This new study by the American Academy of Pediatrics, is not really new. When I was in college, lo these many years ago, one of the recommended readings in my education classes (and a revised edition at that) was The Hurried Child, which described this phenomenon in great detail. Still, it bears repeating:

Play is good. Duh.

Over-scheduling your children won't let them develop their imagination, creativity or problem-solving skills, leads to super-stressed kids, and makes them more prone to obesity and even depression. Duh.

Also, turning your kids' nanny into a chauffer robs the children of time spent with an actively involved adult, who listens to them and talks to them and helps them discover their world. Double duh.

I have to wonder, how many of these parents, who super-schedule their children, had super-scheduled lives when they were kids? I mean, if they had lots of free time to play (like I did), do they look fondly upon their own kidhood and decide to deprive their kids of such happiness? Or do they regret the wasted time they could've spent at ballet, T-ball, karate, piano lessons, language lessons, computer camp, basketball, etc. ad nauseum, and think their children will be better off for having all that?

Or, if they were "hurried children" themselves, didn't they notice or care that they never got to play, thus figuring that inflicting the same kind of life on their children was fine and dandy? Or, did they like their childhood, and want to give their own kids the same "step up the ladder" they had?

Somehow (based from experience working with classically Hurried Children) I doubt the last one is the case. I've found that most kids want to play, with friends, with toys, on their own, however-they-can, and don't want to be bundled off to every activity under the sun. And they'll often protest, loud and long, to avoid such bundling, sometimes to the point of violence, and often to the point of tears. So what's the point?

Not that I'm bitter.