M
midori
Guest
Extracurriculars are… extracurriculars. We expose our kids to the things we love, hoping they’ll love them, too. Or we expose our kids to things, in case they turn out to have a talent for it that can be cultivated. We expose our kids to things to make them better-rounded individuals, or to give them an important skillset for their back pocket, or to give them the chance to learn discipline or life lessons or stretch their brains, or whatever.
It can be wrestling or taekwondo or soccer. It can be Latin or Spanish or Chinese. It can be piano or flute or violin. It can be drama team or choir or gymnastics.
But we can’t live our own lives through our kids. We can’t say, “I wish I had worked harder in x when I was young, so I’m going to make sure my kid is even awesome-r at x!”
I usually give my kids one or two extracurriculars per year. I choose one of them, and they choose the other. Sometimes, even if they like stuff, like dance class or baseball or 4-H or whatever, they’ll opt to sit out the next year, and that’s okay. It frees up more of their time to focus on academics.
But not everyone is a natural. Rather than trying to encourage your child to pursue x extracurricular, you should ask him what he would rather replace it with. And let him try a variety of things to see where his inclinations lead him.
Save the “you don’t understand why this is important, but it’s important, and you’ll thank me when your older” tack for things that are more important than just choosing one sport over another sport, or even choosing sport over academics, or whatever.
It can be wrestling or taekwondo or soccer. It can be Latin or Spanish or Chinese. It can be piano or flute or violin. It can be drama team or choir or gymnastics.
But we can’t live our own lives through our kids. We can’t say, “I wish I had worked harder in x when I was young, so I’m going to make sure my kid is even awesome-r at x!”
I usually give my kids one or two extracurriculars per year. I choose one of them, and they choose the other. Sometimes, even if they like stuff, like dance class or baseball or 4-H or whatever, they’ll opt to sit out the next year, and that’s okay. It frees up more of their time to focus on academics.
But not everyone is a natural. Rather than trying to encourage your child to pursue x extracurricular, you should ask him what he would rather replace it with. And let him try a variety of things to see where his inclinations lead him.
Save the “you don’t understand why this is important, but it’s important, and you’ll thank me when your older” tack for things that are more important than just choosing one sport over another sport, or even choosing sport over academics, or whatever.
