When I was asked to be involved with the fantastic Milo Play Movement I was awesomely stoked {and quietly confident, play, meh, we play ALL the time}. We play rugby, we play touch, we play trombone, we surf and skateboard, Ethan swims every week, we run, we cycle……we are an active family, we are BUSY all the time, we play, right?
Hmmmm. After our first Mum Ambassador conference call one phrase stuck in my head. Cath from Squiggle Mum mentioned the term ‘hyper scheduling’ and I filed this away. I thought about this awful sounding code name and wondered if I was guilty of hyper scheduling. Is Ethan more busy with structured play than unstructured? How much free time, with no extra-curricular activities and no homework does he actually have?
Lets see;
- Monday: I pick him up from school and we do a 180 and head right to swimming, we may do a couple of errands beforehand, we do homework, eat afternoon tea in the car, E swims and we arrive home at 4.45. This leaves 1hr of playtime if he is not too tired.
- Tuesday: Free day. Afternoon tea, homework (1/2hr max) then at least 2hrs free time)
- Wednesday: Afternoon tea, homework, Rugby or touch training. No play time.
- Thursday: Afternoon tea, homework, music lesson. 1.5hrs free time
- Friday: Afternoon tea, homework, Rugby or touch training. No play time.
Weekends are always quite busy for us, we are rarely at home but seem to always squeeze in some fun, active family play eg skateboarding, cycling, hiking.
So, here I am, admitting to you, the interwebs, that I am a hyper-scheduler. Play, plain old imaginative, ACTIVE, unstructured, backyard/park/beach play needs to feature more in our week and over the course of this year I will endeavour to provide more time to simply PLAY with our son.
What do you guys think about this? Could your little ones use more play time? Lets share some ideas and get our kids imaginations firing!
- I am participating in the Milo Play Movement as a Blogger Ambassador and any compensation received is for advice provided directly to the MILO Play Movement team on the social media engagement plan.
- All communications I share regarding the MILO Play Movement are my honest opinion.
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