Helping Your Child Choose an After-School Activity
Whenever possible, allow your child to choose their own activities. When you try to force an activity, the results can be disastrous at best and devastating to the child’s self-esteem at worst. While your child should most of the decision, as a parent, you should offer some assistance when evaluating choices.
Evaluating Your Child’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Before looking at specific programs, take some time to evaluate your child’s strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Your child may not be emotionally, physically, or socially ready to participate in certain activities. Since you know your child best, you should be able to take a good, hard look at his or her development in evaluating activities.
There are, of course, two approaches to choosing activities based on your child’s strengths and weaknesses. Obviously, if a child is good at a particular activity, such as sports, encouraging the development of that activity can be beneficial. Your child will experience success and his or her self-esteem will grow as their skills develop.
You may also want to explore activities that will help your child develop in areas you perceive as a weakness. If your son or daughter has difficulty making friends or interacting with other children, then a team activity may encourage camaraderie.
The best activities are those that allow your child to exploit their strengths while developing weaker areas.
Strengths and weaknesses should not be the only factors to consider when helping your child choose an activity. Your child’s interests are also a big factor in determining which activities to explore.
Understanding Your Child’s Interests
Understanding your child’s interests should be a relatively simple affair. Just observe them as they play and in their daily lives. What books are they reading? What games are they playing? What activities do they spend the most time in?
Once you understand what your child is interested in, you can begin to look for programs that offer similar activities. If your child is interested in sports, for example, you might want to look around for junior baseball, football or soccer leagues. You may have to try different sports before you find the one your child is most interested.
Evaluating Your Child’s Growth
Another important factor in choosing an activity is your child’s physical, mental, and emotional growth. Obviously, any activity should be chosen to compliment your child’s growth level. As with strengths and weaknesses, many activities can help in the development of your child.
Physical activities will promote health, fitness, and physical growth. These activities will also help develop motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
Arts and crafts can help foster creativity and mental growth. There are a wide range of activities that fall into this category. Many, like dance and performing arts, will provide physical exercise and well as mental stimulation.
The key to choosing activities based on your child’s growth is balance. Help your child develop in these areas while offering opportunities for them to excel in the activity.
