The Sabbath of the Soul at Home

The zipper on the baseball bag caught twice before it finally gave, and I could hear the microwave beeping over the top of everything. One child was looking for cleats. Another needed a water bottle. The toddler was eating dry cereal out of a measuring cup because I had clearly reached the elegant portion of the evening. Dinner smelled like reheated chicken and barbecue sauce, and we were, once again, eating in shifts between one place we had to be and another.

I almost didn't write this, but I think many of us are mistaking motion for a good life.

We want our children to have chances. We want them to use their gifts. We want them to learn discipline, friendship, resilience, and all the other good words parents reach for when we are trying to justify why nobody has sat down before 8:45 p.m. But somewhere along the way, it becomes possible to build a family life that is full in every visible sense and still strangely starved.

how to stop overscheduling children lds

The first clue is usually not on the calendar. It is on the child's face.

It is the silence in the car after something they were supposed to love. It is the tears over a math page that is not really about math. It is the way they stop looking like themselves and start looking like a little project manager with shin guards.

As a former teacher, I saw this all the time. The child with the perfect homework packet and the hollow eyes. The child who could do everything asked of them and still seemed one late assignment away from coming apart. Achievement and health are not the same thing. Talent and tiredness can live in the same child at the same time.

For Latter-day Saint families, I think there can be an extra layer here. We believe in growth. We believe in gifts. We believe our children matter eternally. All of that is true, and all of it can get twisted into quiet panic if we are not careful.

Sometimes we say we are helping a child develop a talent when what we are really doing is managing our own fear about their future.

That is why I keep coming back to one question: is this bringing my child joy, or is it just making me feel like we are keeping up?

If the answer stings a little, that may be useful.

signs of burnout in religious children

Burnout in children does not always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks obedient.

It looks like a child who keeps going but has gone flat inside. A child who is quick to cry, quicker to snap, and strangely unable to enjoy the very things they once begged to do. A child who performs fine in public and falls apart in the kitchen. A child who no longer has any unclaimed part of the week in which to daydream, build something odd out of tape, or stare at the ceiling and wonder about God.

That last part matters to me more than it used to.

We say we want our children to know the Spirit. We say we want them to hear the still small voice. Then we hand them lives so loud and segmented that they never have to sit still long enough to notice their own thoughts.

"Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart."
Doctrine and Covenants 8:2

Mind and heart both need room.

A child who is always moving from school to practice to lesson to youth activity to late homework may still be doing good things. But even good things, stacked without mercy, can turn a person into a collection of deadlines.

That is one reason The Half-Finished Life of Motherhood has stayed with me. There is grace in admitting that more is not always better, and finished is not the same thing as faithful.

balancing extracurriculars and family worship lds

I do not think the answer is to pull every child out of everything and raise them in a candlelit fog of homemade bread and recorder music.

Some activities are wonderful. Team sports can teach steadiness. Music can shape a child beautifully. Clubs and lessons can give them confidence, friendship, and plain old happiness.

The issue is not activity itself. It is whether the schedule still leaves enough oxygen for the family to be a family.

Can you eat together sometimes without wolfing down tacos in a parking lot? Can a child have one unscheduled hour in which nobody expects improvement? Can family prayer happen without feeling like an extra errand? Can Sunday still feel different from Tuesday?

Balancing extracurriculars and family worship in an LDS home may require a little calendar repentance. Not dramatic. Just honest.

A few questions worth asking in front of the actual week:

• Does this child still light up when this activity comes around?
• Are we choosing this because it fits our values, or because everybody else is doing it?
• What is being crowded out by this pace?
• If we removed one thing, would the home feel lighter or guilty?

That last question has exposed me more than once.

I have also thought a lot about The Digital Sabbath for Families and Reclaiming Attention at Home in a Distracted Age. A family can be physically together and still never arrive to one another. Overscheduling does a version of that too. Everyone is present, but nobody has any leftover self to offer.

teaching children to be still and hear the spirit

Stillness is awkward before it becomes comforting.

Children who are used to constant stimulation do not suddenly sit cross-legged in a sunbeam and whisper about inner peace. Usually they complain. Usually they fidget. Usually someone asks for a snack five minutes after having a snack. That does not mean quiet is failing. It means quiet is unfamiliar.

I think we have to teach stillness the way we teach anything else. Gently. Repeatedly. Without turning it into one more performance standard.

For our family, this has looked very small:

1. Five minutes of reading on the couch before dinner without devices or background noise
2. A short walk after supper without earbuds
3. One car ride a week with the radio off on purpose
4. A few quiet minutes before family prayer so nobody is talking over the top of their own thoughts

None of this is dramatic. That is partly why I trust it.

Children need boredom. I know that sounds rude in an age where we treat boredom like a design flaw. But boredom is where invention starts. It is where a child picks up the colored pencils without being told. It is where questions come out that would never surface during a sprint from one obligation to the next.

And sometimes, very quietly, it is where prayer begins.

creating a peaceful home atmosphere for kids christian

A peaceful home is not a permanently quiet one. I have four children. I am not writing from a monastery.

But peace does have a texture, and children can feel it.

It feels like margins. It feels like being allowed to move slowly sometimes. It feels like a mother who is not narrating the next three deadlines while buttering toast. It feels like a father sitting on the edge of the bed after a long day because not every important thing can be squeezed into a car ride between obligations.

Creating a peaceful home atmosphere for kids in a Christian family may mean protecting what looks unproductive from the outside. Sitting on the porch after dinner. Reading the long book aloud. Letting a child lie on the rug and do nothing visible for twenty minutes. Leaving one slot on the calendar empty and refusing to apologize for it.

The honest version is, I still feel the pull to maximize everything. I still want to make sure my children do not miss chances. I still have to fight the little voice that says a slower childhood is somehow less serious.

But I am more afraid now of raising children who know how to perform and have forgotten how to rest.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I tell if my child is actually overscheduled or if they just need to learn time management?

Look at the child, not only the planner. If they are regularly exhausted, emotionally brittle, or no longer enjoying the things they once loved, that points to strain, not just poor organization.

Won't my child fall behind their peers if we cut back on some activities?

Maybe in a narrow sense. They may have fewer lines on a resume or fewer medals in a drawer. But a child who has room to think, pray, rest, and enjoy being alive is not behind in the ways that matter most.

How can we introduce quiet time to children who are used to constant stimulation?

Start small and stay steady. Five quiet minutes with a book, a short walk without devices, or a calm moment before prayer can begin to retrain the whole household.

What are some signs of burnout in religious children?

Watch for flatness, irritability, dread, and the feeling that every good thing has become one more thing. A child can be highly functional and still deeply worn down.

How do I create a peaceful home if our schedule cannot change overnight?

Begin with margins, not miracles. Protect one evening, one meal, one car ride, or one hour of the week from noise and hurry. Peace often enters through smaller openings than we expect.

The quiet we want for our children will probably not appear on its own. We will have to clear a place for it, which may mean disappointing a few calendars in order to protect a few souls. I think that is a trade worth making.

with love, Rachel