of it or is it something we just think they should be experiencing?” she says. “You’ll know how much is too much by watching your children and seeing whether they’re happy.”

Experts say that helping children explore their natural interests is key to their growth. It’s when the parent’s desires override those of their children’s that problems arise.

“I have found over the years working with hundreds of parents that many see their children as another `project,’ and they are going to `get this one right,’ ” says Mimi Doe, founder of www.spiritualparenting.com and author of “Busy but Balanced” (St. Martin’s Press, $18.95).

Doe says parents often will push their children to advance and “manage their schedules as if they were little CEOs.

“The result is a generation of burned-out kids,” she says.

The way to narrow down the field of extracurricular choices, Doe says, is for families to sit down and discuss what the child wants and what will work for the family.

“Consciously listen to what it is your children are interested in and allow them the respect to tell you how they feel,” she says. “Then, look at the logistics of the family’s fall schedule, in terms of budgeting time and money and carpool stamina.”

For parents who have difficulty carving out a manageable schedule, Doe suggests limiting a child to three activities: one artistic, like dance or music; one social, like scouting or a church youth group; and one athletic, like soccer or baseball. Also, try to schedule lessons every other week, she says.

One essential “to-do” that should be penciled in, Anderson says, is making room for “unstructured time,” like swimming and pickup basketball games in the back yard.

“We’re giving our children too much structured time,” she says. “The value of unstructured time is good. Unstructured doesn’t mean unproductive.”

When children do feel they’ve had enough, they may rebel in obvious as well as nonverbal ways, says Rick Peterson, an assistant professor and extension parenting specialist at Texas A&M University.

“When we push too hard, there will be that backlash,” he says. “They won’t want to go to that activity and won’t want to participate when they’re there.”

For some children, Doe says, the pressure they’re feeling to get involved as much as possible comes straight from their parents, who don’t mean harm but, nonetheless, are creating an uphill battle for their child.

“Parents can impose their expectations,” she says. “Our dreams for this child then become the end result, and then we micromanage their lives according to these expectations. It’s tragic. … As high-achieving parents, we just assume our children have the same dreams for achievement.”

Which, Doe says, is not always the case.

“If you have a child who is introspective and dreamy … at 16, and wants to care for her pet, we say she’s aimless,” she says. “The reaction is to sign her up for any and everything, because after all, we think, that’s what colleges look for. That can be really tough for a child’s self-esteem.”

Doe has a simple answer for parents who assume the bigger the resume, the better the chances for college admission: “Colleges can smell a rat,” she says. “They’re looking for a teen-ager who has a clear interest and has gone, themselves, deeper into that interest, whatever it is. Colleges really don’t care about sports unless they’re going to recruit a kid. If your kid wants to paint, let him paint.”

Peterson, however, says colleges do want to see that a student has had a range of experiences that have helped shape them and their education.

“Any evaluation of a person’s background in terms of their interests and what they’ve done is an important part of that educational process,” he says.

“When you’re looking at evaluating somebody’s application, you want to see, I think, quality plus a little variety.”

Peterson echoes Doe when discussing the “trap” parents can get caught in believing the more activities, the better.

“You have to look at the quality of the activity and the function of that activity,” he says. “We know families that are run ragged. It ceases to be fun for both the parent and the child.”

Peterson says one of the most important, understated aspects of getting involved in activities is the opportunity for children to make choices.

“It’s helping children sort through a problem-solving process,” he says.

Although parents should never force a child to do an activity, Peterson says, there are instances when a child does need to be guided and exposed to new environments.

“It’s got to be a mutual give-and-take,” he says. “A particular activity may be beneficial for a child, but they think they don’t have the skills or feel insecure.”

That’s when parents should sit down with their child and discuss the activity and what it is the child would like to get out of it, Peterson says.

“With that dialogue, that helps both the child and the parent,” he says.

Kids get the most out of extracurricular activities when they feel excited about participating, says Rebecca “Kiki” Weingarten, a former teacher and co-founder of Daily Life Consulting in New York City.

“The extracurricular activities can add enormously to children’s lives, self-esteem and sense of themselves when it’s approached in the right way,” she says.

That, Weingarten says, means knowing when children need a break.

“It starts to be too much when their schedules are like their parents’ schedules,” she says. “Always running off to the next place for the next activity … the kids get really overextended. They just can’t do it.”

While kids are feeling pressure from parents, parents are feeling it from other parents, Weingarten says.

“Parents start asking ‘How come your kid is not in ballet?’ or `Why isn’t your kid playing a musical instrument?’ ” she says. “If you have a very high-achieving parent, they want their kid to have everything, and it’s just too much.”

Weingarten also says parents should make sure their children fully understand what pursuing an interest entails.

“Sometimes a kid will say yes, they want to play the piano, but they don’t know what it means,” she says. “They don’t realize they’re going to have to play every day and memorize notes.

“Meanwhile, the parent goes out and buys a grand piano before the kid even touches a key.”