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You are here: Home / Positive Parenting Strategies / This is why free-play is more valuable than extracurricular activities

July 30, 2018 By Alana Pace Leave a Comment

This is why free-play is more valuable than extracurricular activities

When summer hits, naturally parents want to avoid the summer slide. We want to schedule enough summer activities so that our children are challenged and go back to school ready. While all of this is done with the best of intentions, free play is more beneficial than most of these extracurricular activities for kids. This is why.


When summer hits, naturally parents want to avoid the summer slide. We want to schedule enough summer activities so that our children are challenged and go back to school ready. While all of this is done with the best of intentions, free play is more beneficial than most of these extracurricular activities for kids. This is why. Image kids engaged in free play outdoors during summer. Photo credit unsplash photography

 

It’s the middle of summer. With back to school looming, parents worry about the impact of the summer slide. No parent wants their children to start a new grade rusty.

Each year the parks and leisure guide hits our front porch and I pour over it.

 

I’m always tempted to overschedule extracurricular programs

All of the classes come with a swimming lesson upgrade. So kids can work on their painting or skating skills in the morning and have swim lessons in the afternoon.

Every year, I find myself tempted to do it all. I think about how awesome it would be if my kids felt stronger in athletics and French and piano while improving their swimming skills.

Naturally, I want my kids to have every advantage possible, but I try to refrain from over-scheduling and sign my kids up for select activities.

 

Here’s why minimalism is the best approach to extracurricular activities

Since the 1950’s, the school day has gotten longer, recess is shorter, and children are scheduled for more extracurricular activities. This generation is proving to be more stressed, anxious and depressed than any cohort before them. In fact, when compared to children who lived in North America during World War II and the Cold War, the younger generations are faring the worst.

A major reason is that as a society, we are focusing too much on external measures of success. Studies have shown that when internal values are given priority, children feel more emotionally stable and happy.

This is the best approach to extracurricular activities

When children have ample time for free-play, they feel in control of their lives. They express ideas in their heads, test out theories, and develop a better sense of themselves.

Dr Peter Gray, a psychologist who specializes in the absence of free-play in children, urges parents to avoid signing their children up for extracurricular activities unless the child genuinely wants to be in the activity.

When summer hits, naturally parents want to avoid the summer slide. We want to schedule enough summer activities so that our children are challenged and go back to school ready. While all of this is done with the best of intentions, free play is more beneficial than most of these extracurricular activities for kids. This is why. Photo of kids listening to baseball coach. Photo credit unsplash photography.

Advantages of free-play over organized sports:

The benefits of a child playing sports in their free time far outweigh the benefits of an organized sport.

For instance, when my kids play baseball in our front yard, they need to round up the neighbourhood kids. They need to think through how to set up the batting circle so they won’t hit windows or cars. They may come up with unique sets of rules like the oldest child bats for both teams to make it fair.

The game set up and execution requires high-level thinking. Then, when they play, they need to play to the best of their ability so the older kids want to play with them. In turn, they need to slow down their play for the younger kids.

They are responsible for the organization and smooth execution of the game as well as batting, running, throwing and catching.

In contrast, in an organized sport they get better at isolated skills (bunting or throwing a curveball), but the adults take over all of the most valuable skills children will use later in life.

Continue reading here.

Filed Under: Positive Parenting Strategies, Posts, Your Child's Education Tagged With: extracurricular activities for kids, free-play, learning through play, play-based learning, summer activities for kids

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Hi! I'm Alana. When I'm not nursing cold, stale coffee, I usually can be found with the baby on my hip, barefoot, and racing after my two older kids. Thanks to a degree in psychology and a free-range childhood backing onto an expansive evergreen forest, positive parenting and play-based learning are my passions. Read more here.

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Though there are countless people who understand t Though there are countless people who understand the importance of positive, responsive parenting, the idea that young children should self-soothe remains a prevalent belief.

Though this ideology is well-intentioned, it actually goes against what we know about human development.

Babies come into the world highly dependent on responsive caregiving not only for nurturance and protection but also to foster social and emotional development.

While it may seem that leaving a child to cry will help her learn to cope, it actually floods her brain with cortisol. She doesn’t learn to self-soothe but instead to shut down.

Though it may seem counterintuitive to some, independence is fostered through responsive care. The less stressed a child feels, the safer he feels to explore his world. The less stressed he feels, the more appropriate his emotional responses become.

This is first seen in late infancy but pervades through childhood and adulthood.

Have any questions about these findings? Feel free to comment below or send me a message!
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Hug and respond to your kids.
Love and hold space for the adults you are closest to.
Attachment fosters independence.
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"This year, I changed my assessments by adding a p "This year, I changed my assessments by adding a piece of paper at the end, asking, 'What else do you know about the topic, that I didn’t ask you about?'

Another teacher suggested this idea online about a year ago – I wish I could remember who it was! – and I thought, 'BOOM. I want to do this.'

Answering the question is completely optional, and when students do show more understanding on the sheet than they did on their assessment, I’ll point it out to them. Sometimes I’ll write, 'The learning wasn’t shown in your assessment, but I can see you do know this from what you wrote at the end.'

Afterward, I’ll follow up with them about how to recognize and answer test questions asked in different ways. Clearly, in cases like this, they understand the material but aren’t able to formulate an answer in response to the way I posed the question. I’ll point out to them that while it’s great that they’ve shown me their learning, they won’t always have a chance to answer assessment questions in an open-ended way, and I want them to succeed when they encounter assessment-style questions in the future.

I love what this change has done. This strategy has made my assessments more inclusive. It helps me communicate to my students: When I assess your understanding, I’m looking for what you DO know."
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