Show Notes:

Are kids starting extracurricular activities too early? As a society, are we over-prioritizing structured activities in place of downtown and other essential life skills? 

I'm Tara, and in today's episode, I'll be turning these questions on their heads to navigate the often complicated world of extracurricular activities for children under 7. Together, we'll explore the pressures parents face and delve into the potential unintended consequences of over-scheduling our kids' lives.

We'll go beyond the usual discussions about daycare and school, and question the societal norms around what we think our children really need. Brace yourself as we challenge mass group thinking and its impact on our children. 

We'll also talk about the importance of creating space for them to learn essential life skills and consider the possibility of reducing their extracurricular programming. So join me as we rethink extracurriculars and reevaluate children's developmental needs. 

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Transcript

Intro:

00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Tara's Take a podcast with a fresh take on parenting, education and life with kids. As a longtime educator, former preschool owner and parent, I spent the last two decades working with children and families in a variety of different roles and responsibilities from preschool to high school.

My passion is making emotional regulation and social, emotional wellbeing, understandable, relatable, and easy to implement.

I'm a big fan of using picture books. I even wrote one with a playful take on brain science called the adventures of team brain.

There is no cookie cutter approach to raising children and the information can be overwhelming let's tackle some of this by having some important conversations and digging into some different topics

Extra-Curricular Activities and Children Under 7

[00:00:37] So today's topic is going to be about extracurricular activities and young children. So seven, eight, and under.

And I'm going to start this by saying, I am very aware that there is some layers to this conversation that there is some complexity to this conversation. And that some pieces of this conversation might be a little bit hard to hear or process. Um, but I think it's one I need to have, because it comes up quite a bit in my work. Um, I had a session last week where some parents were talking and then another parent's like, "Hey, I had this conversation with Tara a year ago."

so just to give you sort of an added layer here, this is a conversation I have a lot, a lot of parents think about, a lot of parents worry about, so let's see if we can take some of the layers and break them down.

Pressure on Working Parents

[00:01:25] So. I'm going to start with, I understand the dynamic world we live in with two working parents and sort of the need or desire the drive to build our children up to be amazing, awesome, and successful human beings. And I also am fully aware of the narratives around how to make that happen. I know that there's sort of this idea. I call it the invisible Ivy league checklist. That there are these things that we need to expose our children to in order to ensure their long-term success. And I think one of the things that's happening in the research, one of the things that's happening in life, one of the things that's happening in general, is that, that has been taken too far and it's put a lot of pressure on younger and younger and younger children.

And it's not playing out great on sort of longer-term trajectories either. And in the end, some of the Ivy league schools. Um, aren't really looking for what we think we're exposing our children to over their lifetime because it's limiting their ability to think creatively, think outside the box, to handle downtime, to be able to do things without guidance and oversight. So some of the things that we're trying to accomplish, we're actually undermining unintentionally.

And I think that's really important to talk about how a lot of this is unintentional. There's a great deal of pressure to produce, you know, and I think this conversation will help you maybe take a couple steps back. It might relieve it often relieves a lot of anxiety when I have this conversation.

It also creates other anxiety. Um, so I'm fully aware that there's kind of some layers here.

Age Appropriate Activities 

So I'm going to just start with the bold sort of, I think in a lot of cases, a lot of extracurricular activities. So soccer baseball, hockey, learning to skate art, dance music, you name it. The way a lot of kids are currently participating in these activities is not really age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.

[00:03:27] And when I think about trajectories over a long period of time, the way we used to do or get kids involved in extracurricular activities. They actually weren't allowed to be in really structured programs until they were five or six. I distinctly remember in soccer and TaeKwonDo and dance, that was kind of like the limit, anything before that was really play-based really, really play-based. Um, and I know some of these trajectories have changed for some reasons, for example,

I know that two working parents, if they are going to need to have their children in before and after care, that one of the things they want to ensure is that aftercare is stimulating, right? If they're in daycare, they're fulfilling all kinds of needs. And that's a whole other conversation. , I talked a bit about it with Amy in my podcast about redefining success, preschool to post-secondary.

So, if you haven't caught that episode is a great place to start for some of those conversations. But this idea that we've sort of brought age expectations, whether it's academic or extracurricular, we've pushed them further and further down. And so parents are hoping to enroll their kids in lots of different things to ensure they have this life experience to start building up their extracurricular resumes.

Now what's happening in a lot of cases is these kids aren't necessarily doing super great in those environments. And then parents feel like they're failures or there's something wrong with their kids or whatever the case may be.

Daycare and School Expectations 

And really one of the places we have to start is daycare and school is a really long day with a ton of expectations.

[00:04:59] Um, I think we often think that those two places are fun and fulfilling and play. And in a lot of cases, there's a lot of rules to follow. There's a lot of structure to be had. There's a lot of boundaries that have to be adhered to, there's a lot of containment. And there's a lot of reasons for that. From a safety perspective, we put a lot of young children together in a small space. We have to govern that space.

Again, that's a different topic, but the reality is a lot of kids in these spaces are having to really regulate. A lot. We're asking a lot of them, they don't do as much playing as we maybe think they do a lot of free play, for example, or interactive play where adults aren't overseeing the craft, the activity...

Sort of navigating some conflict without an adult jumping into fix it. Having an ability to build skills for conflict in a skill-building way versus a punitive way. So there's a lot of layers. So I think one of the first places I wanna start with this conversation is. Kids have long days. So if you are one of the families, that's got some things happening after the very long day.

That's one of the places I encourage you to start, start by sort of maybe taking some of those pieces out because they're probably not meeting the goals you think. They're probably creating more overtired children and sort of expended and it's making it harder for them to regulate. That means like control, manage, navigate their feelings and behavior in all their spaces, whether that's home or school or daycare.

Not Right Now Doesn't Mean Never

[00:06:36] So one of the things is that idea that like they need to get their skill base in early is not actually equating to longterm success trajectories. And when we sort of say, we're not ready yet, it doesn't mean never. It means yet. So maybe we're going to reintroduce some of these like more, you know, structured extracurriculars when they're in grade one or two. Right, that's when they might be a better developmental fit. And maybe we can replace some of that extracurricular time with more free play, more movement, more sort of interactive play. Right. And when we're looking at sort of the daycare structure, the after-school structure, I don't know of many programs like this, that exist, but I'd love to see it happen. And that's the idea that like,

After school, maybe we could have spaces where we have adult supervision, but it's mostly play-based for a large age of kids. Not just little kids, like all the way up to, you know, seven, eight years old. So that they have this outlet, they have a physical outlet for play and, you know, doing things like that.

We can take some of the sort of extracurricular pressure. Off.

Extra-Curriculars for Skill Building & Energy Outlet

[00:07:48] Now in terms of extracurricular as like building life skills. I see a lot of parents who are like, okay, my child's really sort of having a hard time at school. So we put them in an after-school activity to help them move their bodies more, to do, get some of their sort of feelings out to.

And one of the things that's happening there is they're just going from one environment with a ton of rules, structure, and boundaries, to another environment where they have to do a lot of sitting and following rules and structures and boundaries. And in a lot of cases, what they really need is a space where they're allowed to like run around and let off steam in a really productive and helpful way.

Right. So that's one thing that happens.

Summer Activities for School Readiness

Another thing that happens, and this is particularly like summer leading up to starting school. I have this conversation quite a bit there. Some of you are probably already in this head space, but this idea that like, we're going to put kids in these programs to get them ready for school.

[00:08:37] Now, the programs where parents stay, because. You can kind of get an indication here. If, if kid can't be dropped off at a program. Right to do their extracurricular. If they need an adult to stay with them, that's already a bit of an indication that maybe they weren't developmentally ready for that level of a program.

And you could serve that same time by going on a hike together, going on a walk together, going on a playground together. Going for a bike ride, a scooter ride, right? There's all kinds of things that you could still be doing if you're already sitting there to do the thing. And then finding your child's having a hard time. I see this a lot with like sort of the age four kids.

They'll be in a group where they can't quite keep up, but their peers can because their peers have done a year of school. So there's like a really different differential there between what they're capable of, what their peers are because they went to school where they were dropped off with a trained educator and they started to learn how school and being around kids works.

They're developmentally fostering some skills. If you catch my podcast on preparing for kindergarten. I get like sort of transitioning into school takes from like September to December. It's a big trajectory. So when we put kids in like a sport for the summer, In hopes that it will help them get ready for school.

That's maybe not the best fit because you're there, there's an environment that's not really geared towards learning to do things independently. It's short lived. If there's not a lot of structure to it, a drop-off camp might be a better fit and sort of thinking about what kind of camps that would be. Right.

What kinds of skills are they facilitating? What kind of experience do the educators in that sphere have for transitioning younger children to those step-by-step process. Right. So when we are thinking about, we've got to get our child ready. A lot of parents will put their kids in an extracurricular and they'd be like, oh my goodness.

School is going to be a disaster. I think it's dropping off is, and it's not necessarily, they're not the same. They're not comparables because the dynamics are different. The adult presence is different. Anytime a parent is present. Whether it's in school. I mean, when I was a teacher, whenever parents are there kids behave different, it doesn't matter whether they're two or 16, as soon as your parents were there, you behave differently.

So if your parents there, and you're sort of in that early zone, and maybe you're a big feeler, you're more likely to latch on not want to leave your parents. Because you have that dynamic where at school, they have to sort of build up some bravery and they start to learn from another caring adult. And there's some things that happen.

Right. So one of the things I want to talk about in this space is like, there's no A plus B, so that's summer rush to do extracurriculars as a way to prepare for school in the fall. Not necessarily an equation that works out. If you're in that situation right now. And you're like, oh my goodness. And you're like hitting your head.

Don't worry, just don't make that equation. Right. Don't be like, this is failing. So that's going to fail, treat them as two separate things because they are two separate things.

How to Know When to Quit

[00:11:38] And for people who are like, well, what about the fact that you have to stick stuff out? Like, I don't want my kid to be a quitter. I just, they're just it's. Uh, but it's all like we're fighting to get there. They hate being there. They just everything's miserable about the thing that's being there.

There is nothing wrong with saying we are not ready yet. Knowing that developmentally a lot of kids aren't ready for that sphere until they're six, seven, even eight. Um, and I know it's really tricky because the trajectories where I live. You kind of got to decide to be competitive, really young. And I find that really, um, unfortunate. Because the ability to sort of navigate the competitive world as, as a self-directed individual doesn't happen till kids are older. So we need to give them more space to learn and grow and develop right. To handle their feelings, to be able to navigate their feelings. To be able to manage them instead of us spending a ton of time, convincing them to get to the place.

That's not them learning how to regulate their feelings. That's us trying to convince them to get there. So I think there's nothing wrong with saying, Hey, we're not ready for this yet. Right. We're going to come back to it after the first year.

When to Introduce Extra-Curriculars

[00:12:48] So people will say to me, when should I introduce extracurriculars. One of my recommendations is if you are currently about to start kindergarten, wait until grade one. Right? So that day is a long day. Full day kindergarten is a long day. They don't need more layers added to it. When it comes to after-school stuff, if you have the ability to find a program for them that is more play-based, that is more sort of like less structured. You might find that beneficial.

Give the ability to sort of you know, create a day where your child could finish a bit earlier and you can pick them up to go do something active that can also be super helpful.

There's lots of things that I support families with all kinds of scenarios. It's really hard in a podcast to be like, here's your scenarios because literally every family I work with has a completely different set of work needs, family values, family needs, like dynamics, support, access to support. So for me to make a blanket like here's how you can do this, A plus B plus C, it's not going to work, but it's about rethinking, right. It's about like, am I doing this to build a life skill? They're not missing out. If you don't do it early.

No, they're not, you can still introduce the new sport in sort of, you know, when they're in grade one. And that's not going to impact their Ivy league checklist. They're probably going to have more enjoyment and you'll have a better answer to the question of how much do I push my kid? How much, how do I know?

Well, you have a much better idea when you're talking to an older child about what they actually like. And don't like. What they're finding enjoyable or not enjoyable. Right? Because the reason we do stuff is it's a balance of building our skills and persevering, but there has to be some kind of piece of that where we're also getting something out of it, whether it's movement, whether it's something we love about the thing we're doing, right? So those things.

What About Kids Who Really Love Activities

[00:14:38] And this is not to say that you don't expose your child to a sport or whatever. Just doesn't need to be in a pressured, structured way. We don't have to go to art class to learn how to do art. Right. We don't have to have really structured. Then I know, sort of, there's going to be a lot of thoughts on this, cause there's gonna be like, well, what if.

Um, what if my kid's musically inclined. If they are passionate about it and they want to do it. You're probably not worried about them succeeding or fitting in, or you're probably not having some doubt right now. That is thing that's working for them. Right. So how do we know? Well, if you're having a lot of fights and you're having to push a lot, and you're finding when you get there that you have to be involved a lot, or there's a lot of convincing that has to happen, or they just really, aren't sort of following along with everybody else.

In most cases, there's nothing wrong with your child. It's just that they're not developmentally ready to be there yet. And I think that's the message I want to share. We are pushing kids to be places, and then we think something's wrong. And it's not, their days are really long. They just aren't ready to be in that level of structure. They don't need more structure on top of the structure. And it doesn't mean that because it didn't work at age four, that it won't work at age six. Those two things are completely different. And I also know there's people who are like, music is something that's going to happen. Swimming is a big one I hear swimming is a life skill, a hundred percent. If your family is on board with some life skills, let that be the only thing you do.

Right. That's how we balance that. Let that be the extracurricular, not that and, and, and, and.

So anyways, one of things I want to talk about today was this idea that extracurriculars have lots of layers. I know they do. Um, but that, I think one of the things that can help us in our parenting is rethinking developmental age appropriate needs versus what society is telling us.

But, Everyone is Doing it!

[00:16:37] and I had a parent say this the other day. They're like, this is going against what all our neighbours are doing. A hundred percent. Yes. Because mass group thinking is very real, but the research the trajectory is when you look at children, when you sort of focus in. What we really see is that's actually not sort of benefiting children in the big picture. Um, that's just, everybody's doing it.

So part of what makes your child a game-changer and your parenting a game-changer saying, Hey, everybody's doing it, but I'm not going to, because I think the world is changing. I think we pushed things down. I think we need to take a step back. There's tons of research on this kind of stuff. Like there's all kinds of things here that are layers and we can dig into that.

But I think the first place we start is our over-programmed children. One way to support them is by programming them less and making more space for them to play and interact and build some of those essential skills for resilience and perseverance that don't come from somebody convincing you to do something. They come from having to be bored, having to draw on your creativity, your independence, having to sort of not be programmed.

And I think the other piece is by not being programmed all the time, they're going to be more outlets so that children, if you have a child who has some challenges, who you know, is struggling too with their behavior in school and daycare, home, those kinds of things. They probably need more outlets where somebody is not telling them what to do or that something has to go a certain way.

They just need some space where they can do things. You know, with, with safety rules, but not tons of you have to do it this way. You need to kick this way. You need to run this way. You need to wait your turn. You need to right a lot of you need tos.

We had to scale some of those back to create a balance so that, that in the spaces where, where they need to call them those skills, they'll have them instead of having to call on them all the time and sort of running out of steam for it.

All right. So that's my take on extracurriculars. Um, and when and how to introduce them or to rethink them.

For more on this topic head over to the Blog: The Benefits of Not Over-Programming Your Children