5 Reasons Your Kid Should Have an After-School Activity

You would say you want your kid to have excellent academic records and nothing else really matters. But you must not forget the importance of your kid’s involvement in after-school activities such as sports, children club activities, religious activities, group games and any other such activities that help your kid become a good team player. These activities kids engage in after school can help your kid become more creative, sociable, confident, disciplined and learn how to strike a balance between different important roles with the limited time available to him/her. Here are 5 most important reasons why you should let your kid engage in after-school activities:

1. It Helps Self-development

Most of the activities kids engage in after school involve kids from different backgrounds coming together to share ideas. Being a part of such after-school activity as a Nigerian kid will enable your kid learn how to relate with people from different backgrounds whose ideas and beliefs may not tally with his/her own ideas and beliefs. Such team or group activities also help build good relationship and communication skills in your kid, which will prove quite useful in later years. Engaging in group activities and games will also help your kid build self-confidence and self-discipline.

2. It Helps Develop the Mind

The school activities and academic system in Nigeria isn’t adequate in terms of having the right tools that can encourage intellectual development and building great minds. Most intellectual development take place during the early years. Having after-school activities will enable your kid become more creative, use the powers of his/her imagination, develop interest in specific things that might later determine his/her choice of career in later years.

3. It Helps Against Excessive Use Of The Internet or TV

We are in an age where everyone, including kids can easily access the internet. The risk here is that kids get exposed to unhealthy content such as pornographic videos and images. Having an after-school activity will keep your kid stay busy and reduce the time he/she spends with his/her phone. After-school activities can equally help your kid watch less TV. Watching too much TV has been linked to unhealthy behaviors such as engaging in sex acts, violence and some other juvenile delinquencies.

4. It Teaches Time Management Skills

Engaging in afterschool activities helps your kid learn how to prioritize and understand that there is time for everything. It also helps the kid learn the value of putting time into good use instead of whiling it away on video games and running around the neighborhood with other kids.

5. It Keeps the Child Away from Juvenile Crimes

Engaging in after-school activities helps your child stay busy, which reduces the child’s risk of going out to play with other kids and end up engaging in stealing, bullying, fighting, and all other such criminal behaviors kids engage in. This is most applicable if you live in a volatile Nigerian suburb where the risk of your kid getting involved in a crime or getting hurt when outside with other kids are quite high.

In conclusion, it is all about striking a balance between everything that matters to ensure the child grows into an intelligent and productive adult. But you must always pay attention to the type of after-school activities your kid engages in to make sure they are relevant to his/her development and not detrimental to his well-being.