What’s New
A grass-roots initiative of parents collectively reclaiming Sunday as a sports-free day.
Schedule balance into your week by reclaiming Sunday as family day.
Balance4Success at University of Minnesota
A group of students at the U of M adapts Balance4Success for college life. 
Talk About Balance
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Family Mealtime
Countless studies show that regular family mealtimes are more critical for kids’ development than any extracurricular activities.
Youth Sports
Organized sports provide many developmental benefits-and lots of fun. But with play time overwhelming many kids' and family's lives, pediatricians and mental health professionals and youth sports leaders and educators are increasingly concerned that excessive involvement in organized sports can be detrimental to kids' well being in many ways.
Media » Articles
Balance is healthy for students
By Erica Christoffer\Sun Newspapers
(Created: Thursday, September 29, 2005 2:40 PM CDT)
When college freshman are burnt out, something is very wrong.
But who can blame them? Often their lives for the past 12 years have consisted of running from practice, to lessons, to games to clubs to church and back home to study. And many do this on four or five hours sleep per night.
It's easy to say that this is an unhealthy lifestyle. But pressures to achieve come from schools, home and society. Plus students often enjoy a variety of activities, making it difficult to say no to one.
When I was in elementary school I joined swimming, but I also wanted to be a Girl Scout like many of my friends. Luckily my mom had me decide on either one or the other; and I'm grateful today.
By freeing up my schedule, I was able to pursue independent activities, read and spend time with my siblings. In the summer we'd often take family camping trips up north, which might not have otherwise occurred if my siblings and I had too much on our plates.
Later, I was able to add softball in the summers, classes at the local nature center, band and the high school newspaper.
By growing up with a balanced schedule, I was able to continue that through college and into my adult life.
I applaud the parent initiative Balance4Success in bringing to light the problems associated with over-scheduling children. Stress, anxiety, sleep depravation and loss of family time are too detrimental and outweigh the benefits that extracurricular activities create.
It is possible to have too much of a good thing.
As a reporter of schools and students in District 196, I often wonder how the children I meet have time to rest or enjoy their successes with the level of involvement they commit themselves to. Now I know that often they don't and parents are now noticing the effects.
I encourage all parents to attend the Oct. 4 Balance4Success event to learn more about what they can do to help their children succeed in a healthy schedule.
Because in the end, healthy students equate to a healthy community.
Erica Christoffer is community editor of the Apple Valley and Rosemount Sun-Current newspaper.