If you’re not careful, their whole lives get filled up.
Basketball practice. School. Cello lessons. Chores at home. You don’t want them in front of screens all day; you don’t want them to waste their lives or fall behind. You want them to make something of themselves.
But you have to be careful. Even two thousand years ago, Plutarch was warning parents to not overschedule and overplan their kid’s lives. “Children must be given some breathing space from continued tasks,” he wrote, “for we must bear in mind that our whole life is divided between relaxation and application.”
Do you do your best work when you are exhausted and stretched too thin? Are you happy when your calendar is full? Aren’t you tired of running them from place to place? Imagine how they feel! They don’t even fully understand what stress is, what burnout is. So it’s incumbent upon you to protect them from it.
Give them space. Give them the opportunity to relax. That’s your job.