Downtime

There are a growing variety of options for student's to fill in their afternoons and summers, but often little time is left for downtime. Parent's may feel obligated to keep their children busy, but there is also a lot to be learned from deciding what to do with one's own time. Alternately, parents may worry about enrolling their child in too many activities. The path forward isn't always clear and should be based on each individual child. Some children may thrive from a busy schedule, but others may feel overwhelmed and/or overextended. If a child has a busy schedule, it would be wise to make sure that they continue to value the activities they are involved in and don't mind the lack of downtime. By checking in with our children, we are promoting and modeling self-care.  These articles offer some food for thought on the topic. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/fashion/over-scheduled-children-how-big-a-problem.html

http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/03/nonstop

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201408/overscheduled-kids

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/whats-conflicted-parent-scheduling-childs-summer/