Head of School Articles

By: Dr. Olaf Jorgenson, ACDS Head of School

When Mrs. Hunter founded ACDS in 1982, one of the school’s philosophical pillars was her deep and unwavering advocacy for children and childhood. Above all, we must respect and protect childhood so that children can develop as healthy, joyful, curious and confident learners and citizens. Children thrive, Nan tells us, when we keep things simple. Childhood is to be cherished, not accelerated!

That said, increasingly Almaden Country Day School is a countercultural choice for parents. Our school is like a countercultural island in the frenzied pace and pressures of Silicon Valley parenting, whose norms often center on preparing children for success rather than celebrating their time to be kids. 

Children who demonstrate athletic prowess are funneled into club sports; those who show creative promise join music, art, and theater camps and programs. There are specialty programs for coding, robotics, math, speech and debate, ballet, hip-hop, gymnastics, problem solving, leadership, gardening, cooking, glass blowing and more. 

Whatever your child’s aptitudes, in Silicon Valley, there’s a way to optimize them. A Silicon Valley childhood is a platform for constant improvement, preparing children to compete and succeed in all kinds of pursuits.

I’ve been ruminating about this notion of optimizing childhood since a recent trip to the gym. It was a Saturday morning, and I toiled away at a machine when two women walked past. Normally I’m oblivious to other gym patrons, but their fluorescent orange hoodies caught my attention, so I glanced up as they neared my station.

The older of the two had the word “COACH” emblazoned in bold letters on the front of her sweatshirt; she wore a fixed, intense grimace and was clearly all business. The younger orange-sweatshirted girl—maybe 14 years old—trailed behind, hood up, eyes downcast and sleepy, moving slowly and clearly not thrilled to be there at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday. 

As they turned to fill their bottles at the water station, I caught a glimpse of the phrase emblazoned on the back of their hoodies:

“THERE IS NO OFF SEASON.”

I paused mid-lift, racked my weights, and sat down on the bench, turning this over in my head. It took me a few seconds to push away my thoughts and get refocused on my routine. But the rest of the weekend, in quiet moments, I kept coming back to “there’s no off season.”

Now, to be clear, my unsettled reaction in the gym wasn’t at all an indictment of year-round sports. It’s likely the young woman’s parents hired COACH to help their daughter train for a sport, and that’s not uncommon these days for families who can afford it. And in my early days, I participated in a year-round sport too.

What struck me in the moment and preoccupied me later was that this bold statement, and the ultra-competitive, workaholic mentality it embodies, could ever appear as a marketing slogan on a hoodie. How is it that driving kids relentlessly to succeed is now something we would normalize, much less proclaim in public? 

So then I found myself asking what happened to the space kids need to just be — to play, imagine, explore, without pressure to become something “better” (bigger, faster, smarter, stronger)? How did we lose sight of the fundamental need for children to have unscheduled, unfocused, unhurried time, for the natural development of kids to just happen?

Research has demonstrated play is essential for children to mature into confident, well-adjusted, resilient individuals. And conversely, we know that overscheduling can delay or impede executive functioning skills, autonomy, independence, and resilience. Overscheduled children are also more likely to feel stressed and contend with anxiety, depression, and anger. 

So again, how did we get here? Certainly in places like Silicon Valley with cultures of competition and achievement, parenting focuses on outcomes and achievement that demand time in a child’s schedule, and parents constantly share and compare their kids’ development and budding resumés. It’s hard to stay the course with an unhurried childhood when the peer pressure to devote time stimulating, developing, and “improving” our children is so relentless. 

Of course, across time there have always been children who eagerly devoted their free hours to their passions, as well as parents who structured their children’s every minute; the former is much less a concern to me but especially where we live, parents who overschedule their children do worry me, and they’re not necessarily the exception in Silicon Valley. What hit me in the gym last weekend is that the “no off season” mindset could ever become mainstream. There really is no off season for some children.

In fairness, in a two-parent working household, sometimes we resort to scheduled activities as a necessity rather than an option. But given the luxury of choice, whether as parents we overschedule our kids because we’re driven by our enthusiasm for their budding athletic or artistic talents, by their potential for achievement and rewards, or simply by our fear that they’ll miss out if they’re not getting exposure to lots of challenging and enriching activities, it’s really important to remember that an overscheduled childhood can be unhealthy for young people. Above all, children and teenagers need balance. 

In the same way healthy schools strive for a balance of academic rigor, character development, and joy in the learning process, when they’re out of school our children also benefit from balance  — including downtime for their mental and physical wellness and healthy development. A balanced childhood entails unstructured and independent play, rest, stillness, sleep, occasional boredom, time outdoors and freedom from deadlines, drills, responsibilities – and with due respect, some reprieve from early morning sets and reps with COACH.

Kids need an off season!