Extracurricular activities - food for the mind, body and soul

When your teenagers return from school and complete their pile of assigned homework, do they sit idle in front of the television? Have they yet discovered their talents and passions?

As a parent, it is your responsibility to guide your teenagers to maximize their potential by encouraging them to get involved in different extracurricular activities for teenagers. After all, teenage years are impressionable years where children discover themselves. By encouraging your teenager to experience different activities, you can help them get closer to becoming balanced and well-rounded individuals.

Extracurricular activities are food for the mind, body and soul; they provide an outlet for teenagers to explore their interests with like-minded people. They help them discover and develop their passions and talents. Whether it is sports, music, drama or writing, it is important to encourage your teenagers to pursue their passions and interests during these developmental years.  If they don’t divulge in different activities, then they might never discover their talents.

Do your teenagers lock themselves up in their rooms for hours?  This could be a sign that they are suffering from self esteem issues which can wreak havoc on their personal relationships, school work and experiences. To boost their confidence and build self esteem, you have to encourage them to pursue their interests through after school activities. These activities will help them discover their strengths and weaknesses. By keeping them engaged and involved in such safe and supervised activities, you will prevent them from indulging in harmful activities.

By having to balance academics and extracurricular activities, your teenagers will learn how to prioritize, how to manage time and how to honor commitments. Extracurricular activities for teenagers inculcate responsibility and when the teenagers enter adulthood, they will be well prepared to balance work life, family life and social life.

Through after school activities, your teenagers will learn how to work in teams which will help establish good communication and social skills preparing them for the real world and teaching them how to behave in social gatherings and how to build healthy relationships. Since teen years are sensitive years that prepare teenagers for adulthood, it is important to encourage such activities that inculcate good values and traits that will make your teenagers responsible citizens. For instance, community service can teach your teens a lot!

You must have dreams of sending your children to top notch colleges; well here is a chance to help set your teenagers apart from the rest of the applicants. Colleges seek students with diverse and well rounded backgrounds, students who take initiative and have developed interests. Hence, your teenagers will have stellar applications if they pursue their passions. Through extracurricular activities, they will be able to show the admission committee their personal interests, achievements and successes.

Therefore, it is important to encourage and guide your teenagers to indulge in diverse activities to explore and learn about themselves. They will gain skills and tools that will help them in the real world and will also help them become balanced individuals and responsible citizens.

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