Dear 21st Century Dad, our daughter and her mother are at it again. Mom is a type A self improvement machine who signs our daughter up to every athletic, musical and personal development course that our community offers. We live in a small community. If a new dance instructor comes to town, Mom enrolls her. My daughter keeps going to these after school programs because she has my personality, and doesn’t resist her mother. She’s a little more laid back than her Mom.
On top of the afternoon programs, Mom harasses her daughter’s teachers to give the students more homework. Can kids learn too much? I’m afraid I am going to have a burnt out fourteen year old. Her mother says my laisse-faire attitude thwarts my daughter’s development. To me, my daughter looks exhausted. I definitely am. I have to drive her everywhere. Me. I just want to relax. Who’s right?
Dear Under a Motivational Thumb,
Every family is different. The father of the great 20th Century Spanish cellist Pablo Casals insisted his son sing in the church choir at the tender age of five. Casals was still practicing scales a couple of hour per day in his eighties. Pablo partially attributed his musical success to his father teaching him the intricacies of Gregorian music at the age of five. Nickolas Lemann in Slate Magazine suggests the Asian success in educational achievement is part of an assimilation process that prioritizes maniacal studying. J. Paul Getty, one of the richest men of the 20th century, said that the formula for success was to rise early, work hard, and strike oil. Sophocles said success is dependent on effort. Anthony Robbins, motivational guru, says, “The path to success is to take massive, determined action.” Spike Milligan, comedic member of The Goon Show, said his father had a profound influence upon him. He was a lunatic.
Chris Ellsasser, an associate professor of education at Pepperdine University, suggests that our children don’t have time enough in a day to do more than one hour of homework. He adds up the hours required to sleep, exercise, eat, attend school, commute to and from school, do school activities (sports, music), maintain hygiene, and reading. He discovers the allotment left for free time is approximately one hour per day. It’s always nice to symbolically be able to put our feet up for at least an hour a day, whatever the specific activity is that allows us to rest and reflect. Let’s find calculate our daughter’s schedule. Does she have at least one hour’s down time a day?
Do many of our daughter’s unstructured play time involve the computer? If she is at dance, at gymnastics, at cheerleading, the computer may be a welcome break taken away from all her physical activity. If she were at the opposite pole, did little physical exercise, our family might have the reminder that the virtual world of the computer does little to exercise our lung capacity (VO2 Max (the maximum amount of oxygen lungs can process during exercise) and nothing to improve our physical endurance and make our muscles stronger or more elastic.
Fortunately, our daughter does not suffer from the widespread issue that many parents hold about safety and exercise. Mom is encouraging her to cross train and develop expertise in many physical activities. Better that than petitioning the school ground to remove playground equipment and certain sports that a parent deems unsafe. Our children need to exercise their bodies and explore the limits of balance, strength, speed, individual and team challenges.
How much is too much? What’s most important is the question, “does she enjoy all these activities?” Casals, Getty, Robbins...their study pastimes fueled their zest for life. You comment that our daughter looks exhausted. Is this our projection, or is our daughter truly fueled by her extra curricular activities?
Worry not, in a year and a half she will be in a fully enmeshed in a hormonal quest and the boys whom she engages will either be attracted to her lifestyle, or they will pull her away from it. A new set of worries will displace the one we have now.
Free & Easy
By Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche
Happiness cannot be found
through great effort and willpower,
but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go.
Don't strain yourself,
there is nothing to do or undo.
Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind
has no real importance at all,
has little reality whatsoever.
Why identify with, and become attached to it,
passing judgment upon it and ourselves?
Far better to simply
let the entire game happen on its own,
springing up and falling back like waves--
without changing or manipulating anything--
and notice how everything vanishes and
reappears, magically, again and again,
time without end.
Only our searching for happiness
prevents us from seeing it.
It's like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching,
or a dog chasing its own tail.
Although peace and happiness do not exist
as an actual thing or place,
it is always available
and accompanies you every instant.
Don't believe in the reality
of good and bad experiences;
they are like today's ephemeral weather,
like rainbows in the sky.
Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax this tight fist of grasping,
infinite space is there--open, inviting and comfortable.
Make use of the spaciousness, this freedom and natural ease.
Don't search any further.
Don't go into the tangled jungle
looking for the great awakened elephant,
who is already resting quietly at home
in front of your own hearth.
Nothing to do or undo,
nothing to force,
nothing to want,
and nothing missing----
Emaho! Marvelous!
Everything happens by itself.
Google:
1. Stop Homework » Guest Blogger: There’s No Time for High School
2. [PDF] Get Out Get Active + Active After-school
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