What You Should Know to Prevent Overstressing Your Kids

Are all those after-school extracurricular activities singing a siren song to your kids? Are these the best for the health of your kids? Consider giving them and you a well-deserved break.

A new poll by the National Association of Health Education Centers and its federal and university partners reports that 77% of kids ages 9 to 13 wish they had more free time. The trademarked KidsHealth KidsPoll also reports that having too much to do was leaving a substantial 41% of children surveyed feeling stressed "most of the time or always."

Allowing children to skip after-school and weekend activities to spend more time in front of a computer, playing video games, or watching TV just for fun isn't the answer either. These kids were nearly three times more likely to want free time than those who spend less than an hour in front of computers, video games or television sets, according to the poll.

Are your kids pressuring you to sign them up for extracurricular activities because they feel peer pressure? Are you driving your children from one activity to the next because you want to offer all those extras that other parents (your peers) are providing to their children?

Children of every age who are trying to cope with self-imposed or parent-imposed schedules that don't allow them the free time they want can produce chronic fatigue, sour moods and poor eating and sleeping habits that will set them up for high blood pressure, heart disease, depression, obesity and other stress-induced conditions as adults.

Five Common-Sense Tips Toward Creating a Break for Your Time-Starved Kids:

One: Give Yourself a Break. Kids learn by example. If you're over-stressed from too much work and too many responsibilities, start by achieving a better balance between your job and home life. You'll need exercise, plenty of fresh food, solid sleep and some free time.

Two: Become a De-Stress Role Model. If you are rushing from work to home to drop-off and pick-up duties for your children without quality time for your family, you are a poor role model. If the health and well being of your kids is important to you, prove it by scheduling quality time for your kids each day.

Three: Listen to Your Kids. Forcing children to take extracurricular classes or participate in sports can backfire if they don't want to become involved. If they are complaining about their hectic days and not showing up for activities you scheduled for them, pay attention to these important signs of stress.

Four: Let Your Kids Participate in De-Stress Decisions. You don't have to do all the work yourself. Let your kids participate in setting reasonable priorities for what they want to accomplish. You can create a Pro or Con list for every activity together with your children. If you admit that you, too, experience peer pressure, you will inspire honesty so they can admit they let their peers push them into activities, too.

Five: Enforce Stress-Free Time. Unplug yourself and your kids from computers, cell phones, video games and TV for specified times each day to do nothing in particular. Read, walk, write, play. Free time allows you to become more creative, and also to refresh and re-energize your mind and body for the next day.