At 5 and 7, Andrew and Kaitlyn Buehler lead busy lives.

Every day after school sees them in a different activity — soccer, piano lessons, swimming, ballet, gymnastics. And now Kaitlyn is playing soccer two days a week, including a practice every Monday at Kapi'olani Park where her dad, Honolulu pediatrician Daniel Buehler, is one of the coaches.

"They have an activity after school most days," says their mother Sara Buehler, executive director of the Women's Fund in Hawai'i.

"It's a challenge," she admits. "There are all these incredible programs for children their age, but at the same time, I want to carve out some space for them. I worry that they're going from one activity to another and they don't have any downtime; they don't have time just to be kids."

It's the contemporary concern voiced by many parents who fill their childrens' lives with activities that will prepare them for a competitive and constructive future. But in today's society, competition goes far beyond school hallways and dirt playgrounds, and creativity involves everything from athletic endeavors to artistic pursuits.

Buehler is already worrying that the children are doing too much.

On school days, she says, they get up at 7 a.m., are in school by 8 a.m., picked up by 2:30 p.m., and are immediately into one of their many daily activities.

"Then they only have time to go to their activity, go home and have dinner and do homework. Where's the time to just talk to a friend or read a book?"

PRESSURE TO COMPETE

The 21st-century child has a MySpace page, a cell phone and a flurry of academic and artistic pursuits designed to help him or her navigate a technologically advanced world. Kids are learning more and more, earlier and earlier. Some need a BlackBerry just to keep up.

Listen to McKenzie Ernst's busy summer. Shortly after school ended in June, the 12-year-old attended a sailing camp near her home in Crofton, Md. Then there was the weeklong adventure camp, followed by softball camp and — let's not forget — Girl Scouts camp.

The school year is even busier, with some type of extracurricular activity, including art classes, softball and math tutoring daily. And the weekends, says her mother Donna Ernst, "are never free."

"I want to expose her to as many things to make her a well-rounded person," says Ernst, 34, a production assistant at a nonprofit organization in Alexandria, Va. "By introducing her to different things, I'm showing her the real world, all sides of life. She can get an art scholarship, academic scholarship or athletic scholarship."

Ernst says her daughter, an "A" student, is doing things she enjoys.

"When she was young, I pushed her into stuff like ballet and soccer. Now she says what she wants to do. She really doesn't get stressed out — not that I know of."

CRITICAL SKILLS UNDERDEVELOPED

Most experts agree that extracurricular activities are good for kids. But what happens when the actions of well-meaning parents lead to overwhelmed and overburdened teens stressed out in their quest to reach the Ivy League?

"It may be intuitively clear to parents that they have to push kids because it's a very competitive world, but in fact, they may be doing more harm than good because they may not be nourishing the kinds of abilities and skills that are most necessary in today's world," says David Elkind, a psychologist and professor of child development at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.

The kinds of abilities and skills Elkind, author of "The Power of Play" and "The Hurried Child," are referring to include creativity and innovation — skills children acquire naturally during free, unstructured play time, he says.

But Hawai'i's Buehler says she always asks her children what activities they want to pursue, and uses their choices as a guideline for what activities are planned for each semester, or through the summer.

"We ask them before we set the schedule — what is it you'd like to do — and it's worked out well for us. They love going."

Then, even when the children are creating their own fantasy world, it's based around their real one, she says.

"They replicate their own world," says Buehler of her children's fantasy play. "Frequently it starts with pretending we're going to a party, or pretending they're going to be a fireman today, or pretending we're going to school and Kaitlyn is the teacher. They have this elaborate world that exists, and their life is the starting point for this pretend world."

Kim Love says the same thing.

The Columbia, S.C. mother of two says that while her children are involved in a constant range of activities, it's what they choose.

For instance, her 10-year-old son, Jordan, had an activity scheduled literally seven days a week last fall, all of them his choice.

"Mondays were soccer, Tuesdays — Boy Scouts, Wednesdays — Bible study, Thursdays — football, Fridays — tae kwon do, and weekends were games," says Love, 32, an accountant at a computer corporation.

In winter months, football was replaced with basketball and in the spring, there was baseball. This summer Jordan was on an all-star team of a baseball league and played in tournaments during his school break.

"This was completely his choice," says Love. "He was interested in all of it. We tried to talk him out of it. He liked it. He liked being busy. He did better in school when he was busy."

Love's husband, Martin Quick, is a mortgage broker and also coach of all of her son's sports teams. She says the father/son bond that has formed between the two is "absolutely amazing."

"My husband was a big athlete, and his father was not in the home," says Love, whose 7-year-old daughter Kymani plays soccer and takes tae kwon do and ballet lessons. "The best way he knows how to be a good father is through sports."

The activities, says Love, have been a way to keep Jordan physically active while teaching him important life skills.

"It has helped with his self-confidence; taught him to work hard, how to handle defeat. He has a great teamwork attitude. He knows how to motivate other people. You can see the leadership skills come out in him," says Love. "I think it's worth it. It's going to pay off in the long run."

Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a report touting the benefits of play. The report found play "essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social and emotional well-being of children and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to engage fully with their children."

The lack of self-initiated play and the opportunity to learn critical skills during play is a result of overscheduling that can have a devastating impact on a child's future success.

Denise Pope, a lecturer at Stanford University's School of Education and founder and director of the college's Stressed Out Students Project, says some students burn out before they reach college.

"A lot of these kids, they get to college and say, 'Now I can live. I can breathe,' " says Pope. "But what happens is that they overschedule themselves again. Some of these kids only know how to be scheduled, and that's a problem. They lose a sense in the joy of being. The simple pleasures."

A NATION OF MIDDLE MANAGERS

The result is kids who know how to multitask and work on a team, but who're living someone else's dream of who they are. Pope says university mental health clinics are full of stressed college students, and businesses are increasingly disappointed in the graduates — more middle managers than CEO types.

"They're not seeing the leadership skills they need," says Pope. "They want someone who's willing to take risks, creative, someone who can think outside the box."

Even more important is the impact of overscheduling on family well-being.

"If family life is being sacrificed, then marriage suffers," says Alvin Rosenfeld, author of "The Overscheduled Child: Avoiding the Hyper-Parenting Trap" and co-author of "Hyper-Parenting: Are You Hurting Your Child by Trying Too Hard?"

Of course, no one is calling for kids to just sit home and watch hours and hours of television or video games, but when extracurricular activities get in the way of functions that help build character and morality, parents must rethink their priorities, says Rosenfeld. "When our family life takes a back seat to soccer games, something's wrong."

LOOK FOR SIGNS, TAKE PRESSURE OFF KIDS

You're taking your little one to yet another scheduled activity. He seems fine and says he's not stressed, but how do you know? What signs should you look for to recognize when a child is overscheduled?

Many children, experts say, will not tell their parents when they are overwhelmed for fear of disappointing them. Instead, they internalize their guilt. But the fact that they're under pressure usually comes out in other ways, including unexplained medical conditions and changes in behavior or school grades.

Psychologist David Elkind of Tufts University says signs of stress vary, depending on the age of the child. Young children, for example, may have stomach aches or headaches. They may pull their hair.

School-age children, he says, act out in other ways. There's usually an abrupt change in behavior: Grades suffer and once- outgoing children become withdrawn.

"Too many children are misdiagnosed as ADHD when in fact, they're under a lot of stress, and their behavior is simply a result of that," says Elkind.

Also, a child may be overscheduled if he or she always asks "Do I have to?" whenever it's time for a planned activity.

"If it's a constant battle to get the kid to go somewhere, that's a sign," says Denise Pope of the Stressed Out Students Project at Stanford University.

When a child is always tired or doesn't have time to complete homework assignments, these may also be indicators that there's too much on his or her plate.

Some adolescents deal with stress the same way adults do, says Elkind, "drinking, drugs and all the rest."

Once you recognize some of the signs of stress, what should you do?

Pope suggests scaling back some activities. For example, students may opt not to do artistic activities such as drama or music during heavy sports seasons. She also recommends older kids choose between participating in sports every season and taking advanced placement courses.

"Are you doing the sport because you love it or because you think you're going to get a scholarship?" says Pope. "You have to sit down and really figure out what's important to you as a family."

Elkind agrees. He says parents must let kids know that it's OK not to be in so many activities.

"Kids are often really relieved because they're often doing something to please their parents," says Elkind. "It's refreshing for them to hear that it's OK for them to do less."

—Gannett News Service