After school activities and burnout
Okay, so we all agree we want our kids to be happy and engaged, right? We don’t like to see children sink into a state of permanent boredom and malaise. But we don’t the other extreme either. A child that is over stimulated is just as much in danger. But while parents worldwide seem highly conscious of the first problem, they largely overlook the second one. They schedule overly busy days for their children, which often do not end with the afternoon school bell. Children are shuttled to three four even five hours of intense activity before going home. There are tutors and games, music lessons and craft classes. They children arrive home, not at three or four, but at dinner and then are expected to tackle an average of a few hours of homework. The result is becoming clear. There is an entire generation of overworked, exhausted children.
After school activities and burnout is a new and complicated syndrome. It creates children who have a wide variety of troubling symptoms. Overly stimulated, overworked children have trouble with concentration, which affects their school performance. They have trouble sleeping, as anxiety has become a common offshoot of their overstuffed days.
It is common to see children who cannot keep up, and have what amounts to minor breakdowns. They have tantrums, they are belligerent and hard to please. They cannot see through with a project or task and their levels of frustration can be abnormal. Often they are also deeply unhappy with this state of affairs.
This dilemma is caused, in part, by two parents working. The demands of the economy have forced both parents into the work place full time and as such, the modern family has to find supervision for their children until they can escape from work to tend to them.
This new syndrome is also created by parents who have over arching, very often unrealistic goals for their children. Their anxiety about what it takes to achieve in this world, driven by the increasing competition among good schools, the tough job market prompts these parents to force their children into becoming super children. It may in fact result in good grades and a outstanding adolescent resume, but the cost, in happiness and health, must be given very serious consideration.

