Parents' relationships and kids' activities
I've got a question to pose to you all. I brought this up to my family when we got together this past week for Rachel's birthday and something on tv brought it back to mind.
Kids are busy these days...I mean BUSY! We have heard stories about kids being involved in multiple sports teams, dance classes, academic clubs, working, dating, being involved in church activities...and oh yeah, that little thing called school. Unreal! And what does this mean for parents? A lot!
Parents, at least around here, are constantly on the go. Someone has to take the kids to all of those activities, especially when they're starting to get involved in all of this when they're so young (4-5 years old). If a family has more than 1 or 2 kids, the parents might even have to end up tag-teaming, splitting up to take the kids to their "appointments", running all over the place to meetings, practices, games, etc.
What do you think this does for a marriage relationship, let alone family relationships in general? It can't do a lot of good. It seems that families are becoming so busy with activities for both kids and parents that they are losing out on actual time together. Who has time for date night, something that is of extreme importance to couples...spending time together?!
As the divorce rate steams ahead, over 50% in and out of the church, I'm sitting here wondering if a part of the problem are the over-bloated schedules of our kids. Is it possible that we're allowing them to run ragged and at the same time hurting our relationships, with the kids we're working to develop AND with our spouses?
I'd love to get some opinions on this.
Kids are busy these days...I mean BUSY! We have heard stories about kids being involved in multiple sports teams, dance classes, academic clubs, working, dating, being involved in church activities...and oh yeah, that little thing called school. Unreal! And what does this mean for parents? A lot!
Parents, at least around here, are constantly on the go. Someone has to take the kids to all of those activities, especially when they're starting to get involved in all of this when they're so young (4-5 years old). If a family has more than 1 or 2 kids, the parents might even have to end up tag-teaming, splitting up to take the kids to their "appointments", running all over the place to meetings, practices, games, etc.
What do you think this does for a marriage relationship, let alone family relationships in general? It can't do a lot of good. It seems that families are becoming so busy with activities for both kids and parents that they are losing out on actual time together. Who has time for date night, something that is of extreme importance to couples...spending time together?!
As the divorce rate steams ahead, over 50% in and out of the church, I'm sitting here wondering if a part of the problem are the over-bloated schedules of our kids. Is it possible that we're allowing them to run ragged and at the same time hurting our relationships, with the kids we're working to develop AND with our spouses?
I'd love to get some opinions on this.
posted by Michael Shattuck at
10:09 PM
2 Comments:
As a parent of two boys, I believe that you have to prioritize. Knowing that we wanted them involved in church activities, we asked them to each pick one outside activity that they would like to do. It turned out that one didn't want to participate in any outside activites, and the other wanted to focus on his music. We realized that all of the running wasn't helping our family at all. Both boys had previously been involved in sports,scouts, music and church. We found out that the sports and scouts were things that we were leading them to do. They didn't like those things at all. Whatever you and your family do, make sure that your are bringing glory to God in all of it.
Great comment, Neal. I think that if we are living our lives as servants of Christ, God's priorities become our priorities. Of course, in a busy world that is sometimes easier said than lived. But many problems are solved when we approach life with that perspective.
I think that's a good thought, as well, to let the kids pick an activity. Sometimes that one activity, though, can include 3-4 events a week (meetings, practices, games, etc). I don't think that would be the norm though.
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