Are you hurting your kids or helping them?

It has been troubling my mind seeing how many classes parents has registered their kids into. My son is 5 years old so I know a lot of other parents with kids of same age. Its hard to arrange a play date with other kids since they are always in one class or the other. Parents are always complaining about how busy they are driving kids back and forth for the classes. Why are we putting ourselves and our kids in so much misery? I have asked parents why have they put their kids in multiple classes. I get few common answers.

1. Academic pressure — Parents want their kids to be competitive and be the toppers in school.
2. Social pressure-Very common in Asian cultures. Asian parents are always under social pressure and have make sure their kids are keeping up they image in their circle.
3. Some parents just want to some me-time and no better way to engage kid in class while they can surf the phone in car or waiting outside the class.
4. Last but not least, they want to kids to be in activities they might enjoy. More than often it turns out to be activities parents think their kids might enjoy. For eg, Indian parents would normally put their kids into swimming, dancing, kumon. There is a pattern in choices of classes based on ethnicity.

Then I hear a lot of parents complain, how they don’t have time for themselves since they are always busy taking their kids to one class or the other. Today I was chatting with a friend who needed guidance on how to lose weight. As I suggested her she needs to workout, she said she doesn’t get time. She needs to cook fresh food for kids, she needs to take them to classes, she needs to help them with their homework. I asked if she can find 15 minutes during the day for workout, she said its hard. I had to tell her that she needs to reevaluate her priorities and adjust her schedule to find time for herself.

What about a kids time with parent? I want to have enough time in evening with my kid so I can just enjoy talking with them. I would like to teach them some of the things that I know so I spend quality time with the kids over sending them to a class.

This kid of behavior doesnt only stress and hurt parents, it hurts kids a lot more. I want my kid to enjoy their childhood while learning something they really enjoy. I want my kid to try different things and ask them what they love most and then pick just that activity for the year and reevaluate their interest again. I want my kids to go out and explore the nature and spend time with other kids in the park.

When you put so much pressure on kids and dont give them time to enjoy their childhood, they end-up craving for it as they grow older.

Let’s try to connect with our kids than putting them under pressure of so many activities.