I started to wonder if my life might be a bit overscheduled when I found myself contemplating the purchase of a Palm handheld organizer for my five-year-old son. "He loves the games," I reasoned. "Maybe he can keep track of his own calendar." My own Palm was bursting with stuff like his music and soccer schedules, his sister's dance and gymnastics classes, Kindergarten homework, and my own meetings and deadlines.

But after a little inquiry I discovered that my impulse to offload my own stress to Cole by putting him in charge of his own overburdened calendar was a sure sign, according to David Elkind, author of The Hurried Child that our lives were—as he puts it in his book— "a pressure-cooker of competing demands, transitions, role changes, personal and professional uncertainties over which [we exerted] slight direction." I was, in short, hurrying him through childhood because my overwhelming schedule was making me think it would be a good thing if this adorable child were mature enough to take responsibility for things far beyond his years.

And it seems I'm not the only one who is falling prey to this feeling. "As a society," says Elkind's text, "we have come to imagine that it is good for young people to mature rapidly." Our overburdened nation has little time for real childhood--in the idyllic, endless summer sense.

The soccer team Cole was on, even at his age, was highly competitive. His music teacher insisted that he hold the violin correctly and learn technique before music. Even his Kindergarten homework and the intense pressure he was under to read, do math problems, and—in essence—spend barely any time kicking around the backyard staring at bugs, climbing trees, and hanging out in his tree house are all part of this same societal trend to get kids on with the business of life as soon as possible, whether they are ready or not.

"We try extremely hard to be good parents," explains Alvin Rosenfeld, MD, author of The Overscheduled Child (though he wishes he'd called it The Overscheduled Family) and founder of National Family Night. "We read books, consult experts, and follow the pressure to arrange endless enrichment opportunities because this hyper-parenting style is touted as the right way to raise kids. Actually, it is unbalancing our families, damaging our marriages, and contributing to unhappy, overstressed children being diagnosed as learning disabled, ADD, bipolar, and depressed, as well as to adolescents getting involved with premature sex, drugs, and alcohol."

In all honesty, my son Cole first prompted me to wonder if our punishing schedule was really intended to make him a happy, successful person. "I don't want to do ANYTHING!" he shouted one day last spring in response to my demands that he get ready for soccer. He was lying on the couch looking supremely unhappy. This was a child who, only a few months before school (and all these activities) started was energetic, interested in everything, and pelting me relentlessly with fascinating questions.

It had been clear from the start that he hated soccer. He took every opportunity to disappear into the nearby woods to do what looked to me like interpretive dancing or some sort of pagan tree worship. I spent most of the soccer practices retrieving him from the trees. But because we'd made a commitment to the team and bought shoes and other gear, I was insisting that he finish out the season. We were only a few weeks in though and neither of us was enjoying it. Other kids were eagerly chasing the ball directly into the goal and getting much cheering from loud and excited parents while the coach shot Cole the hairy eyeball as I disentangled him from a tree hug and hauled him back to the field.

Cole glared at me from the couch, defiant. "Okay," I conceded. "Neither do I." Just admitting it was liberating. "If you don't like soccer, we won't go. The coach will probably be happy about it."

"I hate violin too," he pressed on, sensing my weakness. I already knew that. Violin had been his idea. I'd rented him an instrument and he'd had a blast with it. I thought I was supposed to sign him up for lessons because I don't know the first thing about music. But it was clear from day one that he hated the lessons. I hated them too since it meant I had to constantly threaten, cajole, and punish him so he would pay attention to his frustrated teacher. This saddened me. I felt like I'd broken something because I couldn't just let him play the instrument the way he wanted to. But I called the violin teacher and told her we wouldn't be coming anymore.

When I put down the phone. Cole looked at me and smiled. He hadn't done much of that lately. Then he jumped up off the couch, put on his shoes, and went outside to climb trees.

I learned my lesson. I thought I was signing my kids up for classes and activities because that's what parents who love their kids do. But it turns out I was doing it because that's what parents who love their kids do to prove they love their kids. Now we only do activities we like—but never more than one at a time. And I don't buy gear until we know if we are going to like it.

Cole is in first grade now and he still hates school, but afterwards he has lots of interests of his own—none of them scheduled or involving rude coaches, demanding parents, or disapproving music teachers. Since we started quitting stuff he's learned a great deal about the behavior and life cycle of bugs; climbed every tree within his grasp; found and identified numerous snakes, frogs, and turtles; taught his little sister to swing and ride a scooter; read the entire Captain Underpants series and many other books; listened to dozens of books on tape; and developed a pretty good crawl stroke and a keen sense of humor. And he looks happy.

My Palm handheld broke about six months ago. I haven't bothered to get a new one yet.