Experts' advice: Family dinners, free time

Teenagers Kailyn and Amanda Kent have working parents and have to ride at least 45 minutes each way to get from their Livermore home to a top private school in Danville, plus they have the usual adolescent angst associated with homework, extracurricular activities and preparations for college.

But their schedules -- and their parents' -- are closer to hectic than overwhelming, largely because the Kents do many things that experts recommend to keep their family life healthy:

-- The family has dinner together most nights.

"Sometimes it might be 8:30 before we do it," said mother Darcie Kent, an artist who also operates a vineyard and serves as president of the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Foundation. "That's the time we connect with each other."

Certainly, the dinner topics include what happened that day at the Athenian School, the college prep school that 16-year-old Kailyn and 14-year- old Amanda attend, but they also discuss current events and their parents' lives. Father David Kent runs the Wine Group, which owns many wineries.

That would be welcome news to Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, co-author of "The Over- Scheduled Child," who encourages families to have wide-ranging discussions, rather than focusing on only the children's activities.

"I don't think kids are seeing adults being adults," Rosenfeld said. "How is the kid going to learn how to be an adult?"

-- They talk about goals and priorities.

When parenthood arrived, Darcie left her sales manager job at Procter & Gamble, choosing more flexible work that would allow her to keep painting. David takes the girls to the school bus most mornings, and she picks them up at school most afternoons; she said they decided that enriching their children's lives for the next several years would be their priority.

Parents and children need to discuss what they mean by success, said Denise Pope, who created Stanford University's Stressed Out Students conference. Is it wealth? Is it going to Harvard?

She urges parents to think about how they greet their children when they get home. "If the first thing you say is, 'Have you done your homework yet?' you're saying that's the most important thing that day."

Confusing expectations can lead to anxiety, said Eric Nguyen, a senior at Gunn High School in Palo Alto who went to the first Stressed Out Students conference last year and will attend again this week.

"I think the pressure sort of comes from a misfocus on what's important," said Nguyen, who plans to attend UC Santa Cruz. "Are students actually learning something? Are they following their passions?"

He said last year's conference encouraged many students to re-evaluate class schedules, and whether they were cheating themselves by focusing on a "name brand" university.

"I think that a lot of students lose track of, 'What college best suits you?' " Nguyen said.

-- Failure is an option -- within reason.

Darcie Kent said Kailyn was good at playing the piano and later tae kwon do, but eventually lost interest.

"She wasn't happy," Darcie said, "so we let her quit."

And although the parents want good grades, once in a while a tough class comes along, Darcie said. "Sometimes they should be satisfied with a B, and you have to talk them down."

Exposing children to activities without pressuring them is particularly healthy for younger kids, said Jim Thompson, executive director of the Positive Coaching Alliance, a national nonprofit based at Stanford. He said all children need to understand that how well they perform in extracurricular activities has no relationship to their position in the family.

"There's almost this quid pro quo," Thompson said. "I'm putting all this time and money in this; you'd better do well."

One reason Thompson started the alliance in 1998 was because children were pressured to thrive in sports rather than simply enjoy them. "A lot of parents who are obsessed with their kids' sports should join a bowling league or a tennis club."

Once in a while, he said, everyone needs a reality check: Are the children still enthused about the activity? Or are the parents dragging them?

-- The children have free time.

"I keep it limited to a maximum of two (extracurricular) activities," Darcie Kent said. Kailyn dances and takes Japanese lessons in San Francisco once a week; Amanda studies guitar and participates in volleyball or track -- whichever is in season.

Amanda says her eighth-grade classes have a couple of hours of homework a night, and students get stressed when big projects are due. But her activities aren't overwhelming, she said. "It's a pretty good balance."

Parents who try to get their children involved in everything because they feel competitive pressure are overlooking a crucial point, said Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, a Philadelphia pediatrician and author. He said the qualities most crucial to success and happiness in business and in life are warmth and compassion.

"What is going to guarantee that kids have those traits is a caring, involved family," Ginsburg said. "We have to get away from this being a professional parent thing. There's nothing that a parent can do that is more important than listening."

The Stressed Out Students conference will be Friday and Saturday at Stanford. Organizers expect 16 school teams from as far away as Arizona, as well as principals from Indiana and Massachusetts. Although Saturday's session is for only the invited teams, the session at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Cubberley Auditorium is free and open to the public.

For details and reservations, see sosconference.stanford.edu.