Ah, summer. Remember the days when school let out and you knew you had freedom, complete freedom, for what seemed an eternity stretching ahead of you? Two months, maybe three if you were lucky, of nothing but sleeping in, maybe a few swimming lessons, long afternoons of Monopoly maybe, and listening for the bell of the ice cream man's truck at dinner time while the Little league kids yelled "heyyy batterbatterbatter" off in the distance at the schoolyard next door. Remember that? Or was I the only kid with basically no life?
Well, it turns out kids have lives now. Full, busy, managed lives. Even in summer, which has traditionally been a time of rest from too many organized activities. And? It's not such a good thing.
But? Now there's sports camp, computer camp, math camp, science camp, band camp, horse camp, and even bank camp, to name only a few. Residential university programs for 5th graders? Check. And the sports-oriented activities are the worst, at least in terms of time-sucking. Football practice used to start in August, but no more: now it's in June.
Experts say that all this activity is too much. Let kids have a rest. I agree: they've got all their adult lives to stress, why start early?
