Be Unproductive

I think back on my summer holidays as a child and I remember how much I enjoyed that time. I remember family barbeques, swinging in the playground, trying to catch butterflies, watching worms wriggle in the garden, spending a leisurely afternoon at the local swimming pool, making homemade ice-cream and playing checkers with dad.

As a family we went to the library often and my love of books grew as I learned to discover interesting authors on my own.

Life was relaxing and it seemed to move at a slower pace. My parents didn’t work late and we always enjoyed family dinners together, laughing and talking about our day.

Today, life moves at a fast pace. Even during the summer we tend to schedule classes for our kids. Swimming is no longer a leisurely afternoon at the pool. It now seems to be a marathon of classes to perfect diving and backstroke techniques.

It is rare for families to eat dinner together before sunset. The evenings are usually rushed with various activities and scheduled events.

Today, if we have time to go to the library, we select books from prepared reading lists to give our kids a head start for the new school year.

We can’t even enjoy eating homemade ice cream without thinking about sugar content or the number of calories in a serving. (Not only that, who actually has the patience to wait for the ice cream to freeze?)

Everywhere we turn we are faced with the effects of living in a fast pace, competitive environment. Our children beg for cell phones to stay in constant contact with friends. Kids text message one another as they wait in line for fast food.

We fill our calendars with activities that we think will help our kids be even more successful: dancing lessons, singing lessons, soccer, chess club, writing camp, etc.

As parents, our lives become more complicated as we work longer hours to help financially support all of these new habits and activities. We get so caught up in the process of trying to give our children better lives that sometimes we fail to step back and evaluate if we are doing the right things.

I’ve just recently finished reading “The Over Scheduled Child” by Alvin Rosenfeld and Nicole Wise. I think the book has some useful advice. It has given me the courage to step back and re-evaluate where we are going as a family. What are we teaching our children? Who is influencing our children’s lives?

I’m determined to keep saying “no”. “No, you don’t need a cell phone just because your friends have one.” “Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to do it.”

I am still fighting for family meals together every day. I’m still safeguarding our Sunday time together as a family and I am not letting other activities interfere. We still take walks, talk, listen and play games together as a family.

I’m looking forward to the “lazy days of summer”. It will be a time to relax and spend time with my family. In order to make more time for my family I will be cutting back on some of my other activities (including this blog). I won’t be posting again until September.

Join me and be unproductive. Simplify your life this summer and slow down. Ignore the voices and actions of others around you.

Following are a couple of excerpts from “The Over Scheduled Child” by Alvin Rosenfeld and Nicole Wise. Relax and start to pay attention to the real needs of your family.

Leave Empty Spaces on Your Calendar

Parents worry about kids’ boredom, so they schedule their lives to keep them busy. But empty hours teach children how to create their own happiness – and that is an important skill we would all benefit from developing. Unscheduled time encourages children to create, imagine, see new possibilities that no one before has thought of, certainly no one designing scheduled or pre-packaged play. It teaches children to fill their own empty time enjoyably.

Be Unproductive

A life that consists of endless activities demonstrates to our children that we expect them to be hyper-active workaholics who run from 6am to 9pm with no rest. It tells them they need to work hard at polishing and perfecting themselves, and says implicitly that we don’t believe they are “good enough” as they are. It is good for families to spend unproductive time together – shooting hoops, taking walks, playing games, sitting and talking, reading. The fact that you, the parent, enjoy spending time with your child with no apparent goal lets her know you find her more interesting than just about anything else in the world – there is nothing that will bolster her self-esteem more effectively.