And I'm not sure why - maybe the media told me, in every story and radio interview I've heard about the effects of helicoptering on young people - but somehow I intuited that the kind of immaturity Amanda Knox represented was about overscheduling and overmanaging children. The Melendy kids - who are, I grant you, fictional - sometimes spend all day long alone, building dams in streams, watching moths, composing music. They put on performances for the neighborhood and in the summer they squander whole days getting lost in the woods. They come in at dinner and the adults ask them: What did you do today? The adults have no idea; they had no hand in the children's activities and pursuits.
The thing that Enright captures so beautifully is the alert, quiet, interior yet observant state that children enter sometimes, most especially when they are outside and alone, watching crickets or clouds, or listening to water move. It's a porous, open, extraordinary feeling of being suspended, still and watching. Do you remember those moments? In the backyard, at camp, sitting on a stoop at night? I cannot explain exactly why, but I think to become a real adult a person needs to spend a lot of time just being - with absolutely nothing to do. Kids need long, open afternoons. They need solitude. It builds character!
Well. I was trying to talk about some of this tonight with a friend when it occurred to me that really, all this crotchety talk about Kids Today and how things were better Way Back When is probably really just about my own anxiety with our kids, and how relatively little they do extracurricular-wise. I think I'm trying to convince myself it's okay. So many of their peers are playing multiple sports, dancing, gymnastic-ing, playing instruments, and taking the test for their black belts in karate. Some of them seem to have activities every day after school, and all kinds of skills to show for their efforts.
My kids couldn't wield a lacrosse stick to save their lives. They can just barely swim. Nearly every time we need to mobilize to get to a structured activity, they protest. What they want to do after school is putter, paste, build. Hang face-down on a swing in the backyard. The last thing they want to do is follow instructions! We do manage a few things: Gabriel is playing soccer and Frances is playing the piano. Sometimes we make it to swim class. On paper it sounds just fine but sometimes I do wonder if they will feel less confident, less accomplished than their peers someday. Maybe they already do! Am I setting them up, all while convincing myself that without lots of open free time they'll turn in scandalous students abroad...?
Thoughts on this one? How important is unstructured, unsupervised time? Is it really as essential as I suspect? But is a real commitment to it a kind of gamble - I mean, will my kids get into college even if 2nd grade was more or less lacking in extracurriculars? How do we protect the space children need to grow into who they are, while still helping them to be confident, competent participants in the world they live in?
3 comments:
Me too, exactly-- we quit Aggie's one dance class because it turned out to be too much about the sparkly dress and preening for a grown-up audience. Henry takes piano and that's it. My kids can barely swim either-- and every year I vow to work on it. I don't know how these families manage so many activities. We all like to be puttering at home. School and work is busy enough! Like you, I'm pretty sure we're doing the right thing for us, but I'm keeping one eye on the peer group and am ready to take action if I feel like we become too much outliers. On the other hand, I am proud of the things my kids do to amuse themselves, and like you, I just feel it's important.
I have one child, who is 11 and in 5th grade. She has multiple activities - something to do everyday, with some days those activities being stacked one on top of another. This is all of her own choosing and most of her activities are at school - which is two blocks away, so she walks back & forth. Of the two she cannot walk to, only one requires us to drive her anywhere. She is busy.
That said, she wasn't interested in other activities until she was in second grade. She didn't play soccer, she didn't take any music lessons - she may play two instruments today, but she didn't pick up any until last year.
When they are ready for more activities, they'll let you know. And until then, don't worry about it. I too believe kids need plenty of unstructured time to just be. We all do.
When presented with a Knox level cautionary tale I think many parents automatically make a checklist of ways in which their child is different. We have a natural inclination to draw a protective circle around our children made up of our children's gifts, our own parenting successes, the benevolent community where we live,etc. It is also natural, I think, to worry that maybe we haven't done enough. Ultimately, we just don't know who these little people are going to be. I find comfort in letting go of my expectations for the future and accepting that who my kids will be as adults is somewhat unknowable. From my outside perspective, your kids are having a wonderful childhood, which is not to say they won't feel anxieties about things they did and did not do. In the end, having thoughtful and responsive parents who can be present in the moment is as good as it gets.
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