Future Makers

Support Extracurricular Activities to Nurture Your Child’s Development

by Smartivity on Mon, Feb 21, 22

Support Extracurricular Activities to Nurture Your Child’s Development

Most of parenting involves understanding what is and what is not good for our kids. And no matter how many good parenting books, articles, educational toys or such we go through, when it comes to practically doing the right thing, we’re pretty much clueless about it all. 

The same is true of when we’re deciding on how important getting good grades is over learning new things that may be ‘out of syllabus.’

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy will always be true of the nature of kids. Children need diversity in learning and the right to explore and pursue new passions at a young age so it can help broaden their options in careers as they grow up. 

Long gone are the days and the age when all career options were only limited to becoming a doctor, or an engineer or teachers. There’s many more options to pursue and things to become in the 21st century so we should try and leverage that in the best ways possible for our young ones. 

Along with good grades, it’s very important to make sure your child is getting the emotional and intellectual growth they require to be confident, ever learning individuals in society. 

What are extracurricular activities you might ask? They’re activities that don’t involve studying from books, but learning a skill that involves learning, development and using their minds in varied ways that can contribute to much more intellectual growth than just studying from books might. Music, art, educational toys, new technology toys, construction toys, literature for young minds and more can get young minds interested in extracurricular activities. 

Now that that’s been covered, let’s deep dive straight into 5 ways that extra curricular activities can help, contribute and nourish the development of your children.

1. A break from mundane everyday learning and mundane work life in the future

It’s no news that children have extremely short attention spans when it comes to studying from books. Bring out educational toys, wooden toys, construction toys, indoor games for kids, a set of paints, or new technology toys on the other hand, and they can go on doing it for the entire day without getting distracted. And it somehow makes sense. Getting angry over a fact that’s common to all children throughout the world won’t be beneficial to anyone.


And chances are, if you allow them to take a break from mundane learning with activities that stimulate their minds and offer them a relief from the mundane, while letting them continue using different parts of their brain, these habits will stick and they will be able to find contentment later on in life instead of complaining about their ‘mundane’ every day work life.

2. Extracurricular activities can help enhance social skills

Our modern world is plagued with screens that can lead to alienation and loneliness because of its very nature. So it’s of ever growing importance for children to be able to be out and about and in the company of their own age group, physically participating in activities like even indoor games for kids, rather than sitting at home glued to the plethora of screens we have in our homes. 


So engaging in extracurricular activities that allows them to be a part of a group of young minds will help them engage with other children their age, out of school and in newer ways.

 

3. Extracurricular activities boosts your child’s confidence

We’ve all seen talented people and the way they walk into the room exuding confidence and charisma. This is nothing but the confidence that comes along with being able to use their brains in much more different ways and hence feeling confident about meeting new people and being exposed to new environments. Because they understand that they can find something new to learn in all spaces and places. And when children (or adults for that matter) start learning something new they never thought they could do, they feel self confident and their self esteem is naturally improved greatly.

 

4. Extracurricular activities will make room to explore talents 

You know that ‘naturally’ talented child (or adult) that we wish our children (or we) could be like. Now we can stop comparing and invest in our children exploring their own skills and talents. Sounds good, right? It’s as simple as allowing them to be free to explore their likes and dislikes and engage in whatever makes them feel like themselves the most. Introducing your children to different extracurricular activities will make room for them to explore their own skills and pursue the passion that they can best engage with. 

So let them sign up for the different kinds of activities available and allow them to choose for themselves while you support them.

 

5. Extracurricular activities engages the critical mind, and connects all parts of the brain 

To raise emotionally and intellectually developed children, it’s important to provide avenues that engage their emotional, as well as critical mind, connecting all parts of the brain. And there’s no better way than letting them explore different extracurricular activities that use different parts of the brain for different ways to learn, such as when learning music, painting or even dancing. Another way could be by introducing them to educational toys, construction toys or new technology toys that require them to use analytical reasoning before they are rewarded with play time with the toys they create. 

In conclusion, let them explore, have fun and have leisure time when they’re young and curious, so they can grow up to be curious and passionate adults who don’t believe in living a dull day, or a dull life. Give them the power of expression, creativity, playfulness and you will have raised a child who can achieve anything they set their minds to!