Hi everybody.
Melissa from CloudMom.com.
Hope you're doing great today.
This blog is really just to share some thoughts I've had recently about this whole over-scheduling
issue.
I've talked about it a lot on CloudMom.com and just some sort of things I've noticed
witnessing my kids over the course of the summer.
We had a busy summer.
My kids did a few different camps.
They did a Spanish camp, they did a soccer camp, they did something where they were doing
some swimming.
They've been pretty busy and at the end of the summer, we don't start school until quite
late so we had a couple weeks where they really weren't doing much of anything and I'm thinking
to myself, "Oh my God, what am I gonna do with them".
I'm so busy, I've got all this stuff to organize for the fall.
I've got my work.
What am I gonna do with my kids and what are they gonna do and basically what happened
is that they ended up doing pretty much close to nothing but having fun and like running
around the house and coming up with weird and random stuff.
So, one day, one of my sons made a secret code and he was writing things with numbers
and boxes all over these pieces of paper.
I have no idea what the code is.
The other day my son comes in, he's like, "Mommy, can we cut our t-shirts".
I'm like, "Yeah whatever".
I was in front of the computer and they ended up cutting these undershirts, they're just
ones that I buy at the supermarket and writing on them with letters and making a team, called
the Poison Ninjas and running around and pretending to be playing sports and part of this team.
And these are just two tiny examples, but the point is, they really actually still were
doing cool things.
They were coming up with all these fun little creative things that they wouldn't have done
had they been in a camp all day.
And earlier this summer I actually coffee with an old friend.
She's really a nice girl, she's a really nice woman and I'm like what does your girl do?
And she's like, "Oh she does badminton after school."
I'm like, "Badminton?"
Okay, I'm not dissing badminton, but I just thought it was interesting.
I don't know another child who only does badminton once a week and I'm like, "Okay, that's cool.
Don't you worry that she's not learning like soccer or music or piano?"
She's like, "Well you don't do all those things and you're fine" and I'm like, "That's true."
And she's like, "She's just tired after school and she likes to rest and have fun and if
she does all those things she's not gonna have time to just relax and enjoy herself
a little bit before she does her homework and why does everybody need to do everything
anyway?"
And I just think that's so interesting.
Why do kids need to do everything and maybe in trying to do everything, they're missing
out on just being able to learn on their own how to enjoy themselves which is so important
because if you're an adult and you could be a great piano player or like kick the best
soccer ball in the world, but if you don't know how to have fun and enjoy yourself and
just be happy hanging out, you're not gonna be a happy person.
That's what I think.
So anyway, it was just a really interesting thing.
I think next summer we're gonna cut it back even more and going into this year I'm trying
to cut back even more on the busy-ness to give them that down time, and I've also noticed
that they're more relaxed.
So, anyway, please share your experiences with your kids over this summer.
What did they do?
Were they in camp?
Were they not?
How did they fill their time?
Do you think it was good for them?
Do you like to give them a lot of down time?
How does it work?
I would love to hear from you.
Thank you so much for watching my videos.
I really, really appreciate it.
It's been such an amazing journey for me to be able to share things from my own life and
what's gone on with my babies with you guys on my site and on YouTube.
I really appreciate your watching and I will see you next time.