“He’s on two different baseball teams. She’s on one team, but she also takes dance on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They both have music on Wednesdays. Friday is Scouts, Saturday is karate. Sunday is our one day off, but of course we have church and its activities afterwards. Oh, and Sunday evening services, too.”

I was on the receiving end of this speech recently, but it might not be verbatim. My head started spinning somewhere in the middle.

We are, as a society, obsessed with keeping our kids busy. Classes, activities, lessons. Keep. Them. Busy! In fact, we view it as almost a status symbol. “Wow, good for them!” we’ll say, as if it’s some commendable feat to continually be running from one activity to another.

The first thing I always wonder is, “Do the kids want to be doing so many things?”, followed quickly by, “Are they tired?”

And don’t get me wrong. I’ll be the first person to to tell you to encourage your kids’ interests. Tegan (10) is currently in theater and volleyball. The boys aren’t in any organized activities at the moment, but they have in the past played on sports teams, been involved with Scouts, and taken various music and other lessons.

I’ll also concede that some of this has to do with personality. As a big introvert and homebody, keeping up with the schedule up above might well kill me.

But I still maintain that more than anything, kids (of all ages) need time to be kids. They need time to play. They need time to lie on their backs and daydream about knights and dragons and dinosaurs and what they want to be when they grow up. They need time to discover the 41 different ways you can entertain yourself with a stick. They need to splash unhurried through mud puddles. They need to spend long lazy summer afternoons with sand between their toes and ice cream running down their arms. They need time to think, to ponder, to play make-believe, to do nothing. Because all of the “nothings” in the world add up to a very big “something” when it comes to growing a grounded, resourceful, and well-rounded little human. They need time for themselves, time for unstructured play with their friends, time for dinnertime talks with Mom and Dad.

We see more and more kids and adults alike who are strung out, exhausted, anxious, and depressed… and is it any wonder? We glorify busy. We pride ourselves on running ourselves – and our kids – ragged.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

We can stop. We can take a breath. We can live in the right now, instead of keeping our heads mired in the act of running off to our next activity. We can make downtime just as important as gymnastic lessons. We can schedule in days for play. For exploring. For self-care. We can, quite literally, give our kids the gift of time.

So please, by all means, support your kids. If you have the resources, let them take that ballet class, bring them to karate, watch them learn to play the guitar. But never so much that the price you’re paying is the sacrifice of time for them to just BE.