How Extra-Curricular Activities Schools Mold Our Children

Posted by Kinderwood on January 20th, 2020

As the parent, you may question whether your child should spend time in extracurricular activities. Everyone can agree that school is important for children. But what about extracurricular activities? Is football really making a difference in a child’s life? Is playing in a band something nice for an adolescent or something more? Extracurricular activities are found in all levels of our schools in many different forms. They can be sports, clubs, debate, drama, school publications, student council, and other social events. A student’s future can be determined by the things that they do in the hours after school and before their parents get home. After-school programs and extracurricular activities can offer youth a safe and supervised haven and a chance to learn new skills such as conflict resolution, prepare for a successful career, improve grades and develop relationships with caring adults. These skills can be critical in helping youth develop in positive ways and to avoid behavior problems and conflict. There are many high schools out there today that provide a plethora of extracurricular activities.

Training in professional skills: Extracurricular activities help to build professional skills that a classroom alone cannot always foster. A leadership-oriented club, for example, will help students to learn essential skills in management and delegation, while a debate or speech club will provide additional public speaking practice for students. Sports most often have the effect of fostering strong team-building skills and training students in holding long-term goals. In short, extracurricular activities can arm students with many of the skills future employers will be looking for.

Learning Time Management and Prioritizing: As adults, we get very used to juggling a variety of different tasks and commitments. Our children need to learn how to do this as well. Participating in one or more activities can teach a child how to juggle school, homework, family life, and their after-school activities as well and learn the importance of priorities and planning. Ironically enough, many students find that adding more commitments to their already coursework-filled schedules has the effect of improving time management. The student who is busy with coursework but also needs to balance two other extracurricular activities is more likely to plan out time dedicated to each activity and less likely to procrastinate during downtimes. An extracurricular activity might even have the effect of “recharging” the brain after a day of rigorous schoolwork, allowing students to return to homework assignments with a refreshed mind.

Developing Diverse Interests: Extracurricular activities also allows students to pursue interests outside of a standardized academic context. These decisions to get involved in various activities could help them decide the interests that they want to pursue in higher education. Students can also use these activities to explore interests they’ve never encountered, exposing students to a more diverse range of interests.

Raises Self Esteem: When children learn new activities and skills, they gain self-confidence which is required at every stage of life. Extracurricular activities help them learn social skills like negotiation, cooperation, conflict resolutions and teamwork in a fun-filled and relaxed environment. The activities also help them learn to interact with others properly – a skill which is valuable at every stage in life. Everyone wants to find something that they are really good at, and extracurricular activities provide them with a way that they can get involved in something and really shine, giving their self-esteem a boost.

Building Solid Relationship Skills: Your child will have the benefit of building solid relationship skills when they get involved in extracurricular activities. Children need to get involved in social activities and learn how to act appropriately in social situations and these activities give them a chance outside of school to do this, while they are still being supervised by adults.

Physical development: School children participate in all sorts of sports and outdoor activities for which facilities are made available to them. These sports activities give them good exercise and help them learn life-long habits to keep them physically and mentally fit.

Relief from Stress: School children and college students participate in all sorts of sports and outdoor activities for which facilities are made available to them. These sports activities give them good exercise and help them learn life-long habits to keep them physically and mentally fit.

Team spirit: Most individuals at their early stages of life are not capable of handling teamwork. Participation in extracurricular activities helps them learn team spirit both at home and at work. Team sports enable children to work together for achieving a common goal. Thus, their focus changes from the individual to the team.

Getting involved in a few different activities can be a great choice, and is definitely beneficial for children. All schools that genuinely believe in creating well-rounded healthy individuals definitely encourage extracurricular activities and provide the facilities for the same.