Finding A Balance With Our Kids Activities | Let Your Kids Be Kids

Let Your Kids Be Kids                                                                                   

Are your kids involved in enough activities? Or have you put them in too many? Finding a balance between not enough and too much can be difficult. We have all seen those TV shows that have put the lime light on kids who are bred to be superstars in their craft.

I do have a bit of an addiction to dance moms and can somewhat relate to that type of parenting. I just see it as an extreme form of parenting that pushes children to be what the parent wants, rather than taking what they want into consideration.

Not all kids have the ability to be Olympians or young athletes. That isn’t the point to sports. As adults we are aware of the potential to become unhealthy later in life, so this leads us to pushing good habits on our children at a young age. It’s not enough to cook the right foods. You also have to encourage physical activity.

Our son used to play baseball and soccer, but is naturally a little bit awkward in this physical department (thanks to me) and sports don’t come easily to him. He wasn’t having any fun, which is the most important part of youth sports, so we sought out to find something he liked. Luckily, he absolutely loves riding his bike, and he just recently won his first BMX race. He learned his fundamentals on a kids balance bike (one that allows a learning child to easily balance by excluding pedals) rather than face the sheer terror we all faced as our parents finally let go and watched as we inevitably ended up face first in the grass or pavement.

The importance in sports to me goes far beyond the physical aspect. The mental portion of being a part of a team and working together for a single goal is important in the development of our kids. Even individual sports – like BMX racing – have team elements that encourage camaraderie and good sportsmanship. The important thing is finding balance. Some parents are just too extreme when it comes to pushing their kids into sports, pageants, or other activities that the child isn’t particularly happy with.

This extreme is also unhealthy. Kids need to be free to be kids too. I understand that they may have goals to be a New York Yankee or an Olympic Gymnast, but what are you willing to sacrifice to help them achieve a goal that is essentially very unlikely. If your kid is not a prodigy, I recommend staying away from over booking them. Activities that take up 2-3 days a week is sufficient to build good habits and fulfill desires.

Finding the balance between crazy stage mom and loving parent who wants the best is hard to do. If you are like me it’s pretty easy. Be healthy and we will all be happy. But if you have a kid who shows a little promise of someday being great, be careful as you will never get these days back and the potential that your kid makes it to the big time is not very great.