Achieving a Balance Right for Young People

I often hear in the media that there is no such thing as a ‘work life balance’. I do not agree. Of course, someone’s ‘work life balance’ will be very different to the next person, but being busy is a choice. Perhaps, we should refer to it as ‘work life choice’ instead. Our young people, just like the adults in their lives have become extraordinarily busy. Being busy is in some ways the lifestyle choice of the modern world. But what happens when children are so busy, that they forget what it’s like to enjoy the freedom of childhood? Or they are so busy that their mental health suffers as a result?

As adults, we need to monitor the ‘work life balance’ of our young people and set up structures and environments where they can have down time, enjoy time spent with their families and extended families here at Shore, and just enjoy their youth. Young people need to play and children learn mostly through play-based learning, especially the social and emotional learning skills needed to thrive.

A good way to monitor our children’s schedules is to have a long think about the expectations we have of our children. Are we as parents setting up way too many ‘busy activities’ for our children? One way of monitoring and creating balance for young people is to complete an audit of their weeks’ activities. When we actually sit down and make a list of everything our children do in a week, there should be evidence that they actually want to be involved in these activities. A conversation should be had around how they are travelling with their busy schedules. Always checking in to ask, ‘Is it necessary?’

Sometimes parents set up structured activities for their children in the fear that they will miss out if they are not doing something every day of the week. Young people also choose to be busy and love being engaged in several activities at once. However, children are still learning the essential skills of physical and mental resilience and a gentle reminder about prioritising time for wellbeing is very important.

Another good way to look at balance in a child’s life is to see if there is still time for grandparents, book reading, walking the dog, building a cubby, going to youth group, participating in Scouts or drawing a picture, riding a bike, cooking, completing homework and study, eating with the family, sleeping at least nine hours a night or even just blobbing on the couch.

Each child is different, but there needs to be a balance in the lives of our young people, so that they can breathe, and be still and silent. As parents, we can help our children to recognise that being busy is not necessarily productive and that finding a balance is the first step to being a responsible and happy adult.

To learn about building resilience in young people, please visit the following link to the Resilience edition of SchoolTV.

Ms Rowena Dudgeon
Deputy Head, Pastoral Care