Kids in the Fast Lane:
How Much After-school Enrichment is an Embarrassment of Riches?

The following article appeared in the September 2001 edition of San Jose magazine. Mark Carey was a contributor to the story.


"Soccer Mom" doesn't even begin to describe Allison Canale. Sure, soccer plays a serious role in her schedule: her oldest son, Tim, plays on both a town team and the traveling team he was asked to join this summer, and she shuttles him back and forth to games and practices. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Tim also plays an electric guitar in an after-school band, has just finished a series of trumpet lessons and recently started playing the cello. Catie, her middle child, takes dance, piano and harp lessons. Cameron, her youngest, plays piano, too- and also plays hockey on to the teams that, he hopes, will someday prepared him for the NFL draft.


Whether Cameron makes it to the big leagues is anyone's guess - he is, after all, only eightú but Allison Canale and her SUV have already hit the big time. She's a marathon mom; she's got the mileage to prove it. Even when hockey and soccer practices overlap and she has to rev the engine a bit more to make it to her daughter's recital on time, she's not a complainer: she's doing, she feels, what's best for her kids. "When your kid comes to you and asks for cello lessons, you don't just say no," she says. "You ask them if they're really serious, if they'll practice. And if they will, you make the time. They only get to be kids once."


Some educators and psychologists say that's just the problem. Kids only get to be kids once, they say, so why not just let them play? School is all about structured time, and just as adults need a break from the schedule, the story goes, so do children. Take a look around Silicon Valley and you see kids enrolled in after-school sports, lessons and enrichment programsú all noble endeavors, surely, but when does enrichment become an embarrassment of riches? How much is too much, not just for the parents who have to provide fees and transport, but for the kids themselves?


Canale's kids, by all accounts, are well adjusted an happy, though they're a bit more conscious of their own and each other's schedules than your average child. After all, they have to be: their parents work, too, and the clock is always ticking. "You have to be very organized to fit it all in, but it's possible," she says. "With everything that's out there, I just don't see there's another choice."


In fact, there are many choices, but each comes with its own cost. Some Silicon Valley parents are choosing to enroll their kids in private schools, hoping that low student-to-teacher and high activities-per-student ratios will keep their kids stimulated, happy, and-for the most part-in one centralized location for much of the day. Others choose public schools, augmenting the existing school programs with private lessons, tutors, and after-school activities. For parents at schools like Silver Oak Elementary in San Jose, educational partnerships with community businesses and museums provide arts and science programs that help both parents and kids find what they're looking for. Others homeschool their children and look outside for the team sports and social outlets their kids miss by staying home from school.


The upside of all this activity is obvious. Kids get to experiment with new activities, face new challenges, and gain the self-confidence that comes with learning new skills. The downside? Second-graders who are as stressed out as their parents, with schedules as full. Elementary school kids who are so used to having their weekends crammed with soccer games and museum classes that they don't know what to do with the rare, unscheduled block of time on Christmas Day, say, or the rainy afternoon when practice is cancelled.


"In the process of trying to prepare our children for a rapidly evolving and fiercely competitive world, we too often professionalize and adultify our children by taking the fun out of childhood," write Ian Toffler and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo, co-authors of Keeping Your Kids Out Front Without Kicking Them From Behind. "We have turned summer camps into training camps where children work hard to learn and improve useful skills. We have stolen lazy Saturday afternoons spent daydreaming under a tree an replaced them with adult-supervised, adult-organized activities and classes. There is no time that can be wasted on idle pastimes and no talent left unexplored or unexploited."


When you're just talking about summer art camp or after-school Little League, Toffler and DiGeronimo can sound a little alarmist. But, they say, the problem isn't activities themselves; it's the weight parents can place on them, and the pressure kids put on themselves to do everything-and succeed at it- that can become problematic.
Mark Carey, a private tutor who founded Menlo Park-based QWERTY Education Services in 1986, says living in Silicon Valley, especially, amplifies kids' ambition. "We are surrounded by masters in every domain. People here have extraordinary homes, raise fabulous gardens, throw perfect parties, are world-class athletes, are devastatingly beautiful and fashionable, and extremely articulate. Few parents can honestly or accurately say that they not pressure their child; their very existence is a form of pressure, since they're likely to be successful people who by their own example set a high standard." Carey, who estimates the waiting list for his tutoring services is now one to two years, also says that after-school tutoring and other activities can augment a child's education an build self-esteem-provided that both the parent and the child have realistic goals. "Control is a huge theme for children, and the problem some kids have is that when their schedules are packed-especially with activities the child might be ambivalent about in the first place-it takes away that sense of control." Regaining control, he says, is often a matter of learning how to manage school time and schoolwork better, so there's more time left over for the other activities that are always competing against each other.


Of course, being able to prioritize is useful at any age; when after-school lessons and activities require a juggling act that's more like triage, experts say, there's something wrong. Dr. David Elkin, author of The Hurried Child, says moderation should be the watchword for kids' activities: no more than one or two activities for 3- to 5-year olds, and two to three for kids age 6 through 8. Three to four activities per semester should keep kids busy until age 12 or so, though of course a more demanding activity-competitive ice skating, say, or intensive music lessons-might count as two activities. Additionally, Elkind cautions parents against allowing kids to participate in "serious" competition before second grade-and, of course, to make sure that even older kids don't place too much emphasis on competition or winning.


That's good news for the Canale kids, each of whom complies with Elkind's guidelines. Of course, it's not much consolation for Allison; nine sets of lessons and practices per week is still nine sets per week, whether she's shuttling three kids around in her SUV or one.


It's a bit of vindication, though, for a woman who's received several copies of Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much. Of course, she's not alone on the highway; other mothers drive to just as many lessons as she does. Fathers do, too. Cultural critics since Alexis de Tocqueville have faulted Americans for a national tendency toward hyperactivity, notes syndicated columnist Sue Schellenbarger. In an informal survey of families that vied to be "America's Busiest Family" in a contest sponsored by Siemens Information & Communication Mobile in Dallas last year, Schellenbarger found that the families she interviewed didn't seem to be less close to each other or less happy with their lives than the average family. They just checked their watches a little more often-and stressed a shared philosophy that life is short, so you have to pack as much experience into it as possible.


So if little Brittney or Jason clamors for voice/dance/drum/fencing lessons, should you schedule them? And if they whine that they don't want to go to voice/dance/drum/fencing lessons, when do you let them quit? Elkind, for one, says that it's important for kids to stick with an agreed-on activity for "a reasonable length" of time-a few months, say, before they can quit. Above all, Toffler and DiGeronimo say, avoid pressuring: A child who doesn't like hockey isn't likely to grow up and win a hockey scholarship to college, even if you did.


The bottom line? "Over-programming takes away kids' control and becomes a source of resentment and reaction, " Carey cautions. "Giving children an active voice in some of this programming gives them some real and practical controls in their lives and is an important skill in real-world decision-making."


For moms like Allison Canale, the kids' schedule drives family life, even if Mom's the one stuck behind the wheel every afternoon. But not forever. In a few years, Allison says, there'll be another set of lessons in the Canale household: driving lessons for Tim. And by then-who know? -the family's breakneck pace might just have slowed down a little, all by itself.