Adding family time to busy schedules

Whether it is a parent's dream, a child's desire or just pressure to succeed, many families in New Jersey and across the country are finding they spend more time in the car, running from one activity to the next, than they do as a family.

Kyra Kotz of Brick Township put her foot down and decided she wanted the best of both worlds.

With her 18-year-old son off to college, Kotz now has 11 and 8-year-old stepsons who are heavily involved in sports. The younger boys play football and basketball and her older son plays football and lacrosse. Football starts during the summer with practices five days a week. Once school starts, the practices are three days a week with games on Sunday.

"But with them being separate ages, we can have a game at 10 in the morning, another at 4 in the afternoon. We may have one kid in Wall and one in Hunterdon County. It can get very hectic," she said.

So, in an effort to gain back more quality family time, Kotz says she and her husband gave the boys the option to choose which activity meant the most to them. They chose football, so that is the season when they do all the running around.

"When it comes to basketball, we've really tried to limit them to recreational leagues instead of the travel leagues that were bringing us out of town and out of state way too often. We were very disconnected and not getting a lot of time together, other than in the car," Kotz said.

The recreational leagues require less of a commitment than the travel teams. The games are more local and less frequent. The children are also given the option to try other activities, which sometimes means giving up something else for a season.

"We just really felt that the kids needed more balance and time to be kids,  to ride their bikes, to play kickball in the backyard and to interact with their father outside the car," she said. "When they realize they are giving up a sport to play football or basketball with Dad instead or to play a game of kickball with the neighborhood kids, they don't feel like they're missing out because they're having fun."

Kotz does not want to be ships passing in the night with her kids.  Family dinners are important to her.  By playing recreational sports, it also provides more time for clinics, camps and other activities that they may not have the opportunity to do if they were overscheduled.

"We can also plan a family tubing day in the winter which we wouldn't necessarily be able to do if we were heavily committed to a travel team," she said. "It's good for them to have a schedule, but I think it's ok for kids to sit in their pajamas for a few extra hours on a Saturday morning too. Even good things in excess become bad. Too much free time is not a good thing and no free time is not good either."