I’ve said this over and over again, and many people are probably sick about hearing me talk about it, but I’m so intentionalabout fitting downtime into all our schedules. Whether it is during the school year, over breaks, or on vacation, I like to make sure we all have some times to just, BE. During the school year, I really try to make it so we aren’t running around from one place to another – from activity to activity if you will. Kids’ days are so planned out while they are in school, and I think it’s nice to let them have some autonomy over how they want to spend their afternoons and be kids (and I knowthat there are some kids that love playing sports, and if that’s the case, that’s okay, too).

But I feel like shuffling our kids around constantly is taking away their ability to play, to use their imaginations, and to figure things out by themselves a little bit. Organized sports and activities absolutely have their value – time management, the importance of working with a team, dedication to one thing. But I often wonder how much our kids are missing out on by not being given the opportunity to be bored, by not being given the opportunity to decide how they want to play at any given downtime.  I’m not sure if this is happening all around the country or if this is just a Miami-specific thing, but it seems like every sport/activity goes from recreational straight into competitive or travel-based activities at such an early age. These are things that take up so much time, time that we are often split from the rest of the family. They also come with a financial cost that is so high that many families can’t afford to take a proper vacation because “our vacation budget went to the competition/baseball/soccer season”.  To be one hundred percent clear, I’m not against any of these things. Each of these things brings its own value, and sometimes, our kids really are good enough to go the distance in these activities. I have incredible memories from my time in high school on a competitive school dance team. But I saw the toll it took on a lot of other aspects of my life, and I could never picture myself dancing that far into the future, so I bowed out – again, in high school. My dance experience prior to that had been dance classes three times a week, with one recital, no competition.

And you may call me selfish for this one, but I didn’t have kids to spend my life split from the rest of my family while I shuffle one to one place and my husband takes the other somewhere else.  When I had kids, I imagined traveling all over the place with them, doing fun things together on the weekends, and spending most evenings together, letting them be kids. I can’t tell you how often we sit in the yard and play and my kids tell me, “This is my favorite way to spend the afternoon.”

What this very long-winded message is trying to say, though, is that discernment is really important. Sometimes we fall into the next step of something – a competitive team or a travel team – because it seems like the natural progression. But we have to think about what is right for our families, for our homes, for our kids. Not because we want to give them something we feel we missed out on. Not because we enjoy being a backstage mom/soccer mom/ insert label here. Definitely not because “we need to keep them busy.”  But because we have a responsibility to give our kids a childhood that will bring them joy and lasting benefits in a world that can often be hard to navigate, especially if we don’t let them learn to manage it a little themselves.