Balance

Mostly what I've been talking about and joking about with the "Cheetah Mom" idea, is balance--helping your child achieve a balanced, healthy and rewarding life.  We all want our children to try hard, but not to the point of depression or mental illness.  We all want them to maintain their self-esteem, but not become self-absorbed.  We all want them to excel at a certain number of activities--hopefully some of them school-related--but not cut off all social ties in order to do so.

One way to achieve this elusive thing called balance is to resist piling on the after-school activities--at the tender age of five or six, especially.

Today when I dropped off my boy at the start of school, I was chatting with the dad of a classmate, an adorable boy with one of the sweetest natures I've ever seen.  He is almost always smiling to himself; and he seems to have a social awareness well beyond the norm for his age.  He came up to my shy son the other day at a birthday party--my son was sitting on the sidelines while the other kids were eagerly playing pin the tail--and held out a donkey tail to him, encouraging him to join in the fun.   Some other moms had mentioned that this boy was already on a swim team, so I asked the dad about it.  "Yeah; for now," he said.  I wondered what that meant.  "Well, practices are three or four days a week.  My daughter was on a soccer team, but it got to be too much. You know how it is, Silicon Valley--everything's competitive."

Six year old kids, already practicing a sport at least four times a week?  But this is getting to be the norm.

What's wrong with that? I hear some parents say.  But there must be a reason why so many teens in this area are stressed to the point of considering or committing suicide...could it be, perhaps, that their lives are simply way out of balance?  And have been, not just for a few years, but since they were five or six?

Now I sound like I'm preaching, or ranting...I suppose I am.  It's late and the weather's been brutal (close to 100 degrees the last three days), so I'm turning in on this grumpy note.