This article is adapted, with permission, from a speech by Dr. Rosenfeld.

As parents, we can do better by doing less. It’s hard for us to believe this, though we know it in our bones, because an over-scheduled family style is so much the norm. Yet following this style may be damaging our marriages, getting unhappy children diagnosed as learning disabled, ADD, bipolar, and depressed, and contributing to angry, discouraged adolescents being involved with drugs, alcohol, and premature sex.

This hyperparenting program, which I call the “parenting Olympics,” aims to create “successful children,” defined by a simple measure -- how highly ranked is the college he or she goes to. It maintains that enrichment activities started early, when combined with regular practice, tenacity, and devotion, create “winner” children who get into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, U of P, Duke, UVA, Cornell, and Princeton. Children deprived of these activities will be – plainly put –losers, and their parents will have no one to blame but themselves!

To provide early brain stimulation, parents play “Baby Einstein” tapes, an odd model because while adult Albert was a genius, he talked late and did poorly at school. I am sure that in most schools today he would get a comprehensive evaluation and end up on Ritalin.

School Lessons
Homework in the elementary grades has increased dramatically, despite research that found no correlation between the amount of homework early elementary school students do and their achievement levels (though a clear association does exist in high school.) To meet the demand, parents certainly do teach the children an important skill: how to delegate. That’s because often parents and their friends are the ones doing the homework.

Some schools have divided projects, like fourth grade dioramas, into those the child made, and those that the parents clearly helped with. And schools contribute to the problem by assigning projects well beyond the reach of young students, projects which parents are in fact expected to help with.

A Generational Shift
The social trends that have fostered this situation are complex. The last generation’s world was adult-centered; often, children were neither listened to nor heard. Parents never cancelled adult activities for a kid’s game. Rather, the kids sometimes hung around family and social events, listening to the adults talking or discussing events they considered important.

Many of us who were children then felt bored and insecure because we seemed like relatively unimportant appendages to our parents. So we vowed to be involved with kids. And we are! A study showed that today’s parents spend considerably more time with their children. Unfortunately, careful analysis shows that much of that time is spent chauffeuring them between activities.

Our sacrifices also make our children feel guilty. Being good kids who can no longer repay us with work on the family farm, they often try to repay us with high grades, popularity, athletic accomplishment, and the ultimate proof of success -- elite college admission. Some kids who can’t excel at school give up and drop out. As one adolescent told me, “In my family, it is Harvard, Yale, or nothing. And I just can’t measure up!”

Those who resent their parents, the pressure, and/or the fraudulent system, rebel and may get involved with drugs, alcohol, or premature sex. Some insist they have better values: One teenager told me, “I want my parents to judge who I am, not how I look.”

Others get to the Ivies and break down in their first year; I see them when they come back home. For years they had ignored the stress and left no time to relax or to really learn. So in high school and later at college, they party and drink to excess – particularly on weekends -- to reduce the inner stress, discomfort, and confusion about who they are, real people or fabricated resumes.

Does Harvard Really Matter?
Hyper-parenting is built on the premise that getting into an elite school is sort of like buying a Ferrari or Rolls Royce, the best. This presumption is so ingrained in our thinking that it is hard for most people, me included, to question it.

Do facts support our beliefs? The research is contradictory. Some studies suggest that a student’s SAT scores are the best predictor of how much they will earn in a lifetime. Other research suggests that students who go to the very elite schools really do earn more. And still other research suggests that the kids who benefit the most from going to elite schools are children from low-income families who gain opportunities and connections there that more affluent students already have.

Whatever the facts turn out to be, these studies look at the issue through the lens of economics. So, are the elite colleges really offering a great education?

They certainly attract great kids whom your kid will enjoy interacting with. But the ones with professional schools usually are parts of research universities. Professors are rewarded for landing research grants, not for being great teachers. Most students will only see big-name professors in huge lecture courses, while graduate students teach the smaller sections. Is that – and about 700 hours of instruction annually -- really worth $40,000 to $50,000 a year?

Sports-Mad Moms & Dads
I wish schooling were the only place we parents had abandoned good sense, balance, and judgment. But kids’ athletics is another where we have forgotten that childhood is a preparation, not a full performance.

Hobbies are great; athletics can make important contributions to children’s health and self-esteem. But today, everything in sports is subjected to scrutiny and judgment, and kids are expected to specialize early – though the American Academy of Pediatrics has strongly advised that children play multiple sports and specialize in one, if they must, only after puberty.

Should we be concerned that 90% of competitive female gymnasts get their first period a year or two late? A 1996 study reported disordered eating in 100% of elite female gymnasts and osteoporosis in more than half. Many do lifelong damage to their joints and spinal columns. Are they examples for our daughters to follow?

Although we put our children into protective head and body gear, orthopedic surgeons recently reported a worrisome increase in recreation-linked injuries among 5- to 14-year-olds. They debated whether these kids had 2.2 million bone fractures, dislocations, and muscle injuries last year, or 3.5 million.

How is this pressure for kids? I asked a 14-year-old boy who was a very good athlete but only a so-so student what it was like to excel at sports. He said that it was nice in some ways, but he would prefer just playing ball with his friends.

"Why?" I asked.

"I'm judged in school work,” he replied. "I'm judged when I play ball. I just want some place where I'm not judged!"

Ambitions: Ours and Theirs

I have ambitions for my children. But I also want them to be mentally well, relatively free of unnecessary stress that might undo their equilibrium.

In my clinical experience, parents who really know who their child is and have a visceral faith that the child will eventually find a good place in life maximize the odds of that happening. Parents who say, through actions and gestures, that they are very nervous about their children’s futures – and therefore have to improve them incessantly -- diminish the odds. .

To stimulate warm relationships with children – the ones we all need – parents need to be with them with no goal in mind beyond the pleasure of spending time together. On walks, shooting hoops, playing Monopoly, whatever! What our children really need is us. The greatest gift we can give them is the deep, inner conviction that they don’t have to perform for us to love and cherish them.

The problem is both local and national. We need to reflect on whether this overscheduled lifestyle is good for us or for our children, which is why I have established National Family Night and hope you will consider starting a branch in your community.

Alvin Rosenfeld is a child psychiatrist and co-author of “The Over-Scheduled Child.” He is also the founder of National Family Night, a grass-roots organization devoted to rebalancing family priorities.