Pushing Children

I want to think that I won’t be one of those parents that puts her kid in every kind of extracurricular activity and just let kids be kids, but sadly I think I will be one of those moms. I will be the mom that super prepares her child for everything because I believe that children are too coddled and should learn as many things as they can to get a leg up. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t want to suck all the fun out of life, I just want to make sure that energy is directed in a way that allows a little person to continue to grow and move forward. It is all about balance. I don’t think that the US children are balanced. You either get the elite of society giving their children every opportunity and then you get the lower class that are able to only give the bare minimum of guidance. I don’t want to end up with a child who watches TV twenty four hours a day, I don’t want a child that plays video games all the time, I don’t want a young adult who moves away to college not knowing how to balance a check book, what APR means, and how to cook a full balanced meal. There is a lot that needs to be taught that I think parents are not being responsible to prepare their children.
Putting kids in sports, dance, music, working on academia, working on social skills seems like a lot to ask but we have given kids a lot more in the past. One hundred years ago a child the age of 12 was considered an adult who could start apprenticing at a full time job. Now I don’t suggest that we have our 12 year olds start full time work but I do believe that added responsibility can only help to push the child in the right direction.
So I think we infantilize our children to an extent and then poof we expect them to be able to be functioning adults. For example our kids can sign up for the army and die at 18 but they can’t have made a decision to have a drink at a bar. I think that is a very powerful message. We don’t know if you should have a drink but here is a rifle?
Also in our society do we help our intelligent kids to be more antisocial when we excuse them from sports or from chores so they can spend more time studying or working on a AP Biology project.
These are things I am worrying about. So many ideas.