Most parents are scared to let their children fail. After all, no one wants a child to feel the cold sting of embarrassment or the torment of loss. Therefore, preventing failure is exactly what our culture attempts to do by installing rubberized cocoons and calling them playgrounds, and forcing tie scores in grade-school basketball games.

We seem to forget that without struggle, there can be no progress. Without embarrassment, there can be no empathy. Without failure, there can be no success. By outright avoiding the challenges of failure and embarrassment now, we are screwing up our children. We are creating future adults too fragile to exist in a world that won’t kiss their every boo-boo and gloss over their errors.

Can we stop the madness of over-protecting our children from every one of life’s potential pitfalls? I frankly do not know if it is too late to reverse course. However, I have come up with five easy steps that qualify as the opposite of helicopter parenting that you can take right now to make a difference.

1. Don’t do your child’s school projects

It is 100 percent a douche move to do the majority of your kiddo’s school project work. If you need to live vicariously through your child’s faux accomplishments in third grade, you are a colossal loser.

And, in case you’re wondering, you ain’t fooling anyone. We can all tell your kid had nothing to do with their pristine blue-ribbon winning science fair entry. You need to step off. Let them carry into class their crappy diorama with glue streaks because that is their real output. That kind of youthful failure is to be embraced. It will encourage them to try harder next time. And the next time and the time after that. This process is called “evolution.” If you do not let your children fail then you are stepping on its throat every time you complete assignments on your child’s behalf. Stop it.

2. Don’t correct their homework

How can anyone learn when their work has been scrubbed and sanitized? How will teachers know what your kid does or does not ACTUALLY know if every answer is correct, some of them artificially, on their homework when it comes back the next day? Let your kids try to use the knowledge they are accumulating in class. Let your children fail by getting some of the answers wrong. Allow them to be corrected by their teachers. This teaches them how to process constructive feedback from someone not related to them. Otherwise, you are standing over their shoulder applying Wite-Out to their childhood educational experience.

3. Shut up during sports

Dudes, tone it down. Let the coaches coach. Let the refs and the umps do their best. Trust in the process. Stop shouting in-game corrections to your kid and their teammates. If you do have a legit beef, be an adult and voice it on the down-low without veins bulging from your neck while you sit 20 yards off in the distance. Instead, allow your child and their instructors to work through the nuances of their performance. You are embarrassing yourself, your family, and most importantly, your kid. Now sit the hell down and shut up.

4. Let ‘em fall

You’re supposed to fall off the monkey bars while learning how to get from one side to the other. That’s how this stuff works. It’s called “trial and error,” not “trial and repeated help from a scared parent.” Kids have to know what it feels like to lose their grip, to feel the beads of sweat forming on their clammy palms, and to struggle mightily to stay attached to the cold metal bars, only to eventually succumb to gravity and hit the recently rubberized woodchips hard. Dust ’em off. Give ’em a kiss. Then encourage them to try it again … if not right away, then in a bit when their courage bar refills. Soon, they will get the hang of it, literally, and the glory in their accomplishment will be enhanced for having taken the more treacherous path instead of the padded one.

5. Embrace mistakes

Too many kids are not being allowed to make mistakes in their youth, the exact time when mistake-making SHOULD occur. Kids are going to screw up. They are going to invite ants into their room by leaving remnants of a sugary snack on the floor. They are going to drop and shatter a plate when trying to carry too many dishes while clearing the table after dinner. It is our job to pull lessons from these moments and teach a better way forward. That is one of the biggest “asks” of parenthood: to have the tough conversations, to give constructive feedback to help them learn from mistakes, to hold them tight but not hold them back when they are scared of failing, to give them the space necessary to try on their own, to love at every turn.

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This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

A version of this first appeared on Out With the Kids and then here in 2015. It has since been updated. Photo by Gustavo Fring via Pexels.

I’d be lost without Google Calendar. In many ways, it’s my own little digital personal assistant.

Every meeting, trip, doctor’s appointment, party invitation, important birthday, sports practice and game, and more fill the days, weeks, and months on my computer screen and phone. 

Yay, technology!

As I’ve aged, having a detailed calendar has become a necessity. If it isn’t on there, forget about it. I’m not going to be on time. Hell, I might not even show up at all. I could get away without writing down appointments and such when I was younger. Dentist appointment next Thursday at 9? No problem, I’ll remember. Flag football practice on Mondays? I’ll be there. 

But life has changed thanks to fatherhood. The responsibilities I have as a dad require me to be as organized and on top of things as possible. In the blink of an eye, it seems, my once sparsely populated calendar has transformed into a colorful smorgasbord that is exciting, rewarding, stressful, and exhausting, all at the same time.

Their activities are now your activities

As a dad of a 5-year-old son, I’m now fully immersed in the “activity” phase. And I’ve leaned into it 100 percent. As dads, it’s an unspeakable joy to see our kids take an interest in some of the things that were part of our childhood. It’s equally joyful to watch them create their own path. 

Soccer, swimming, Cub Scouts, and T-ball are all on the agenda for my son these days. Not to mention birthday parties. Even my 2-year-old daughter is getting invited to parties for her daycare “classmates.” On any given weekend I go from the pool to the bouncy house to the park with snacks and tablets in tow. 

I often say this is part of the deal that comes with being a dad. The weekends once reserved for a round of golf or a pickup basketball game have been replaced with being a chauffeur for your favorite little person. For me, this is just the beginning. Once my little girl gets older, she’ll hopefully get involved in activities of her own. By then, who knows what my son will have going on? I’ll just add it to the calendar. 

Balance calendar for you and your kids

The reality for me is that two things can be true. There’s excitement for this season of life; there’s also an acknowledgment of the toll it takes on parent and child. For as much as we may not want our kids to “miss out,” a balance for managing activities must also exist.

The phrase “booked and busy” can sometimes be glorified as a badge of honor. If every time I look up, I’m taking my child from one activity to the next, I have to be a dedicated dad, right? The beauty of activities, particularly, sports, is they teach kids far more than Xs and Os. You learn teamwork, respect, confidence, and social skills, among other things. 

In a world that seemingly glorifies busyness, we have to be sure that we’re not only teaching our kids the importance of having a good work ethic, but showing them how to be self-aware in knowing when to take a day off.  

Because if we’re lucky, there will be plenty more activities to come. Just check the calendar. 

Photo by Windows on Unsplash

Whenever one of my children receives a birthday party invitation, I have one question — and only one question — I want answered. I don’t care where the party is. I’m not particularly interested in what the activities or theme will be. Heck sometimes, I don’t even care who the party is for. The question I want to be answered is, “Is this a drop-off birthday party or one where the parent stays?”

Birthday parties where the parent of an invited kid has to stay are the worst.

The. Absolute. Worst.

These parties amount to a parent watching his child at a location beside his own house. It’s usually two hours with other parents, sitting in some uncomfortably small chair in a bounce house or other “kid centered” facility. What’s worse? Watching the host load your kid up with soda and cake before sending them back home with you. And to think, you bought a gift for someone to put you through this.

Of course, I guess it won’t be long before my kids won’t even want me to know about what they are doing with their friends, let alone want me to be there with them during parties.

I suppose there could be worse ways to spend your weekend besides attending a birthday party with your child. Sure the chairs are tiny and the conversations are awkward, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing to meet some of the parents of the friends your kid hangs out with. And who doesn’t love to watch their children play and have fun with a group of friends, even if they are scarfing cake and chugging soda while they do it.

Maybe the “parent stays” parties aren’t so bad after all.

What is your birthday party preference? Stay and hang out or get out of Dodge?

A version of this first appeared on Indy’s Child. Birthday invitation photo: © Prostock-studio / Adobe Stock.

You’ve said it. You’ve heard it said. You’ve annoyed someone with it, and someone has annoyed you with it. Once I reveal it, you’ll get it, but until I reveal it, I have one, small piece of advice to help you get through this laboriously wordy stalling period: Just wait.

If I think back upon my first solo parenting trip, I can remember the intense anxiety. I can remember being overwhelmed by the logistical nightmare of needing to have so much stuff. I had to be prepared for every possible contingency and each minor hiccup felt like a big deal. Without my wife and her body’s magical ability to produce soothing food on the spot, I always felt at a great deficit. If my daughter was hungry, I needed food. If she was thirsty (OK, same thing, but still), I needed to have a drink. If she needed a diaper, a change of clothes, or anything at all, I needed to have it.

But what if I needed to urinate? Do I take her with me? I have to. But do I hold her in one hand, and my, ummm . . . self, in the other? Every small decision felt heavy. Every tiny issue felt bloated and out of proportion.

Feeling frazzled, another parent saw my distress. You won’t believe the brutal words they laid upon me.

Yeah, you guessed it. They “just waited” me.

“Oh, I remember those days. JUST WAIT until she can crawl,” she said.

The social media headline would proclaim a “truth bomb” had been dropped. The YouTube title would be, “Veteran parent drops NUKE on helpless dad.” I smiled and politely replied, “Yeah, I bet.”

This didn’t bother me at first. I wasn’t offended. This was just someone trying to be nice. Someone trying to recognize my struggle and maybe offer up a little chuckle. My internal dialogue, however, was different. I wondered if maybe I was being dramatic. I began to look around and think the other parents were judging me. Did they see my struggle? Were they all whispering salacious gossip about the idiot new guy?

Humans seem hardwired with a need to diminish the experience of others. It doesn’t matter what it is or who it is, there’s always someone ready to imply that what you’re feeling is invalid, unnecessary or ill-informed. We seem eager to elevate our own suffering and diminish the suffering of others.

“Oh, you’re struggling with one kid. Ha! Chump! I have THREE kids, JUST WAIT until you have more.”

“You think it’s hard now, JUST WAIT until she’s dating.”

“JUST WAIT until he’s driving.”

“JUST WAIT until they are in college!”

This permeates every part of our lives.

“I feel sick today.”

“Oh, yeah? JUST WAIT until you have stage four colon cancer.”

“My assistant manager position is challenging.”

“That’s nothing. JUST WAIT until you’re a store manager.”

“Mr. T-Rex, I hear you’re having a bad dino-day, but JUST WAIT until the asteroid shows up.”

On and on it goes.

I’d like to challenge dads, parents — honestly — all humans to make every effort to battle this innate tendency. What if we simply allowed people to feel what they feel? What if we didn’t seek out subtle invitations to make every conversation about ourselves? There are some folks who will bemoan the softening of society. I don’t think we’ve gotten soft. We’ve become entrenched in our own need to be the most right, the greatest martyr, and along the way we’ve lost our empathy.

Instead of telling that new parent he should “just wait” until some other challenge comes up, meet him in that moment and say, “Yeah, that’s challenging, but you’ll be fine.” If someone tells you she’s sick, don’t tell your story about being MORE sick, just say, “That sucks.” Not every part of the human existence is a competition. Grant people the freedom to feel what they feel.

It’s important to end this with one, major caveat. There shall forever be one usage of this phrase that will endure for all ages. You know what I’m talking about: “JUST WAIT … until your father gets home.”

Photo: © deagreez / Adobe Stock.

It should be the easiest thing in the world for me to do. As an at-home dad, you’d think all I did was hang out with my kid, right? Yes and no. It’s complicated.

While my 2-year-old son comes first, I do work. Real estate doesn’t sell itself (well, kinda, but that’s not the point). I also oversee events, social media and more for the Anchorage Dads Group; I’m on the board of a nonprofit, and I have to jam in time for my wife as well. Life is busy.

Caring for my son consumes a lot of time and takes priority over everything during the day. Everything revolves around his eating and sleeping schedule. Even a lot of my work is about him.

However, on a Monday morning, I found myself where I am frequently — rushing while time flies past. Rushing to get breakfast made; rushing to get the kid fed, cleaned and dressed; rushing to get lunch packed and us on the road in an hour or less. This is our routine almost every weekday.

“Am I really taking all this time we have together, filling it with hustle and bustle, fighting to get him into the car seat, and relegating my role from father to that of chauffeur and chef?” I wondered.

Yes.

“Am I missing out on developing his mind in favor of imprinting upon him that getting everything done in the morning as fast as you can is the most important thing?”

Yes.

“Am I going to regret not taking one measly morning or two a week to stay at home with him, cook a complicated and involved breakfast, read together, and maybe listen to music with him?”

Yes.

Good parenting beyond what the books say

I’m doing so many things right as this time flies by. Excellently good, in fact.

My professional education and experience has made me fairly knowledgeable about the philosophies of parenting. My kid NEVER get processed food. Never gets sugary food or drinks. His first two birthday “cakes” were a banana with a candle in it. He is on the cusp of reading already. At age 2! He can draw several letters. He can count to 20. He gets basic mathematics teaching at least once a week. He can hit a ball pitched to him AND run to first base, dribble a soccer ball down the field to score a goal and shoot a hoop with good form. He has a solid group of friends (with great dads) he looks forward to seeing frequently.

My role in all this has been the hustling chauffeur, chef and coach/instructor. Simple and basic “play time” is missing. It’s hard to remember the last time we had just regular ol’ horseplay. His “unstructured playtime,” as prescribed by professionals, is by himself while I do my work.

My mom made a comment on her last visit to the effect of “ages 2 to 5 are the best ages because that’s when kids are the most fun.” Really? Where’s my fun with him? It’s hard to remember the last time. He has fun scheduled all the time, but I’m a secondary part of it. What’s our “thing,” other than me bundling him up and shoving him into a car seat to go to the next thing on our list?

Evening reading time and play is primarily saved for his mom and their time of the day.

Seeing a picture of me just a year ago, where I was lifting him upside down by his legs, really got me missing a less busy life. It made me regret over-scheduling ourselves.

Such an easy solution is within my ability – cancel unimportant things. I can make everything necessary fit, but I need to shut down those activities that aren’t important so I can just be present.

Back to what’s “our” thing. I’m going to make “our thing” exercise. Just a couple of days ago he surprisingly did push-ups, squats and leg lifts with me. We followed that up with the introduction to premium wrestling moves: body slams, DDTs, power slams, and then the Boston Crab (very lightly!).

Maybe I’ll throw learning into “our thing”? Get him fully reading at age 3? Adding and subtracting at age 4? He can already count to 20, maybe we can hit 50 this year? He can recognize the word “cat,” maybe I can get him to write his name?

All it’s going to take from me is to slow down and focus on spending time — our time — together.

Time flies photo: © peopleimages.com / Adobe Stock.

What are my kids doing this summer?

Nothing.

That’s right, nothing.

We’ve signed them up for zero camps. We have scheduled no play dates. Alas, we have no true idea how we might occupy four kids between the ages of 5 and 12 over the upcoming school-less months.

Yes, I’ve taken note of your full summer calendars. I hear your days will be packed. Baseball camp, fishing camp, STEM camp, robotics camp, the YMCA day school, soccer camp, your week at Disney, and a photography class!

I must say, I’m a bit jealous of the action-packed days you have ahead. I’m a bit ashamed ours might not be so glitzy.

After all, the reality of having several young children is that an activity-filled summer takes a ton of pre-planning, costs a fortune, and would likely require teaching my 12-year-old to drive himself and his two younger brothers to the next scheduled appointment.

But, just as I began to feel bad for my no-camp kids, I listened to your plans a little closer.

I hear the exhaustion in your voice already. It seems your precise summer plan has come with an unintended, intangible present – the stress associated with executing (and paying for) the plan.

All parents know this feeling well. It’s what compels us to drive two hours each night so that your little ballerina can learn from the best dance instructor in the county. It has us driving home at 9 p.m. on a school night while our fifth graders complain their seat belts prevent them from completing their math homework in the backseat.

The push for parents to plan for our kids (and the associated guilt if we don’t) is there constantly. That’s too often for my taste.

And suddenly, the shame I feel for my kids’ unscheduled summer subsides. In its place, I feel empathy for you.

Can we help you with a ride?

Would Audrey just want to hang out at our house one day? 

You have our number in case you get in a bind, right? 

We can help because my no-camp kids will be just hanging out together – swimming, riding bikes around the neighborhood, building forts on rainy days and helping us tend our newly planted garden in the backyard.

But don’t get me wrong. My kids will drive me and my wife crazy.

The bickering, fighting, over-competitiveness and resistance to afternoon naps will not cease. With so many kids, there will be one time in each day that STEM camp will sound really appealing.

But those times will come and go and my kids will, I hope, be left to do what they choose to do around us. That’s the way I remember my unscheduled summer school vacations as a child.

I remember going to the library to pick out new books to earn free tickets the Cedar Rapids Reds’ Minor League Baseball games.

The thundering sounds of my neighborhood’s herd of Big Wheel trikes still rings in my head from those summers spent with time on our hands.

When I toss the baseball toward my 5-year-old’s awaiting bat today, I will still chuckle at the recollection of the biggest kid on my childhood street, Scott, breaking two windows on our neighbor’s garage in a week during one July so many years ago.

Thinking nostalgically about summers passed probably leaves me a bit naïve for what we’re in for this unscheduled summer. But, for many reasons, I need it and I think my kids might, too.

And, while I do feel passing shame for the upcoming months I’ve left unplanned, I don’t feel the pressure to quickly devise a plan that engages each kid in some way each day. No, the only plan I have is to keep it simple – to let my kids be when I should and help them when they need me.

I’ll pitch baseballs and fill flattened bike tires.

I’ll listen to them fight and go through far too many Band-Aids.

Sure, I’ll feel badly for them when they’re bored. But, once the shame subsides, I’m looking forward to be around the house — together.

So feel free to give us a call if you need any help. We can get your Sally to dance at the same time her brother Michael needs to be picked up from soccer camp so that you can quickly make dinner. I’ll be free because I’ve planned nothing.

“Unscheduled summer” photo: Trust “Tru” Katsande on Unsplash

There was a time not so long ago, let’s just call that time “yesterday,” when I would have judged you. Quietly. To myself in the moment we two shared without your knowledge but not in nearly as creepy a way as that sounds.

I would be again judging you later, to my wife that evening after the kids were in bed and I’d become a tad punch-drunk thanks to the lateness of the hour. I’d crack wise and witty about your laziness, about how you’d rather keep your toddler distracted than have to actually engage and be present as a mom, about how your kid is growing up perfectly suited to the modern zombified culture of screens and listless adulthood.

Yesterday, I was an asshole.

Today,  I’m — well — a little bit less of an asshole. I’ve approached the end of judgement.

The judging begins 

You were heading back to your minivan from the grocery store, crossing the street that separates the automatic sliding doors at the entrance and the vast, sloping uphill parking lot. In a little over an hour, that very street would be a buzz with hardcore shoppers coming and going and the primo spaces we two scored would become hot property worth fighting over — and some just might.

You were pushing a cart full of value-sized cereal boxes, carrots with the inedible greenery dangling over the edge, and bread so fresh the clear cellophane portion of its bag was steamed up. All of your food stuffs were double bagged in taupe plastic, for the handles of course, so that they’d be easier for you to pick up, load into and eventually out of your car. I can dig the double bagging, as a means of avoiding a paper bag going rogue all over your driveway, because we’ve all been there. Organic brown eggs smashed on the asphalt, good money wasted. Dammit.

Your boy was also in the cart, his little legs sticking out of the cold square metal framed holes beneath the handle bar. He was held in rapture by the small screen of your phone. He seemed content, albeit relatively expressionless. That’s a popular look these days.

Excuses, you could have had them

I don’t know what your morning had been like to that point, or what his was like for that matter. Maybe he’s coming down from a fever, unable to go to daycare for the past few days. Maybe you’ve been scrambling to get your work done with a sick kid in the other room. Maybe your boss has been less than accommodating. Maybe that’s been rough. I don’t know, but “yesterday” my smugness didn’t permit me to care or to give any benefit of the doubt to you or him or them or anyone.

Yesterday, your kid was a zombie and you were a lazy mom. Case closed. But the world is rarely ever that black and white and the times in which we vaguely interact with others are single frames, the closest thing to still life photography in the ever-rotating world. Miniscule bits of data and back story can legitimately be surmised from a flip book worth of images around us — one, one, one, one, one at a time. This is the information what we get and process and voluntarily choose to judge based upon. That was yesterday.

I knew all of these truths yesterday but I consistently pushed them aside, making it easier to judge you, to get a cheap laugh, to hold myself in higher regard. I’ve kinda had enough of that. Maybe you are a lazy mom and maybe your kid is a tech-obsessed zombie child but I have no freaking clue if that is reality. All I saw was a mom doing her shopping and maybe needing a few minutes to get her thoughts together, to find her keys, load the car without a single distraction, and figure out a way to get that presentation over to her boss before lunchtime. Maybe.

Yesterday I had to paint to the edges of all the pictures, but today I’m OK with putting the brushes down, leaving the canvases incomplete, and walking away back into my own life’s portrait.

A version of this first appeared on Out with the Kids.

A parent starts from scratch every day and runs until empty, hoping he has done something right, that one of his lessons actually sticks.

But he won’t know for a while. Not for years. And the lack of feedback, direct or otherwise, makes the job even harder, making it very easy to succumb to self-doubt.

This is why judgment from other parents is so obnoxiously redundant. Every decent parent already constantly questions his own parenting.

Here is a small sampling of the questions that run through nearly every parent’s head nearly every single day:

• Am I doing this right?
• Am I patient enough?
• Do I yell too much?
• Will he turn out OK?
• Am I giving her everything she needs?
• Is he too young to watch Star Wars?
• Am I setting him up for success?
• Am I too hard on her?
• Am I too easy on him?
• Does she know how much I love her?
• Am I too distracted?
• Am I too preoccupied?
• Am I holding her back?
• Is this much mac and cheese really healthy?
• Am I spoiling him?
• Am I depriving her?
• Do I expect too much from him?
• Do I discipline enough?
• Do I discipline too much?
• Do I spend enough time with him?
• Am I too selfish?
• Do I work too much?
• Is she too dependent on me?
• Am I smothering him?
• Does she eat enough vegetables?
• Does he eat too much junk food?
• Does she watch too much TV?
• Does he get enough exercise?
• Am I too protective?
• Am I good role model?
• Is he learning the right things from me?
• Am I a good parent?
• Is it too early for a drink?

I know I’ve missed around ten thousand of these. What are some of the parenting questions you ask yourself every day?

A version of this first appeared on Dad and Buried.

Parents suck. Honestly, politicians are probably the worst. And other people’s kids suck pretty bad, too. So do Nazis.

In fact, I changed my mind. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Nazis are really the worst.

But parents still suck pretty bad. I knew it before I had a kid and it’s become even more apparent since I joined their ranks.

Here are some of the reasons why.

11 reasons parents suck

1. Their kids.
2. Their constant complaining about their ungrateful, undisciplined, un-sleeping, whiny, tantrum-throwing kids.
3. Their constant bragging about their incredibly smart kids, incredibly athletic kids or incredibly cute kids. Guess what? I was smart and athletic and cute once, too. Then I hit puberty.
4. Their constant posting on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest about their kids. There’s a reason I avoid you in real life, stop making me avoid you in fake life, too.
5. The griping about how expensive babysitters are. You know what’s not expensive? CONDOMS.
6. The constant discussions about children’s TV, music, movies and books. I used to watch that junk, too. When I was in college (read: wasted), I didn’t hold nonstop conversations about it. At least not conversations I can remember. I wish I couldn’t remember the last time you brought up how much you hate Caillou.
7. We get it: you’re tired. News flash: Everyone’s tired. It’s called 5-Hour Energy. Quit being a martyr.
8. Their breathless worrying about video games and social media and twerking and sex and violence and alcohol and concussions and peanut allergies and we’re out of hand sanitizer! I heard about this crazy thing the other day, it’s called 200,000 YEARS OF HUMAN SURVIVAL. So take it down a notch, Chicken Little. Your kids will be fine.
9. Their tax break
10. “I can’t! I have to: pick up my kid/hang out with my kid/read to my kid/feed my kid/not drink because of my kid/pretend I care all about my kid’s recital or baseball game or doctor’s appointment/use my kid as an excuse to not have fun because I’m super lame now.”
11. “I can never go to the movies! Waaaah!” You know who can go to the movies? CONDOMS.

Bonus: Their ridiculous, obnoxious, self-righteous, totally unsupportable belief that they’re a better parent than you.

A version of “Parents Suck” first appeared on Dad and Buried. Photo: 6658 Tired via photopin (license)

There are any number of ways to fill a child’s schedule, from leaving open blocks of freedom to cramming it full like a dance card. It falls all over the parenting spectrum: obligation, burden, guilt, bonding, joy, nostalgia, the teaching of skills and the learning of lessons. It’s like a Pixar movie in a pinny. We find the time and the funds that said schedule dictates, then force the world to see all the fun that we are having — late nights of homework and fast food dinners seldom make the cut of Facebook fodder.

At what point does it all become too much and we create overscheduled children? A different activity each night of the week and twice on Wednesdays? When the waking hours cut away too much sleep? When you drop your kid off at karate in her soccer uniform? Or when family time is only spent in commutes and early morning hallways?

There is nothing wrong with extracurricular activities, in fact, just the opposite — the upside is packed with all the keywords of a happy, healthy childhood — but, spoiler alert: We don’t have to do it all.

Downtime has its moments. It’s perfectly acceptable to pace ourselves and let kids have some elbow room. Stretching is important, too, and the sidelines are the perfect place for a picnic.

Overscheduled children: Happier or just more tired?

When I was a kid, my options were somewhat limited. Granted, I grew up in a rural farming community, so many extracurricular activities had an immediate, practical value. For the most part it was 4-H and yard work. Our schedule was “be home by dark.” However, we had baseball in the summer, and I seem to recall playing one down in one game of flag football. There were a few weeks of camp, which, in hindsight, may have been more of a glorified daycare. The local pool only charged a quarter for a chance to become a belly-flop legend, living in infamy long after the sting had gone. But we didn’t have fencing, glassblowing, parkour or coding classes to compete for our wandering attention. We didn’t even have soccer. We certainly didn’t have cable.

Now, my boys have access to all the above. Then there’s also water polo, lacrosse, art, music, science camps, writing retreats and countless others. The overwhelming bounty of it is intoxicating for many parents, insistent as we are on providing all the opportunities to all the things. We want our kids to have every chance in the world.

Good. Letting kids experience new things expands their horizons and puts them on the road to being well-rounded, empathetic people. They may find their passion or they may find that they haven’t found it yet — both are important. The hard part is pacing ourselves.

Through trial and error, we have decided (family meeting!) that our kids benefit from concentrating on one or two pursuits at a time, sandwiched on the schedule as they are between school, homework and family, not to mention sleep and whatever passes for a social life.

We have tried it both ways: a calendar covered in circles and itineraries, and days where the night fades slowly into a good book and a sinking pillow. The latter has proved the better option for our boys. Rather than spread themselves thin over countless pursuits they give their full attention to one extracurricular activity per quarter. Then they have the option of doing it again or moving on to something else. Sometimes the season makes the decision for them. We ebb with the dog days and flow with the fun. The upside is everywhere.

The sidelines are full of pride and loneliness. We are there pacing, cheering and sitting on chairs an inch off the ground. Games are being played and our kids are on the field, even when it’s all a metaphor — perhaps then even more so.

We are on the sidelines, and we are cheering loudly.

Not so overscheduled children photo: Whit Honea