So What DOES He Do?

     I was chatting with an acquaintance the other day, a fellow mother I hadn't seen in a while. When I asked what she'd been up to, she began listing her children's schedules while lamenting about having only one evening a week to eat dinner together as a family and spending entire weekends juggling their various practices and games. Then she asked about my nine-year-old son and his activities, hoping to bond over similar complaints. I couldn't oblige. I told her that he plays trumpet two mornings a week at school and he takes karate two days a week after school, purposefully leaving our evenings and weekends free.
     "He's not doing indoor soccer?"
     "No," I replied.
     "I think it's the only way to keep up if they're going to play in the spring league."
     "He doesn't play in the spring league."
     Her eyebrows shot up. "Oh. He must be a baseball player," she concluded.
     "Nope, doesn't play that, either."
     This seemed to stump her momentarily. "Well, some kids just aren't into sports. Mary [not her real name] loves that Community School of the Arts. They do choir concerts and art shows... Do you know about their programs?"
     I smiled. "I've heard of them."    
     Now her brows positively furrowed in what must have been complete bafflement. Finally she asked, "So then, what does he do?"
    

He swims  

Plays in the snow

Reads  

 
Sketches pictures

Does science experiments  

making crystals

Goes to the zoo  

Takes day trips  

New York City

 And long weekend trips  

Washington DC

Burlington, VT

And longer trips 

Nantucket

Disney World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Takes plane rides and car rides to visit family

waiting for our plane

Makes up his own comic strips  

Makes his own home movies

Lies on the grass  

Touches aquarium creatures  

Finding a clam

Hikes

Bowls  

Visits museums near...

Mystic Seaport

Hillstead Museum

And far  

Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum

Sews his own stuffed animals   

Runs just for the fun of it

Skis

Plays putt putt golf

Enjoys the local library  

Goes to the beach to catch sea creatures...  

And make sand castles

Kayaks

Creates paintings  

Takes summer evening walks with his family

Meets up with friends at the playground after school

Tries to sell his paintings 

Spends Sunday afternoons at Barnes & Noble

Spends a day at the fair

Builds things for his room  

his own tv (with Oprah on)

Sculpts with clay

Stays up late for a double feature at the Drive-In

Camps in our backyard  

making s'mores in front of tent

Fishes with his dad  

Plays board games

Visits the New York Botanical Gardens 

Catches frogs in the backyard  

Checks out the inside of a submarine

Experiences live theater and concerts

Boston Pops Christmas concert

Makes a science fair project

Goes boating

Gardens

Plays tag with the kids next door

Makes origami  

     That's what he does, or what he did in 2013 anyway. No coaches, no experts, no signing up involved.
     I didn't make this list to tell anyone else what their kids ought to be doing. I am hoping, though, that we as parents can learn to trust our children more. We don't have to schedule everything for them. They don't need formal lessons in order to learn everything.
     They will play.
     They will be creative.
     They will learn how to use their down time.
     In fact, without us scheduling all their free time, they will discover what they like to do and what they're good at. We can let them unearth their talents before we push lessons and practices on them. We can let them be creative in their own way on their own time when they feel like it.
     There's a lot of joy to be had in playing a team sport, however we seem to have lost the balance between game time and family time. A few years back, a friend of mine told me she was thinking of canceling a family trip to Yellowstone because the baseball game schedule of one of her sons conflicted with their summer plans. Ugh. Astonishingly, we tend to underestimate the role of family in our children's happiness and success in life. Why don't we ever measure our success as a family? How can you think having your six-year-old spend her evenings plucking violin strings at a Suzuki program is more beneficial than spending quality time together?
     They don't need formal lessons to enjoy arts and crafts. They don't need to perform in a concert to like singing. Formal training will come later if they decide to pursue them. Fill their memory banks with the time they learned how to cook from their dad or ice skate from their mom. Let's trust ourselves to be their teachers and their role models, instead of eclipsing our time together with programmed activities.
     Don't worry. There is still plenty of time to tap our children's potential. What we're running out of is time to enjoy each other and make memories together.