Over-Scheduling Children and Hyper-Parenting:
The Need For A National Family Night

By Alvin Rosenfeld, MD

As a generation, we try hard to be the best parents we possibly can. But our efforts often get lost in the over-scheduled child-rearing style that has become the norm for "good" parenting in our country. Overscheduled, frantic lives interfere with rituals such as family celebrations, weekend outings, and vacations; they diminish a child's ability to be creative, to balance personal stress and needs, and to learn to say no to impossible demands. Yet many parents have difficulty resisting this pressured way of raising kids because they fear that their children may not be able to hold their own in a world where you are measured by what you do, rather than who you are. Families need the support of local and national communities to stop the over-scheduling madness from entirely dominating their lives. National Family Night is being formed to foster that end.

• To raise national awareness about the impact of over-scheduling on families and children.

• To encourage families to examine their day-to-day schedules and to choose what matters most.

• To actively involve America's parents, educators, coaches, legislators, religious leaders and other community leaders in an on-going, nationwide dialogue about the ways our communities can foster a balance between family time, unscheduled activities, and outside enrichment activities.

National Family Night is dedicated to gathering support for communities and families to act on their realization that family time and relationships are more crucial to healthy lives than scheduled activities. We will encourage communities large and small, and the country as a whole, to focus on this issue, whether by setting one night a year aside as a night without scheduled activities and homework, or in some other way that they find useful. In time, families may decide that family time is uniquely valuable and may translate this into a monthly family event or some other way to spend time together with no goal in mind other than the enjoyment they get from being with each other. We advocate no particular activity, but hope that with time, each family will discover ways of their own that fit who they are, what they enjoy, and that allow the family to strengthen as a unit because of the pleasure and intimacy of time spent together. That is what eventually makes for a good, meaningful family and a truly strong nation.