Is Your Family Overcommitted?

Q

My husband and I have three children, ages fifteen, eleven and nine. I’m worried that our kids will get involved in so many school and extracurricular activities that our family will be overcommitted this fall. How can we tell if we’ve created a lifestyle that is too busy? How can we avoid overscheduling our lives?

A

Some of the signs of overcommitment in kids are not turning in school work, being fatigued, becoming irritable and not having time to practice their extracurricular activities. Teens are said to have high rates of depression and anxiety when they have too many obligations.

With three children, it would be easy for you and your husband to overschedule your family calendar. Family activities and meals together become infrequent when everyone is too busy. Children need unscheduled time. It’s important for developing their creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

Here are some suggestions for you in your efforts to avoid over-commitment for you and your children:

1. Help children identify the ongoing activities they enjoy most. It’s better to succeed at one or two hobbies than struggle at many. Some children can handle only one activity while others can succeed with several.
2. Make a calendar of everyone’s commitments, including who is doing the transportation. Include margins of time for family meals or activities throughout the week and weekend. Looking at a calendar of your family events will help you discern what needs to be cut out of your schedule.
3. Try to share transportation with other parents who have kids in the same activities as your children.
4. In addition to ongoing activities, remember to make room for family bonding time. Your children would probably enjoy some quiet hobbies at home. Simply playing a family game from time-to-time can help your family feel grounded.
5. Say “yes” to helping with some school activities (as the school needs parents to be involved) but learn how to say “no.” When there are more requests for help than you can reasonably handle, be sure to express your boundaries. You can’t say yes to every request.

Thank you for sharing this question with our readers. If, after following the suggestions, you still feel overcommitted, look at your calendar of activities and think about where you could give up or change an activity.

Betty Richardson, PhD, RN, CS, LPC, LMFT, is anAu stin-based psychotherapist.