If you feel that you’re so incredibly and crazily busy, here is something worth considering.

Where I live, and that’s probably the case in many places nowadays, kids are enrolled in extra-curricular activities almost every day of the week. While extra-curricular activities, such as drama, music lessons, and team sports are certainly good for kids, the big problem is that families seem to overdo it. So many kids are involved in maybe five, six, or seven extra-curricular activities, and that makes them overloaded and takes away most of their lives, and their parents’ lives as well. I understand that they have a lot of interests, and that’s great. But sometimes it’s necessary to make choices. If there are so many things the kids like, this is the case. They simply cannot handle all of them, because, if there’s twenty extra-curricular activities kids want to be in, then parents, you’ll have to choose from them, because there aren’t twenty days in a week! A good thing to do would be to sit with your kids and do the following:

*Ask them which activities they like the best.

*If they say, like, “All of them!” or if they have more favourites than they can handle, play the eenie-meenie-minee-moe game, or something like that.

Also, if you enroll your kids in fewer extra-curricular activities, that will make room for other kids, and that may very well stop these things from getting out of control.

But most importantly, it’s much better for kids if they have much more time to play and visit with their friends. Spending most of their waking hours outside of school in organized, regimented activities is genuinely bad for them. So, parents, please limit your kids to probably two extra-curricular activities per week. No more. That, I’m sure, is best for them. It was best for me. When I was nine, I was enrolled in Cubs on Wednesdays (which I didn’t like), and in a recreation program for kids with special needs on Thursdays. Also, when I was eleven and twelve, I was enrolled mainly in one extra-curricular activity a week, like pottery classes, cooking classes, and craft classes. I enjoyed those. Being enrolled in one or two, I still had lots of time left over for fun and relaxation, and my mom was rarely too busy for close-knit friendships. I only wish other friends had given us a chance.

Constant extra-curricular activities are also taking children away from church. Forty years ago, families with kids always came to church. Now, at least where I live, they hardly ever do anymore, and it’s very sad. I’ve noticed that, when kids come to church a lot, they eventually, somehow, become much more humane, even if they start out bratty. So it seems that, because of extra-curricular activities withdrawing kids from community, many of them are becoming passionless. Where I live, extra-curricular activities are now held on Sundays, which they never were when I was a kid. I have a feeling that that’s the case in most places nowadays. Parents who read this essay, it might be good to avoid enrolling your kids in extra-curricular activities on Sundays, or in team sports that don’t except Sundays, so as to makes things the way they used to be. Please, parents, if you possibly can, bring children back into the community. We need it just like it was in the fifties, sixties, or even the seventies. Children are my priority.