In short
Whether kids are overscheduled, and how to decide when activities (sports, music, scouting, homework) become too much. Hosts argue “activities culture” has returned post-lockdown, creating pressure tied to college/high achievement and leaving parents stuck between constant driving (“Maxi the taxi”) and screen time (e.g., Roblox).
Guests
None. The episode is hosted by Margaret Ables and Amy Wilson.
Guest backgrounds (if applicable)
Not applicable—no guest interviewees; only hosts discuss research and personal parenting experiences.
Key claims
Headlines can mislead; a 2024 University of Georgia study found more activities correlated with worse well-being, but after adjustments it suggests the “final marginal hour”/total load may harm well-being, and homework was lumped into “enrichment.” Travel soccer/scouting can be positive if aligned with family values and if stress remains manageable.
Notable examples
Kids doing travel soccer, lacrosse, bassoon, chess, scouting/Eagle Scout preparation, and a teen needing weekend travel outside NYC; parents using “good stress vs bad stress” check-ins and setting an “out” date (e.g., 8 weeks).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Question of Overscheduling
0:48 to 1:42
Discussion on whether kids are overscheduled as they return to fall routines.
“Hello, everyone, and welcome to What Fresh Hell?”
The Culture of Activities
1:42 to 2:34
Exploring the pressures of activities culture and parents' roles.
“I feel like camp, I drop them off, I pick them up, and then they're home for the day.”
Post-Lockdown Parenting
2:34 to 2:56
Insight into how parenting dynamics changed post-lockdown.
“My husband, says Anna, took the other side hard.”
Opting Out of Activities
2:56 to 4:14
Margaret reflects on her parenting journey and opting out of activities.
“It's like we all got launched out of a catapult as the activity sports industrial complex roared back to life.”
Challenges of Unstructured Time
4:14 to 4:50
Discussion on the challenges of children's unstructured time today.
“But I do always want to push back on this idea that again, like, yeah, mom, just send them outside to play like we did, mom, because it's not that simple.”
The Dilemma of Screen Time
4:50 to 6:05
Exploring the balance between organized activities and screen use.
“And I was like, hey, look at you guys rolling like Stranger Things style.”
Understanding Activity Impact
6:05 to 8:02
Analyzing the impact of activities on children's mental well-being.
“But for as the parent of kids who play it 24 hours a day, but yeah, no, you want them.”
Study Insights on Activities
8:02 to 8:17
Important findings from a study linking activities to well-being.
“And what's key to this, like not so fast included in the enrichment activity.”
The Complexity of Participation
8:17 to 12:33
Discussing the complexities of children's participation in activities.
“So that's why I think the study is maybe not quite what it's saying it's saying.”
The Challenge of Overscheduling Kids
14:00 to 15:16
We'll explore the difficulties of managing kids' schedules as they age.
“You can do it when they're in kindergarten.”
Show all 19 chapters
The Challenge of Overscheduling Kids
15:30 to 17:28
We'll explore the difficulties of managing kids' schedules as they age.
“It's called Magnificent, and it's by Lachi, a Grammy-nominated musician and author.”
The Challenge of Overscheduling Kids
17:34 to 17:47
We'll explore the difficulties of managing kids' schedules as they age.
Cultural Pressures on Kids' Activities
17:47 to 23:00
Discussion on the cultural expectations influencing kids' extracurricular activities.
“To have the best soccer team, to have this list of where the kids go to college be very impressive, to have, you know, all of these activities available.”
Evaluating Kid's Commitments and Priorities
23:00 to 28:01
How to assess the pros and cons of kids' extracurricular activities.
“You were talking about family dinner, and if that's a value that's important to you, that does sort of enter the calculus, right?”
Examining Kids' Activities and Parental Expectations
28:01 to 31:38
Explore the complexities of children's activities and family values in decision-making.
“I was wondering if we, at the end of the story, we're hearing like, and this child is so glad they didn't quit scouting, or is it still TBD?”
Examining Kids' Activities and Parental Expectations
32:47 to 33:05
Explore the complexities of children's activities and family values in decision-making.
The Impact of Overscheduling on Family Dynamics
33:05 to 39:44
Discuss the effects of overscheduling on family happiness and children's well-being.
“I think Janie is ready for ballet class.”
Reflecting on Personal Expectations in Parenting
39:44 to 42:00
Delve into the importance of aligning personal expectations with children's happiness.
“If I am telling my kids, and listen, we all do this.”
Navigating Kids' Schedules and Stress
42:00 to 45:42
Learn about the balance between kids' activities and parental well-being.
“And it's our well-being, again, like has to enter the chat at some point, right?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Hey friends, Olivia from OLLI. Between new routines and the ultimate group project known as parenting, you need science-backed solutions that work with your life. That's where OLLI comes in. Start your mornings off right with Maltese made to support nutrition and immune health. Choose from our lineup of gut-supporting probiotics, and we've got occasional sleep support to help the whole fam chase their big dreams. Head back to class with the number one gummy supplement brand. Stock up on OLLI.com today. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
0:32Amy Wilson:I still have three days a week where my kids have stuff to do. What fresh hell. Laughing in the face of motherhood. Crushing when they don't want to do a thing. With Margaret Ables and Amy Wilson. Okay, I guess I'll just let my kids sit in their room and do Roblox for 10 hours. A podcast that solves today's parenting dilemmas so you don't have to. It would be funny though, guys. It would be funny.
1:01Amy Wilson:Hello, everyone, and welcome to What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the face of motherhood. This is Margaret. And this is Amy. And today we are answering a really hard question to answer. Are our kids overscheduled? I mean, is it hard to answer, Amy? The answer is yes. It's not hard to answer. I mean, especially as we're kind of just getting back in those fall routines. I miss those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer where nobody had to be anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, unless you were working and your parenting partner's working and your kids have to be in like 18 camps. That wasn't so great either.
1:36I think my sister with four kids at the same school would argue that school is easier than summer.
1:42Amy Wilson:Yeah, I guess that's true. I feel like camp, I drop them off, I pick them up, and then they're home for the day. And also my kids come home and play Roblox for four hours. It's very different. I remember with little kids being like, I can't wait for them to go back to school. But I'm finding the grind. and also I feel like in summer we're a little bit more like dinner let's get a pizza I don't know throw something on the grill I feel like the grind of the everyone's got to be somewhere all the time is it's getting me down Amy it's getting me down as your kids get older there's more places to go you have three kids that have three practices and one maybe two adults to do it yeah it's a lot and we're going to talk about this I found an article that Anna Norberg wrote for Slate earlier this year, and she called it activities culture that we live as parents in an activities culture, or our kids do, and we're there to deliver it.
2:32And she made a really interesting point. She said, I'm going to quote her because I love this quote, I predicted that the iron grip of activities culture would loosen after lockdown and parents would become more intentional about protecting family time against overscheduling. My husband, says Anna, took the other side hard. Everything will snap right back like a rubber band, he said. And four years later, there's no question about who was right. Things didn't just snap back. It's like we all got launched out of a catapult as the activity sports industrial complex roared back to life.
3:05Amy Wilson:I wrote an article 100 years ago, I don't know if it's even around anymore, freerangeparents.com about opting out of activities. And it was at a time where my kids were young. My first kid had no interest in sports at all. And my second kid was just quitting soccer. Like I do not want to do this anymore. And my youngest was not even getting into activities yet. And I was kind of making this argument that we're not going to do activities. We already have Boy Scouts. We have family around. We have other stuff we do. And even with my whole diatribe on quitting activities, I was like, I still have three days a week where my kids have stuff to do.
3:53Amy Wilson:No activities. Right. And I was kind of thinking to myself, well, I don't have any kids. Now I have one who's maybe picking up lacrosse and one who's suddenly running cross country. Now my kids are more in sports than they were before. But I was sort of like by opting out of travel sports, I'm not participating in activities. And it's been interesting how much that has proved not to be true. I am a fan of free range parenting and thousand hours outside and all those ideas. But I do always want to push back on this idea that again, like, yeah, mom, just send them outside to play like we did, mom, because it's not that simple.
4:28Because these days, I would go outside and play after school, but I'd go find fun in the neighborhood and play Barbies with Susie Krepsky. I wouldn't play with my mom's phone until dinnertime. these days even if you can get your kid off a screen and get them outside good luck finding a kid that's not either being driven by their mom to their bassoon lesson or inside on a screen you
4:51Amy Wilson:can't single-handedly make this decision absolutely you know we live on the east coast too it's gonna start to get dark at 4 30 at night it's cold my kids i will say this summer i was happy to see spent a lot of time being like i'm gonna jump on my bike and go to a friend's house and we're gonna to go hang out and do a pickup game of something. And I was like, hey, look at you guys rolling like Stranger Things style. I love this. Right, Stranger Things style. But there's a huge obstacle to that where we live, which is that it's going to be too cold to do that soon. And, you know, the kids don't just hop on bikes after school and run around.
5:26Amy Wilson:I mean, I guess back in the day, we live a little bit more spread out than I did growing up. But yeah, I think the opportunities for like, we're not going to do organized activities, and therefore everyone's going to have this free range magical experience. You're right, because if you don't have time filled with activities, that is time where kids are generally not doing things that you prefer. They're not just home, you know, writing comic books or something. They're home on Roblox. Right. And not that there's anything wrong with Roblox, but if you don't want your kid to be on the couch all the time, then maybe you isn't there.
6:04I would argue there is a lot wrong with Roblox.
6:07Amy Wilson:But for as the parent of kids who play it 24 hours a day, but yeah, no, you want them. I think there's first of all pressure that activities are tied to like college and all of that stuff. There's that aspect of it. We'll talk about that. Then there's just the feeling of it doesn't feel good to have a young child or tween or teen sitting in their room with a phone with the door closed. That doesn't feel good. Right. We know that's a negative, a net negative. And so what are our options to either be overscheduled? Sometimes I guess it feels like our options are to either be Maxi the taxi, as my mom used to call herself, driving kids in every direction to do all these things, or to feel like, okay, I guess I'll just let my kids sit in their room and do Roblox for 10 hours.
6:56Right. There was a study. I hear that twinkle in your voice. You hear the rustling of the paper. So I have a study and it's our favorite kind of study because it's the study where the headline said one thing and then it really said something else. And maybe it really means something else entirely when you kind of scratch. It was every study. So there was a 2024 study, University of Georgia. The headlines trumpeted that this study proved that kids who spend more time in extracurricular activities are more likely to struggle with anxiety, depression, and anger. That's not what it proved. That's what the headline said.
7:27And then if you actually read the study, it's totally different.
7:29Amy Wilson:Okay, more activities, more depression and anger. Okay. Yeah. More likely to have those things with more activities. So it's like activities are bad. Like, okay, let's really read the study. So the study was they followed they did a time use diary, they had kids and or their parents, depending on how old the kids were, track how they use their time minute by minute over many years, like eight years. And they tracked how the kids were spending their time and they let people put things into different buckets. And one of the buckets was enrichment, enrichment activities. And what's key to this, like not so fast included in the enrichment activity.
8:06It wasn't just travel soccer or piano lessons. It was homework. So I kind of think homework should have been its own category, but enrichment was everything that made your kid a better tomorrow outside of school. So homework was lumped in with that. So that's why I think the study is maybe not quite what it's saying it's saying. So they compared the amount of time the kids spent on these enrichment activities with their test scores and their successes. And of course, there's a high correlation. The more piano lessons you take, the more successful your kid tended to be. But is that because you had more money to send your kid to piano lessons?
8:40Amy Wilson:It is. It is. It is. Is it because the kind of kid who's willing to do three hours a week of piano lessons is the kind of kid who's probably also going to do really well in school? Yes, it is. It is. Right. So they corrected for all that stuff. They tried to adjust for family income and advantages and motivation. And they tried to just look at well-being and the well-being of kids. Like, how do you feel about yourself? that's where they saw a potential sometimes negative correlation between having too much to do and being relaxed and happy in life. Yeah. I mean, this stuff is so hard to quantify statistically and then make an individual assessment about, right?
9:22Amy Wilson:I definitely have kids who use their unstructured time well, and I have kids who use their unstructured time not so well. And so I have kids who I don't want them to have a lot of unstructured time. And I will also say this has changed over the years. I had a kid who I never wanted this kid to have any unstructured time because it meant that something would get broken in my house or would go horribly wrong the second there was any unstructured time. And that child now has developed a love of a bunch of different hobbies that they're very happy to do during their unstructured time. And I don't worry about them at all.
10:06Amy Wilson:Then I have other kids who've gotten much more into like Discord and gaming and hanging with the friends in the basement. I mean, not the friends in the basement. They're in the basement. The friends are all in their basements. And their individual basements, right? In their individual basements. And they may be kids who were really oriented to outside activities and now with weather changes and other things are now much more oriented to being on the Discord server with friends. And so I think that making statistics work for individual choices is always hard, but in this case seems exceptionally hard.
10:41Amy Wilson:Is your kid's outcome going to be different because they play travel soccer is very hard to know, I think, fundamentally. Yes. And to take the side of travel soccer for a minute, it does teach valuable skills. Psychologists, everybody agrees that unstructured play and unsupervised play is really important for kids to learn conflict resolution and how to self-advocate and to use their imaginations. But travel soccer is also good for teamwork and skill building and building your body and learning about a tough loss. It's not without lessons. And it's not that there's anything wrong with travel soccer.
11:20I'm going to quote the study's author, Carolina Catano, who's from the University of Georgia. Her conclusion, if you actually read the study, she said, we're not saying that all activities are bad. We're saying the total number of activities can be bad. And how many is too many? Who can say? How many hours is too many hours? Everybody's different. Like it says this in the study, but that you might want to consider the last marginal hour of activity your kid is doing as maybe the straw that breaks the camel's back and dial back that one extra thing.
11:50Amy Wilson:Wait, what does that mean? The last marginal? They call it the final marginal hour. They said when you look at well being that final marginal hour of activities or homework doesn't help test scores, but can harm well being giving kids four hours of homework a night versus three doesn't really help test scores, but it does cause more anxiety, right? Doesn't change any outcomes, but it changes the but it isn't it isn't two hours of homework is fine and three hours is terrible. It's more like the total is too much. And maybe you need to dial it back for your kid X percent. But then they refuse to put numbers on it because you can't put numbers on it.
12:25But it wasn't your kid is depressed because they play travel soccer.
12:28Amy Wilson:You can't put numbers on it. It's different for every kid. Right, right. But nor is it like travel soccer is bad and they'll be depressed and you can't have any activities. It's the kids are too busy. And like I said, I think the real sticky wicket with the study is that they included homework as an activity when really your kid could be doing travel, soccer, and piano lessons, no problem if they have one hour of homework at night, but maybe not if they have three. Right. And I guess they are hard to pull apart because I think what a lot of the study is tapping into is this high achiever goal that people sometimes have, that your kid will be a varsity athlete, will get top grades in school, will be on the student council, will also be an Eagle Scout that we somehow understand in the abstract that that can put too much pressure and negative pressure on kids, right?
13:19Amy Wilson:This kind of culture of hyper achievement is bad, right? There's too much pressure on kids from that. But that any one given activity might have a great net positive value for kids. Right. And do you have that much control over? I think we all agree that kids have a lot more homework than they used to and that it might not really be as additive as educators thought it was. And I think that's being reconsidered a lot of places, but you don't have a lot of control over whether once you choose a school district or a school for your kid, you can let how much homework there is enter into it. But once your kid is in sixth grade, you can change schools, but you can't change how much homework they do.
14:04Yeah. You can do it when they're in kindergarten. You can't do it when they're in eighth grade. Like, you know what? He doesn't feel like doing algebra. That doesn't really fly. And so you can't control that dial as much as you might like to.
14:14Amy Wilson:I have a thought. We'll be right back. Well, Amy, I'm about to head off for vacation. And even with those hotel hair dryers, I know my hair will be, as you like to say, bouncing and behaving thanks to Nutrafol. Yes, I do like to say it. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand. and it's the number one hair growth supplement brand personally used by dermatologists and Margaret and me. Nutrafol's hair growth supplements are peer-reviewed, NSF-certified for sport, and clinically tested. Nutrafol offers multiple formulas for men, for women, all tailored to different life stages like postpartum or menopause, so you get the support that's actually right for you.
14:55Adding Nutrafol to your daily routine is easy. Order online, no prescription needed, with automated deliveries and free shipping to keep you on track. Let your hair be one less thing to worry about. See visibly thicker, stronger, faster growing hair in three to six months with Nutrafol.
15:10Amy Wilson:For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners$10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you visit Nutrafol.com and enter promo code laughing. That's Nutrafol.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com promo code laughing. We wanted to share a terrific new children's album with you. It's called Magnificent, and it's by Lachi, a Grammy-nominated musician and author. Lachi's work focuses on inclusion and helping kids feel confident in who they are. It's one of those albums that parents can enjoy as much as their little ones. Lachi's playful songs celebrate difference, diversity, self-expression, and imagination.
15:52Amy Wilson:There's a gentle message that runs through the whole album around confidence and emotional well-being, but without ever feeling heavy or lessen-y. Magnificent is the kind of music you can put on during your morning routine, in the car, or wherever your kid needs a little bit of a reset. Let me tell you, I am always here for catchy, thoughtful songs for kids that parents won't mind hearing again and again. Magnificent is streaming now on all major platforms, Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you listen. We'll put the link to Lachi's album, Magnificent, in the show notes for this episode. Just click the link and it'll take you straight to the album.
16:30Or search Magnificent by Lachi, spelled L-A-C-H-I. Hey me, I'm soaking in it.
16:38Amy Wilson:You know I hate packing to go places, which is why I'm so grateful that Quince's mix and match pieces make throwing together a vacation wardrobe so much easier. Quince specializes in high-quality essential pieces that will become the basic building blocks of your wardrobe, like the 100 % organic cotton poplin pin tuck maxi skirt I just got. You can wear it to the pool, you can wear it out to dinner, wear it everywhere because it goes with everything else that's already in my closet. Everything at Quince is priced 50 % to 80 % less than similar brands. They cut out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup.
17:17Amy Wilson:And it's not just apparel. Quince also offers elevated essentials in every category, from bedding and bath to kitchen staples to furniture. Upgrade your every day. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash fresh. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's quince.com slash fresh. And as we were saying, in terms of like pressure on kids, the schools are getting a tremendous amount of pressure, right? To have the best soccer team, to have this list of where the kids go to college be very impressive, to have, you know, all of these activities available.
18:01Amy Wilson:Like parents are coming in and saying, what do you have available? And it's like, well, what we have available is, it's kind of, what do you call it? It's a self-perpetuating system. It's big activity. Activity culture. That's what the woman from Slate called it. That's exactly what it is. And yes, I think that's a factor, too, that you are on the playground after school. And you hear that all the other kids have signed up for scouting and the magic class on Thursdays. And your kid wants to do the magic class on Thursdays. You're not like my child will be a magician. It's not you driving it. But it's your kid saying, please, can I do magic with my friends?
18:36And you're like, I guess I'll figure that out. It's on the way to your brother's bassoon lesson, but we'll figure it out. And all of a sudden you overstuffed.
18:42Amy Wilson:Yeah, and I do think, and this is not mom blaming, it really is not, but I do think that culturally, the conversations in my suburban community, certainly around child raising, we are talking a lot about like, what are your kids doing? What are they? I think it's a rare person who is really approaching it to be like, I can't wait to make Margaret feel bad because my kid is doing three things that hers is doing too. Nobody's doing that. No, but I do think there is culturally something around presenting our kids to each other. And I mean, I do it too. It's not vicious or malicious, but there is something culturally around presenting our kids as like, what are their achievements?
19:29Amy Wilson:You know, what are they doing? That is kind of baked in the cake on some level. And then there's when your kids get older or maybe not so old, they really want to do this thing that you think might be too much. My kid is still at home. I have one kid still at home. She's in high school. And she's doing something that is going to involve us leaving town every weekend. She's doing something outside of New York City where we live for September and October. Every weekend, we have to leave town on weekend to take her to do this thing outside of town. It's deeply important to her. We are so excited about supporting it.
20:00She's worried about doing this plus doing her schoolwork and keeping up with what she needs to be doing. And yeah, like I'm not so sure. It's gonna be a lot of driving and a lot of maybe not quite enough sleep for a couple months for her. but she really wants to do it. And so I'm doing it, but it isn't without a kid can really, really want to do something and it still might be too much.
20:18Amy Wilson:Well, and I think that your approach is smart, right? You're taking it from the point of view of, okay, what are the pros and cons of this? I think that we're skipping a little bit ahead to solutions, but we talk a lot on the podcast about what are our values as a family that has to be central to any conversation. And if our values as a family are having family dinner together every night, then when we have activities that get in the way of that, we need to discuss that. Okay, are we willing to not have family dinners for three months in order for you to play travel soccer? I would say almost always for me, the answer is yes.
Read the full transcript
20:59Amy Wilson:My kids are now involved in some activities that mean maybe we're only having family dinner three times a week. But that the discussion is always saying like, okay, this is stressful. Is it a good stress or a bad stress? Because there is good stress and bad stress. You know, I do a lot of things, including hosting a podcast and running a podcast company with you that are stressful. I maybe would rather many days like lay in bed and watch The Bachelor. But I choose to take that stress on because I kind of want my life to be about more than laying in bed and watching The Bachelor most days. And so I think you're right to be having those conversations with your daughter and saying, with your child and saying, okay, this is what this will look like for this period of time.
21:46Amy Wilson:And this means X, Y, and Z. And also what are the potential out points, right? If in a month we decide that this is absolutely too onerous, do we have an out? Or do we have to commit right now and just figure it out? And what's the end point? And what is that, you know, I always tell new moms to circle eight weeks out from the birth date on the calendar, because the first eight weeks to me, I wouldn't do it again for a million dollars, just absolute misery. It would be funny, though, guys, it would be funny. Yeah, I mean, you got to do it to have a human, but man, those first eight weeks stink.
22:21Amy Wilson:And so what are you circling on the calendar? Maybe it's end of the year at this point. And And I have a fall that is kicking my butt up and down the street right now. And I am in that place where I am saying like, okay, if I can get to November 27th, everything will be okay. But every day between now and then may be kind of a nightmare. And I think those are the kind of conversations we have to be having around activities and saying like, listen, if you commit to band and travel soccer and these three other things, it's going to make the fall really hard. And you can't quit these things six weeks in if they're depending on you.
22:59Amy Wilson:And so I do think that a lot of the focus needs to be in conversations around activities. You were talking about family dinner, and if that's a value that's important to you, that does sort of enter the calculus, right? And so does time with your parenting partner. If you've got two kids playing travel sports, it's like, oh, one of my kids used to play travel baseball, which in New York City meant a needle strewn parking lot near JFK airport that was an hour from our house and a double header in the April rain. So one parent would be like a 10 hour commitment to drive there and do the double header and then come back.
23:36And then the other parent would be handling the other two kids and what they needed to do that day and farewell coffee and conversation. And it didn't last forever and it's fine and it's something we can laugh about now. But I think you do sometimes in that case, eventually with this kid in baseball, it got to the point where it was clear this kid had lost the light in their eyes about baseball, somewhere along the getting up at 5am to drive to Howard Beach for a doubleheader wasn't fun anymore. And so then we were quickly able to be like, Oh, if it's not fun, then why are we doing this? Because it's bad for all these other reasons.
24:09Anyway, it's your family time and your time with your parenting partner are valuable. And I think it is okay to be like, we're doing one too many things.
24:17Amy Wilson:Was it Paloma Picasso? No, Coco Chanel, take off one thing. Old Deluxe Alert. Back in my day. Yeah, you got ready to go out to your luncheon or whatever. And then you looked at yourself in the mirror and you removed one piece of jewelry or accessory. And then you were stylishly dressed. You look at the whole thing and remove one. That is the funniest advice for me, because I would have to take off my shirt, basically, Like I don't wear jewelry. And so I'm in like a t-shirt and yoga pants. I guess I have to take my shirt off. You're at the point in strip poker where it gets really interesting. That's how you are all the time.
24:49Amy Wilson:I'm at the baseline at all times. Yeah, exactly. Don't worry about me, Coco Chanel. You might want to add something, Coco Chanel. I might need to add something. Yeah, yeah, something. My God, please. So I feel like that's the advice from that study too, is kind of like, Yeah, look at everything and then take one thing away, that final marginal hour. And whatever that is, you'll have to decide for yourself. It's not very helpful, but maybe it is. Yeah, and I think it is extremely important when you talk about kids being overscheduled is what is the why of why we're doing this? And so I have a kid who is working towards being an Eagle Scout.
25:29Amy Wilson:And there were a lot of whys when he was young for why we wanted him in an organized activity that was not sports. And scouting kind of fell in our laps and turned out to have a lot of net positives for this specific kid that were important. And then there was a time where we were kind of teetering on scouting. and I felt very strongly and expressed probably at the time quite angrily to my spouse that I had put a lot of time into making sure scouting was something that this kid thrived in. And it took many hours of my time. I was the scout leader. I was in the brown shirt. I was the den parent.
26:14Amy Wilson:I was doing all of this stuff because I felt it was important for this kid who was maybe having some trouble finding activities that were working for them. And scouting is a container where you can then do all sorts of things that interest you, right? I feel like once you're in scouting, you can find 40 things that excite you. And I did feel like I had put enough time in that I wasn't willing. There is kind of a time in scouting, at least how it works for us, that I was now handing it over to my spouse as moving from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. It's kind of boring. But as it was more outdoorsy stuff, we had had a kind of agreement like, now you'll tap in and be the leader of Scouts.
26:55Amy Wilson:And I felt that activity kind of teetering during that handoff. And I really felt like, listen, I laid a lot of groundwork here for a lot of good reasons. And it's not okay for it to just fall apart four years in because everyone's a little apathetic. Give me another two years and then tell me that everyone really doesn't want to do it. But I'm not really up for four years of my work hits, everyone kind of throwing their hands up and being like, meh, not okay with me, as it turns out, you got to give it a little longer. And, you know, it was a bit fraught at the time. But I think having conversations around that, and I'm finding now with my high schoolers and middle schoolers that, well, I want to quit this activity.
27:38Amy Wilson:And I just had a conversation with one of my kids yesterday. If you quit this activity, it means you won't have access to these three things. And I'm not sure you understand the consequences of that. And I want you to give it a month and think about those things and we will revisit the conversation then. But no, you're not allowed to quit today. And is this still in process? I was wondering if we, at the end of the story, we're hearing like, and this child is so glad they didn't quit scouting, or is it still TBD? No, the child is glad they didn't quit scouting. That did work out and they did end up staying in scouting.
28:15Amy Wilson:And I think it's been very, very good in the long term. And, you know, we've talked about this and we'll have other conversations about when is it okay to let kids quit something? It's hard to know the right answers. But I think your why, if your why is I never made the high school football team and I'm going to make sure my kid makes the high school football team, even if they hate football, that's worth examining. I know that I was a drama kid and a theater kid, and I'm interested in my kids pursuing theater, and it looks like I may go 0 for 3 on that dream. It's a crushing. I'm with you. It's crushing.
28:52It's crushing when they don't want to do a thing.
28:54Amy Wilson:I mean, then again, there's another part of me having lived in a van and trying to do stand-up comedy. I'm like, maybe it's better for them to stay out of the life. I don't know. But the reasons why kids want to do stuff. One of my kids was briefly interested in cheerleading, which I just I didn't grow up in cheerleading culture. I know nothing about cheerleading. And I will say, I had some resistance to cheerleading as an activity. I found it kind of like, ew, I guess. I don't know. I mean, and now I know a lot of cheer moms, and I get it. It's a sport, like there's a lot going on. I think you just have to examine your why.
29:29Amy Wilson:Why are you invested in activities? Why are you not invested in activities? And always keep your sense of family value. Like what are our values? And does this comport with our values? Is my kid in a phase where their values are different than my values? And is that okay? Do they value the activities in different order than you do? Like my kid, my made up kid is a really good piano player. And she doesn't want to play the piano anymore. She just wants to keep doing more cheerleading. and you're thinking cheerleading like this is and this isn't competitive cheer this is just piano is much better than cheerleading shake pom-poms cheer right this is a future nobody's going to care in your college applications that you were a junior cheerleader like what are we doing but her piano teachers mean and all our best friends are in cheerleading I know there's other reasons that our kids may value their too many things to do in different order than when we do so then when you go to remove that final marginal hour or whatever that is, we're going to remove one thing, then you might have the problem of you think it should be one thing and your kid thinks the thing that remains should be the thing you thought was a thing that could go.
30:34Amy Wilson:You just gave me an insight on this, Amy. We'll be right back. Well, Amy, I'm about to head off for vacation. And even with those hotel hair dryers, I know my hair will be, as you like to say, bouncing and behaving thanks to Nutrafol. Yes, I do like to say it. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand, and it's the number one hair growth supplement brand personally used by dermatologists and Margaret and me. Nutrafol's hair growth supplements are peer-reviewed, NSF-certified for sport, and clinically tested. Nutrafol offers multiple formulas for men, for women, all tailored to different life stages like postpartum or menopause, so you get the support that's actually right for you.
31:15Adding Nutrafol to your daily routine is easy. Order online, no prescription needed, with automated deliveries and free shipping to keep you on track. Let your hair be one less thing to worry about. See visibly thicker, stronger, faster growing hair in three to six months with Nutrafol.
31:31Amy Wilson:For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners$10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you visit Nutrafol.com and enter promo code laughing. That's Nutrafol.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com promo code laughing. Amy, I'm soaking in it. You know I hate packing to go places, which is why I'm so grateful that Quince's mix and match pieces make throwing together a vacation wardrobe so much easier. Quince specializes in high quality essential pieces that will become the basic building blocks of your wardrobe, like the 100 % organic cotton poplin pin tuck maxi skirt I just got.
32:14You can wear it to the pool. You can wear it out to dinner. Wear it everywhere because it goes with everything else that's already in my closet.
32:20Amy Wilson:Everything at Quince is priced 50 % to 80 % less than similar brands. They cut out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just apparel. Quince also offers elevated essentials in every category, from bedding and bath to kitchen staples to furniture. Upgrade your every day. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash fresh. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's quince.com slash fresh.
33:05Amy Wilson:You'll never see it coming. I think Janie is ready for ballet class. It starts with the best of intentions. I signed both boys up for soccer. You thought it would be fun. Oh, look, a chocolate-making class at the rec center. But you were wrong. Get in the car! Get in the car! We're late! Before you know it, your life is not your own. Okay, if I drop Jenny off for elite gymnastics at 3.05, she can wait outside for the door to open at 3.20 while I drive Peter to LaCrosse. That gets us home with five minutes to spare. And if we hold off dinner until 9.30 p.m., we can still get 10 to soccer and then get Jenny and bring her to chess before Peter's tennis lesson.
33:42Amy Wilson:You're saying things you never could have imagined. Mommy, what's for dinner? Here, your dinner is in this thermos. Move, move, move, move! You're living in a world of strangers. Who are you? Honey, it's me, your husband. We haven't seen each other since last Tuesday because I've been doing baseball games and you've been doing ballet drop-offs. Activities. You've been warned. Congratulations, your daughter made the travel soccer team. No!
34:24Amy Wilson:So many, many years ago, I hate to say it, but the term is decades ago, I ran my first marathon. And I bought a book that was called like how to run a marathon for the non runner or something like that. And this book totally changed my life. And one of the things that it said in this book that has really been a factor in like every decision I ever make is, if you choose to run a marathon, the first piece of advice I thought was funny was like, tell four people, you're much more likely to do something if you say it out loud to four people. I was like, that's good advice. That's not germane to our conversation, though.
35:01Amy Wilson:But the big piece of advice in the book was do not attach secondary expectations to running the marathon. Your only goal in running a marathon is to run or walk 26.2 miles at a time. That's your only goal is to cross the finish line at 26.2 miles, no matter how you get there. If you attach secondary goals, like I will lose weight, it will make me happy. I will finally see pride in my parents' eyes when they look at me, whatever it is. Yes, I was thinking admiration of peers. Right, right. There is a good chance that you will achieve something unbelievably difficult, which is running 26.2 miles and feel disappointed.
35:44Amy Wilson:Please do not do that to yourself. That's such, such good advice. And I find myself coming back to that all the time. And I think it's so apropos to what we are discussing. Are your kids over scheduled because of secondary goals. Are you living a life that is my kid will go to a good college if they do these seven activities? Or I will prove to my mother that I am a good parent when they see my child participating in X or Y activities. Or when my child wins the trophy that always eluded me, they will blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or, you know, Noah won't feel less than than his friend Carson, because Carson got to sign up for magic class and Noah didn't.
36:31I'm not going to let that happen to my kid. My kid is going to see my love for them by how selfless I am with being Maxi Taxi.
36:37Amy Wilson:Yeah, or I put in four years of scouting stuff that I didn't want to do and wore the brown shirt and like went around and held snails in the forest. And now there's like, too much water under the bridge. And if you don't make Eagle Scout, all my work was for nothing. And I think it is very tempting. And it's something that you cannot raise children without attaching secondary expectations to them. Nobody's goal for their child is, I hope they just exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide for 80 years. That is nobody's goal. Everybody has dreams and goals for their children. They want them to achieve things.
37:19Amy Wilson:They maybe want them to go to college. They want them to find love. They want them to get married. They want them maybe to be valedictorian. They want them to people you have dreams for your children. So you can't raise a child without attaching secondary expectations to them. But I think it's a good audit to do. Why? Why are we doing this? And make sure that the why is pretty close to you. Because I want them to be out and doing something that's not being on screens for the next six months. And I think if the why is because I think in seven years, it's going to help them get into college, maybe check that.
37:57Nicole Manassi's questions. Is your child happy doing this? Does your child have enough time to get sleep and schoolwork done now? And when you add this activity, I mean, you might stop right there. Does my child have time for friends and family outside all of this enrichment? Has my child's mood or behavior changed in a negative way since starting this activity? That's, I guess, once you've started. But here's the one, here was her closer that I thought was so important. You'll know that you need to take a break or that your kid needs to take a break when you can tell that their well-being has been compromised in any way.
38:31Executive decision, this kid needs a break. That's what you're solving for, your child's well-being. And I'm thinking about what you were saying before about like you make a commitment and you can't just quit. And it does feel like you can't just quit. And sometimes it would be really lousy if you quit. But Simone Biles quit the Olympics in 2020, because she couldn't do it, right? Like talk about you can't quit now. Well, she did. And she preserved her own well being. And maybe she would go on to win gold in Paris. And she didn't know that at the time. But she did it that escape is always possible.
39:03No travel soccer team is worth your kid falling apart at home over nothing night after night.
39:09Amy Wilson:Yeah, I think that's very right. And I think I like all those questions. I'm actually glad you didn't skip because I think they were all really useful. And I think this is an area and it's something that this podcast has really just doing the podcast, talking to you, talking to like our experts has really helped me think about is that when we talk about values, and we say our values out loud, that I have often had to check myself and say, like, I am stating a family value, but I am practicing a different value. You know what I mean? Like if it is a value for us that members of our family are happy and peaceful, that that is important to us, that if I find myself in situations where I have helped to overschedule everyone to a point where our set point is not happy and peaceful, as much as I hang my wooden, like in this house, we believe and peace and love signs, I'm actually telling my kids something different.
40:13Amy Wilson:If I am telling my kids, and listen, we all do this. I don't really think that we love our children completely unconditionally. Of course, there are some conditions on the love we have for our children. Our kids, maybe fundamentally we do, but like we have expectations for our kids. And if they disappoint us, it does affect how we feel about them. But we have to be very careful around these kind of activities that we're not accidentally saying to our kids, I really love you most when you are the star of the baseball team. We don't really believe that, but we might be acting in that way at some time.
40:51Amy Wilson:And maybe a lot of my personal worth is based on you being the valedictorian? And like, I say that to people all the time. Am I accidentally, and I'm asking this for myself, not for you all listening. Are there ways in which I think my values are, I just want my kids to be happy. But really, it's very important to me personally, that my kids present well in public, you know. And I think that this conversation, which started at like, are our kids overscheduled, it's kind of deeper than that. Are we trying to make our kids into something that is important to us? If our value is we really want our kids to be themselves?
41:33Amy Wilson:It's a hard question. I think we will wrestle with it the whole time we have kids. And if you are that parent who like, I really need my kids baseball future as a reflection on me. And you are being the good parent, driving them to travel baseball and making sure they have the cleats. And there's a lot of stress involved in that for us too, right? I would argue that when I had to take my kid to that early morning doubleheader and I had two other kids, I might not have been at my best self on those mornings because I was also stressed about coordinating the intense asks of these intense activities.
42:07And it's our well-being, again, like has to enter the chat at some point, right? Can I handle all this? Am I being the best parent I can to my kids?
42:15Amy Wilson:Sacrificing yourself for your kids' activities is not a great idea either. But I think that it's also good. And you can as your kids get older, what's really nice is you can have these conversations with them. Is this good stress or bad stress? It feels like bad stress. But is it I have a kid right now who's trying to make a team who is practicing a lot, spent a lot of the summer practicing and during a lot of those practices was miserable and like, Oh, I should just quit. This stinks. I hate this because it's really, really hard to do. And I think in the end, that is going to have proved to be really good stress.
42:51Amy Wilson:Like I now see in this kid a ton of pride in the fact that they are going to achieve this goal. But there were a ton of times while trying to achieve that goal that it absolutely stunk. And so I think that there is no study out there to help us here. It is a series of conversations about, as you talked about your child doing, do I want to take on three months of high stress for what I think might be a really rewarding experience? I do. And I think it's also fine for you to say from your point of view, this is also going to be very stressful for me. I have to think about whether I want to take it on as well.
43:29Amy Wilson:And as your kids get older, those conversations go on between all of you. But I like that question list. I think we should I post a link to that in the show notes. And it's like, keep coming back to that question list and asking and having hard conversations with yourself. That was Nicole Manassi again. So I'll put that list on there. And we have lots of good resources in this episode. I always put all the research and you always put all the research that we do when we prepare these episodes. We always put them in the show notes. And this one is a particularly good, I think, thought provoking.
43:59You can read the study. You can read an article by Jill Barche that unpacks that study and sort of was like, well, wait a minute, you know, homework. It was her work that helped me understand why that study, what we saw as a headline was more than that. If this interests you, like the deep dive gets you past, yeah, parents, the more activities they have, the more depressed they are. Go feel guilty about that.
44:23Amy Wilson:So you stink. But also, if they don't get into Harvard, you also stink. Yeah, exactly. Right. It gets you beyond that. You look at all this a little more and like, okay, of course, it's more nuanced than that. And you're solving for your child's well-being and sometimes also, yes, your own. That's how you'll know if they're overscheduled. I feel like the best episodes that we do for me, I always am like, I'm going to be talking about this at dinnertime with my kids, you know, with my own kids tonight. Like, hey, where are we on stuff? Are we doing enough? Are we not doing enough? Like, I think I have kids in both camps right now, underscheduled and probably a little overscheduled.
44:59Amy Wilson:And like, how's this working for all of us? And who needs a little more and who maybe needs a little less. And by the way, this is a conversation and it will be. Well, we've solved it. We've solved this. We solved this very nuanced year, Miles May-Vay forever. This one we did really solve. Yeah, it's definitely, it's not solvable, but I do think we solved it because I think the solution is always checking in and having the conversation about this and being open to whatever answers come about from those conversations. Friends, the tour is on. We will be in Charlotte and Boston this month. Please get tickets.
45:37Amy Wilson:And next month and into November, we will be in New York, Philly and Washington, DC. Go to whatfreshhelppodcast.com to get your tickets today. We can't wait to meet you guys out on the road. See you there.
From the publisher
This "Deep Dive" series revisits a few of our past episodes on back-to-school challenges such as the morning rush, school projects which require lots of parental oversight, and how to help our kids navigate intensifying academic pressure.
So many of us spend hours chauffeuring our kids back and forth to their myriad activities. Why are kids so overloaded with activities these days, and can we get off of this ride? Here are some parenting strategies for navigating this issue.
Amy and Margaret discuss:
Why kids are so overscheduled these days
How overscheduling really affects kids, beyond the mom guilt-inducing headlines
What questions to ask when assessing if our kids are overscheduled
Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode:
Dr Shimi King: Overscheduling Your Kids Isn’t the Fast-Track to Success it Once Was
Solution Health: Overbooked Kids: The Overscheduled Crisis
Anna Nordberg for Slate: The Fine Art of Underscheduling
Jill Barshay for Mind Shift: Overscheduling Kids’ Lives Causes Depression and Anxiety, Study Finds
Carolina Caetano, et. al for Economics of Education Review: Are children spending too much time on enrichment activities?
What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables.
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:
https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
