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Overscheduled?
Detect and Prevent Burnout in Your Child
By Amy Henry
The long-term consequences of overscheduling can be devastating to a child's emotional and physical well-being. The AAP reports "student health services and counseling centers on college campuses have not been able to keep pace with the increased need for mental health services." Shea, who has witnessed the cumulative damage of overscheduling, says, "I get kids who are rushed, traveling at a hundred miles an hour, never feeling like they're doing enough. They get a B+ and they're in my office crying their eyes out." Because academic expectations increase dramatically in the upper grades, kids who are overextended may find their school performance dropping just as the pressure to get into a good college is mounting.
"Ultimately, I think what people are planning for is the future," Shea says. "Kids try to be a jack of all trades and wind up master of none. They have a sense of never really finishing or completing anything."
Kids start feeling they don't have much control over their lives. "They lose their enjoyment of life," Gulick says.
While most successful adults only excel in one or two areas, the message children are getting is that they must excel at everything. This crippling and impossible demand can cause anxiety and depression. Even parents who wish to take a stop-and-smell-the-roses approach with their children fear slowing down when everyone else seems to be on the fast track. "Parents are seeking what they've been told is 'the best,' but the best has to do with relationships." Nugent says.
