Do kids really need so many scheduled activities?

Posted on 03 01, 2007 under Master Debaters by wahoodad |

scheduleMost kids don’t really need cell phones, but most of them could use a Blackberry or Palm Pilot to keep their weekly schedules.  Parents track their kids’ whereabouts on color-coded calendars and spend a great deal of time shuttling them from one activity to another.  That Dunkin’ Donuts commercial with the mom driving her kids all over creation in the minivan (Ka-ra-taaayyy!) is remarkably accurate. 

Back in the day, when we used to have to change the television channel by turning a knob attached to the set and Ford Pintos roamed the earth, being a kid seemed much less complicated.  You only had a few things on your agenda.  Every kid went to school and then played; and you had maybe one extracurricular activity, like Little League baseball or Boy Scouts.  Not so these days. 

Maybe you think it’s imperative to expose your kids to as many planned activities as possible; or maybe you think kids don’t need to have every hour of their daily schedule filled.   So tell us how you feel:

Do kids really need so many scheduled activities?

This is the latest installment in our Master Debaters Question of the Week Series. There are some topics that seem to fall into the consensus category: drunk driving is bad, guns kill people, Transformers are better than GoBots. But that only covers less than 1% of the decisions you and your spouse make towards the upbringing of your kids. The majority of issues tend to fall more in the gray area.

Here at Noodad.com, we take pride in delivering important advice for dads. But we realize that some of our advice is subjective. The collected readership surely has things to add and unique perspectives to contribute.

So, where do you weigh in?

 

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