Give kids a break: Families Minister

PARENTS who load their children with too many extracurricular activities could be harming their development, says the NSW Families Minister.

PARENTS who load their children with too many extracurricular activities could be harming their development, the NSW Families Minister has claimed.

Launching a fact sheet for parents yesterday, Pru Goward warned that committing children to too many activities placed unnecessary stress on the family unit as a whole. "Children can become tired, overwhelmed and irritable as a result of having no down-time, and a busy schedule also has an impact on parents," she said.

The Family Fatigue fact sheet said symptoms such as irritability, headaches, thumb-sucking and temper tantrums could indicate children were "overscheduled".

A senior lecturer in child development at the Queensland University of Technology, Sue Walker, said: "I'm not aware of any research that suggests those symptoms could indicate (children) are engaged in stress related to doing too many activities," she said. The symptoms could be characteristic of stress more generally, which might derive from any number of causes.

Ms Goward said "hurried child syndrome" was well known. Her spokesman said the fact sheet was developed with psychologists.