When did we forget that we are human beings, not human doings? ~Omid Safi, in his essay “The Disease of Being Busy” for onbeing.org My husband and I limit our kids to two extracurricular activities per child at any given time. This is fewer than that recommended by experts who diss kids’ crammed schedules (three or fewer, they say). So our lives shouldn’t be too hectic, right? In theory, yes.
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There is a well-known story about Olympic champion Gabrielle Douglas and the turning point in her gymnastics career. She was living with a host family in Iowa so she could work with Liang Chow, the coach who trained Shawn Johnson. But being terribly homesick for her family and life in Virginia, she told her mother she wanted to quit gymnastics. Upon hearing this Gabby’s mom read her the riot act and, as we all know, the rest is history. I began learning the trumpet at age nine. Shortly thereafter I got braces and could hardly play a note. My instructor…
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A year ago, as the school year drew to an end, I wrote a post that received some flak. In Hooray for Summer? (In retrospect, Horrors, It’s Summer! would have been a fun title…) I described the difficult transition for parents, myself wholeheartedly included, to having the kiddos home for three months. I outlined my plan to keep us all from going crazy, which, it ends up, was a near-total flop. Disappointing, to say the least…I needed a solid strategy because I was really not looking forward to the loss of (forgive me) my freedom. But this year? I am…
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I’m just going to come out and say it: Kids need to work more. They need to scatter legos and build, build, build. They need to challenge each other with board games and don old clothes, pretending to be a Spy Kid, Dorothy from Kansas or Captain America. If play is a child’s work, why don’t they get to do it more often?
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We’ve all heard the line: Enough about me…what do YOU think of me? Ever realize you get so caught up in your own vision you forget: The situation isn’t about YOU? Just a rhetorical question. Except not for me. Since I mentioned it I have to ‘fess up (otherwise I wouldn’t have this blog post!). And my answer is: All too often. How much my being an only child plays into this, I don’t know. But I freely admit my forays into egocentricity because I realize that as a parent (it’s ok to silently agree with this) I hope my…
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Tired of the running. Too busy doing things with the kids to spend any time with them. Seems we try…
The end of the school year is rapidly approaching. Of course there is “Senioritis.” There is also “Third Grade-itis.” And even “Extracurricular Activity-itis.” My kids haven’t caught the last affliction but I sure have. Have you? I find the after school and sometimes weekend running to be exhausting. And not just at the end of the school year but in the fall and winter as well. The question I need to ask you is two-fold: Are you tired of the running? And do we keep our kids too busy with activities outside of school? I’m curious what you think.
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It takes at least a day to plan. Sometimes a list is made. Then there is the packing. Lastly the time comes to pop open the trunk of the “family bus” and load ‘er up. No, this event is not vacation or even a long weekend away with the “fam.” It is either “Terrific Tuesday” or “Freaky Thursday.” These two days are the busiest of the week for our household. And both require some mostly-routine planning. But every so often, just to shake things up a bit, another event gets scheduled or rescheduled, and I start to think that minimizing…
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Hi, Dawn, thanks for reading this post! So far it's been an interesting summer and thanks for reminding me to…