In recent years, a new phenomenon in parenting has taken hold of many families: over-scheduled kids.
On top of kids’ normal school or daycare routines and responsibilities, many of today’s children also have practices and games, choir, tumbling, swimming lessons and much more. Their lives are filled with activities on top of hobbies with a side of sports. For many, these pursuits begin in the early preschool years.
As a result, a lot of kids go without one of the most valuable commodities in existence: free time. Many of today’s children do not have unstructured time, time to dream, time to discover – and to even be bored every now and then. For children, free, unstructured, unsupervised time is not wasted time nor is it a reflection of poor parenting.
The absence of distraction or activity helps children create their own worlds. With time, kids will turn to their imaginations; they’ll draw, write and play with dolls or building blocks. They’ll invent their own activities to do with friends: hide-and-seek; kick-the-can, etc. Childhood is a time when kids need to be free to pursue their natural curiosities and sense of wonder, as well as encouraged to become resourceful and resilient.