Finding Balance: How Many Activities is Too Many?

Where is the line between enriching activities for your child and an overbusy schedule? The short answer depends on each child, but there are a few universal factors we can consider when finding the sweet spot for your family.

Free Play
Young children require ample time for free, unstructured play. During this type of play, children gain a sense of freedom in choosing what they want to do, increase their imagination and creativity, develop their own rules, and practice problem-solving. Free play fosters critical aspects of children's development and is linked to emotional regulation and independence. Free play also takes time, significant time. It is not something that can be squeezed into a fifteen-minute window in between activities. Children can often take 30-45 minutes just to get established in their free play and find their groove. So allowing the time necessary for rich, unstructured play is a vital component to every child’s schedule.

Benefits of Boredom
In addition to having time to play, children also need dedicated time to be bored. Yep, you read that correctly. We should set aside time for our children to do nothing. While boredom can often lead to deep, engaging free play, it also has a distinctly different and equally important value. In the absence of being entertained, a child’s brain will create its own engagement, generating new ideas and creative thinking. Boredom provides a much-needed break from stimulation, which reduces stress in young children and allows for a reset throughout their day. Often, it is through boredom that children discover new interests that can be expanded on during their free play time.

Family Time
In today’s “culture of busy,” it is often time together as a family that can be sacrificed. A simple ritual, such as family dinner together, holds immense value for your child that should not be quickly replaced with scheduled activities. Research shows that family dinners improve children’s emotional health, reduce screen time, and support better nutrition and eating habits. Families who consistently sit down together for dinner typically have stronger bonds, healthier dynamics, and create powerful childhood memories. Making these deposits with your time while children are young also yields significant results in adolescents.

Back to Basics
Sometimes the simplest things can easily be overlooked, such as sleep. Children need significantly more rest than adults for proper development. Typically, a child between the ages of 2 to 5 requires 10 to 13 hours of sleep. As many children begin to drop their nap during this time, it’s important to adjust nighttime sleep to ensure sufficient quality rest. And sleep is not static. A child may average 10 hours of sleep each night just fine for weeks or even months before hitting a stretch where they require additional rest. This may be due to illness, a developmental leap, or even something as simple as the high temperatures we experience here in the valley, causing a little extra drain on our energy.

When we consider how activities fit into your child’s schedule, it’s important to first consider these four foundational elements. Existing time commitments, such as school, and the age of the child can also play a role. Free play, time for boredom, family time, and sleep should remain essential components of the schedule of young children.

As you go to schedule your next activity, keep in mind that we only have our children little for so long. Celebrate the stage they are in now and resist the rush to always strive for more, because sometimes less is more.