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Often our society makes expectations on children that are unreasonable. Parents are encouraged to involve their children at younger and younger ages. At a preschool level, children are often enrolled in classes in dance, swimming, T-ball, soccer, gymnastics, and other activities. It is not that a child cannot benefit from events outside the home, but number of activities done outside the household should be limited. Parents need to consider how much time their children spend outside the home, what impact the children’s actives have on the child, and the amount of quality family time that is left for children and parents.
Often both parents work outside the home. If both parents are working full-time, little time is left for family time. When this is the situation, the parent needs to look at their present schedule before enrolling their young child in an outside activity. How much time each day is spent talking with the child, playing with the child, and experiencing life with the child? Rushing a child off to another activity after being in daycare all day could be damaging to the child and cut into the precious little time that the parent has to influence the child. It would be advantageous for both the parent and the child to wait in this situation until the child is older and can accommodate a busy schedule better.
A structured and demanding schedule is stressful. This is especially true for children. Young children are still developing their coping mechanisms. Exposing them to more stress than they are capable of dealing with can cause problems for a child. According to the stress scale for children in Barbara Kuczen’s book, Childhood Stress, a child beginning school and a mother going back to work produce a great deal of stress to the child. These situations are examples of a child moving from the comforting home environment into an institutional setting. These kind of changes coupled with too many extracurricular activities make a young person more vulnerable to illness.
If a parent is considering enrolling their young child in activities outside the home, they need to ask themselves a few important questions:
· Is the child going to benefit from the activity in terms of social, emotional, and physical skills?
· Is the institution providing quality activity, age appropriate instruction for the child?
· Does the child enjoy going to the event on a regular basis?
· Is there an appropriate number of adults to the number of children present?
· Does the child adjust to the activity without excessive emotional resistance?
In order to answer these questions a parent must have access to the class or activity when it is in session. A parent needs to consider if the child is reaping enough benefit from the activity to warrant continuing. It is important to consider the child’s time as valuable. If the child could benefit from more unstructured time, than it is not advantageous to enroll them in a class that will deplete their free time further. It is the responsibility of the parent to ensure that a child has time to play alone, time to bond with family, time to read or be read to, time to relax, and time to socialize. These are in addition to school, eating, bathing, and other necessary tasks of living.
Organizations that provide family activities strengthen the bonds between parents and children can be beneficial to a child. Attending church, eating meals together, and sharing camping experiences are activities that are proven to bring families closer together. Protecting a child from stress and difficult scheduling can allow a child to develop in a secure and nurturing environment. This is the role of the family, and this time should be seen as crucial to the process of helping children to grow into confident successful adults.
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