Extra-mural activities. Too many or too few? | Integrated Learning Therapy

Many people believe that extra-mural activities are ‘good’ for children. While this is generally true, it is possible that some families might be rushing children from one activity to another without considering the pressure this might be putting on both children and adults.

How do you get the balance right? Elise Waghorn discusses this in The Conversation. Here are her thoughts.

What are the benefits?

Extracurricular activities can provide a range of benefits.

Studies have shown extracurricular activities can help students academically. There are studies in the USA that show that participation in extra-mural activities may be linked to better maths results and also that children who participate are more likely to complete a university degree. Other research has shown that young people develop self-confidence, goal setting and the ability to adapt to unfamiliar situations through being involved in extra-murals. Team activities have especially been shown to reduce anxiety in anxious children, increase a sense of belonging and boost social awareness and skills.

What are the drawbacks?

Too many activities can see children neglect their schoolwork and limit valuable time with the family. It can also have an impact on children’s sleep.

Participating in high levels of sport in particular can lead to injuries and burnout and also lead to an “overtraining syndrome” which means that children don’t have time to recover adequately from training or competitions.

Not only does a child lose interest in the activity but their mood is linked to how well they perform. The activity can also come to dominate the family’s life.

How do you get the balance right?

Consider the financial implications first. Work out what is financially reasonable and how much time you can commit. Think about not just the game or lesson itself but any other regular training or practice that may be involved.

Do consider what your child is genuinely interested in, rather than what you feel they should do (as this just adds unnecessary pressure).

You could consider limiting children to one or two activities per week. This allows the child to focus on that activity and any training or practice that goes with it. Each child, however, is different so there is no particular number of activities that is considered ideal.

Some other factors you can consider are:

is the child still getting adequate sleep?
can they still spend time with the rest of the family?
are they able to have some down time?
do they enjoy their activities?

What age can you start?

Even very young children aged 2 – 3 years can benefit from extracurricular activities. Learning to dance, play sports or a musical instrument can help them develop social skills, listen to instructions and generally develop school readiness. There are also benefits in starting extracurricular activities before the age of ten. Research shows if you start before 10, children are more likely to stick with the activity for longer because it will become part of their identity.

Having said that, there is of course no issue with starting new activities after this age as children grow and develop new interests.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.

← Previous Next →

Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.