Remember boredom? In the past children spent time reading a book and or just using their imaginations to create games. Today’s parents are obsessed with constantly stimulating their children with too many activities. We, at etcetera, had the privilege of sitting down and speaking to Manal El Chafei Mansour, a licensed play therapist and certified parenting coach about overloading a child with activities.

Manal has depicted this new trend in Lebanon whereby parents are overloading their children with too many activities after school and on weekends, like sports teams, music lessons, art classes, yoga, etc. “I feel like there is a lot of pressure for parents to enroll their children in activities after school,” she explains. Parents may feel that their children need to take part in certain activities to explore new talents and keep up with their peers at school. However, too much of  this may deter them from focusing more on their child’s academic and social needs and lead them to focus more on how everyone else is raising their children.

Most times, parents bombard their child with activities without actually asking them whether or not they enjoy the activity itself. Manal recommends that “[The child should] be part of the decision making; kids have to have their say, and then parents can take it from there.” By doing so, parents are teaching their child to make responsible choices, as well as limiting the amount of activities they take part in. Plus, this is a great way for children to discover what they like to do, instead of doing what their parents want them to do. Parents need to remember that their child may not be an athlete, musician, or artist.

Also, this activity overload creates a lot of stress and exhaustion for the child, leaving them with little time to concentrate on homework. Sometimes children will go to school too tired, which will not help their school performance, “By the end of the day, they feel frustrated because they are not focusing on schoolwork and may feel like they are falling behind; it becomes a vicious circle,” Manal clarifies. Children should not feel stressed out at a young age, since there should be time for work and time for fun.

For this reason, Manal strongly encourages parents to allow children play time, because they are always partaking in activities, but it’s important to remember that kids need down time as well. Playing is a great way for children to develop their creativity and imagination. “Even if they get bored, that’s really important. This way they learn how to self-entertain; today, children’s lives are so structured with activities that they aren’t given a chance to get bored. Therefore they are not getting creative and they don’t know how to entertain themselves,” She argues. 

Manal’s advice to parents when it comes to registering their children for activities, is to only enroll their children in 1 or 2 activities, instead of overwhelming them with too many at once. She suggests 2 or 3 days of down time or free time to do what they want. “They should also have family time, since with activities most parents spend most of their time driving their children around. This time could be better spent sitting together for dinner as a family,” she proposes. She also encourages balance, since with balance children will develop better self-esteem and feel less anxiety about trying to get everything done at once. Children are very sensitive, so parents should really listen to them; if they are tired, take a step back and let them be children.

Manal El Chafei Mansour has a BA in education from Haigazian University. She also has an MA in school counseling from LAU. She has a post-graduate certificate in child and play therapy from the Canadian Association for Child and Play Therapy (CACPT) in Toronto, Canada. She trained in sand play therapy in the United Kingdom with Play Therapy United Kingdom (PTUK) and is a certified parenting coach with Peaceful Parenting UK.