contrast

[quietann]

This is not meant as criticism of any one or more people specifically! It's just based on *generalizations* about various kinds of parenting.



So this has been bugging me since a conversation I had with my brother when I went to San Diego. Alan teaches English and literacy skills in a low-income, 97% non-white grades 7-12 school there. Eighty percent of the kids are eligible for free lunches. It's *very* rough, though he loves the kids (and hates the administrators who treat teachers -- who nearly all have masters' degrees -- like they don't know what they are doing...)

So we were talking about how much parents in the Northeast push their kids -- affluent parents, anyway (as he pointed out) -- and I asked him, "So, what do kids from a poor neighborhood in San Diego do for extra-curricular activities?" After all, the parents around me seem to be stuffing their kids' every hour with sports, clubs, tutoring in special areas, volunteer work, etc.

After Alan stopped laughing at me (cynically -- because he knew I'd deliberately asked him a loaded question), he said, "for the most part, nothing." Some of the girls are involved in dance teams or choruses -- usually sponsored by a church -- and the younger kids often attend free after-school programs run by various volunteer organizations. Some of the boys do sports, but very few are on organized teams because of the cost. The kids who are old enough sometimes have part-time jobs. In any case, the motivation to do anything besides "hang out" has to come from the individual kids, because their parents or guardians (about half do not live with either parent) are too busy/f*cked up/chaotic/poor to support them in these activities.

The contrast is pretty strong to me. I'd also been exploring www.flylady.com, and one of her suggestions for keeping a well-organized, happy family is putting a limit on how many extra-curriculars each child can be involved in. (She suggests one sport and one youth group/church group/etc. but acknowledges that individual kids have different wants and skills.) Now this gave me an idea -- what if parents who followed her advice took some or all of the money they save by cutting back on extracurriculars and donated it to extracurriculars for kids whose families can't afford the cost? I wonder if any of the parents I know would do that, or if there is just too much pressure to keep up with other parents (or -- and this seems more likely, especially with older kids -- that the parents are so afraid of what will happen if their kids have any unscheduled time.)

Here's the personal bit: in a way, our parents were more like inner-city parents in that they didn't pressure us to engage in extracurriculars; they let us choose our own, as we wanted to. If anything, I had to push them to let me get involved (because usually if I got involved in something, they knew it would require an investment of time and money on their part. Unlike inner-city parents, they had the resources, but they didn't want to "waste" them on things I wasn't serious about.) This is how I got into raising guinea pigs, and horseback riding, and crafty things. The only thing they pressued me into was violin lessons, and eventually I became motivated to do that on my own, but not because I had any musical talent; I was friends with the violin teacher's daughter. I had plenty to do, but also plenty of unscheduled time to play, or ride my bike, or whatever. My brother was a very talented athlete, and they encouraged that -- but with firm boundaries of one sport at a time (he played soccer in the fall and baseball in the spring, usually, and eventually became a very good lacrosse player), plus Boy Scouts if he wanted to do it.

Our parents were well-educated and had high aspirations for us, but they didn't see the need to enforce a lot of "resume building" activities on children. We had dinner as a family 6 nights out of 7, which in my opinion was much more valuable than anything I might have picked up from more extracurriculars. And Alan and I both turned out fine (eventually); we both have good jobs and advanced degrees and rich, full lives. (Alan lacks a spouse, which he really wants, but he is working on that :)

comments welcome, as usual...

Comments

Balance

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

IANAP, yet, but it's definitely something I think about. I did a lot of school-related extra-curricular stuff as a child, as well as scouting and church activities. But I also had a lot of free time, to read and play and think.

There's a lot of discussion in the media about how much enough or not enough or too much and I get the impression that it's something a lot of parents think about.

Like so many other parenting issues, I think it comes down to balance, to assessing the individual child and what they want and need and what your community offers.

[iamlisabee.livejournal.com]

my plan (and I'm stickin' to it, dammit!) is to let the kids do almost anything they want to do. However, they're definitely going to be limited to how many things they're doing at once.

Make sense? (yes, you can take whatever class/activity/sport/instrument you want to take. But, you have to choose the most important one or two only.)

I want them to have unscheduled time. Or at least, time to run around the park for an hour, like they do now.

Mostly, I want everyone to be able to come home, have dinner together, and spend time interacting for a while most nights of the week. I, too, remember and value the family dinners we had when I was growing up.

[hawkegirl.livejournal.com]

It could be that we know pretty different groups of people with kids, but the folks I know with kids who are in our overlapping cirlces (*minus homeschool kids), seem to me to have their kids in lots of extra curricular activities, but all of it that I see are things the kids want to do. Infact the parents are capping off and saying no to some of the extras the kids are asking for because of time/money/siblings. Ofcourse how much the kids want to do this stuf because of an inner desire, vs. some sort of peer preassure from school mates I have no idea. But I think things like it's highly unlikely Gabriel Lefton takes clarinet because "all the cool kids at school do". :>

*Homeschooling I see a difference there, and many parents having their kids in activities the child may not of asked for, or sometimes (though I see it rarely) something the kid doesn't want to do, in the name of a "well rounded education". My guess is that it's still alot more child led then the child would get in a public school, but that may not be true for the super christian HS groups, and some (few) other exceptions.

I come from low-income welfare trash, while I was still, much like I am now, into many different hobbies, and at school really pushed doing what I could there, and taking advantage of any resources I could to do more "interesting things" I spent my non school time having sex, and working. There was just no money for anything like horseback riding (that I really wanted to do), or ballet, or gymnastics. The money I made went to clothes, and food, or wasted on parties and such when I realized I could steal clothes and food fairly easily. *Meep*. By the time I was 14 I was living on my own (in a garage) and stripping to have enough money to keep me in school.

Obviously things - for me - came out okay in the end (I attribute this mostly to some random little bit of my brain that never ever tried even once any drug - I think had I given in to drugs that would of been it). Really though, I think most kids, like I was, would sure be happier being able to follow some dreams of extra curricular activities. There is so much I would of loved to do had I had the resources. I also feel like the flip side you point out, is true to some degree, that parents can overdo it the other way, though I believe it would be far better to error on the side of too much. Kids have a fantastic ability to complain (in all sorts of creative ways) when they're not happy or being pushed further then they want to be. I think your idea of being able to "take from the rich and give to the poor" - voluntarily is a wonderful one, I think your biggest stumbling block would be finding a parent who would agree that they are pushing their kids into the extra curricular activities and not that the kid really wants to be doing XYZ.

FWIW, I hear that while the Waltham school system sucks, they have some amazing free afterschool programs, that seem to be highly rated. I wonder what they are doing there to make that happen.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I hear that while the Waltham school system sucks, they have some amazing free afterschool programs, that seem to be highly rated. I wonder what they are doing there to make that happen.

I don't know about Waltham specifically, but here are a few things that make an after-school program better for kids in some ways:

• It's more kid-directed and kid-structured. If a kid needs to do homework, they can (a lot of teachers forbid doing homework while in class, especially if the teacher is trying to address the group. As a former teacher, I completely understand this... I found it very rude when students ignored me so they could do their homework for other classes.)
  
• The kid-to-adult ratio is usually better than in a classroom. One teacher spread out over 30 kids isn't easy. Almost every classroom violates the legally mandated ratio for, say, daycares (which I think is 1 adult per 10 or 12 kids for school-age kids...)
  
• The kids are more free to help each other, and there are kids of different ages available to help.
  
• There are rules and supervision, but less punishment than in a classroom. However, if a kid violates the rules enough at an afterschool program, the program can kick them out. Not true in the classroom...
  

gee, I am making public schools sound terrible, huh! But, good experiences can be had in public schools (on an academic level, mine were *fine*. I wasn't pushed as hard as I could have been, but that meant I had time for a diversity of interests... My problems were more in the social arena, because public schools can't cherry pick the "good" kids like home-schooling parents can. As we have discussed before, one of the lessons to be learned in a public school is "how to deal with people you really don't like.")

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I did a lot of extracurriculars in high school (Drama Club, Latin Club, school newspaper, Outing Club, Debate) but that was my choice and stuff offered by the school. I never had any of these fancy lessons that kids around here get, and I don't know of anyone else who had them either. In grade school there was Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and baseball/softball. That's it, except for the 4H chapter in the next county over.

I just tend to look at that sort of thing as "Eh. Rich people." and not think of it much. "Extracurriculars," by me, are Drama and that sort of thing, that any kid can join, no matter how much money they have or don't have (and some of the kids in Drama Club at my school had next to none; it definitely wasn't all middle class). Lessons are another matter, and the lack of them for my kids doesn't bother me any more than the lack of Spode or Wedgewood for my dining room.

I think we're going to try to get David piano or some other music lessons, though, and I found out that there's a 4H chapter around here, so I can skip dealing with Boy Scouting (I hope).

[donnad.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up, (and I think I turned out okay,) I don't recall our town even having any kind of special extra-curricular activities like softball or soccer. We had intramural sports in high school, but I hated sports and was never any good at it so I never took part. I was a Girl Scout, which occupied exactly one afternoon a week and two weeks in the summer when I went to day camp. We had dinner as a family every night at 5PM. Most of my time as a kid was spent playing outside, riding my bike, climbing trees, and swimming in the lake we lived next to. In the winter playing in the snow, ice skating, sledding. As kids we were rarely scheduled for activities.

IMO today's kids are overscheduled, (I did not say *all* of them, but quite a few) but much of that may be that many parents have to or want to work and the kids have to be *someplace*. Leaving them alone at home (in today's society) is considered child abuse by some.

I think that all kids need to have some time to just do nothing, to sit and let their imaginations take over and give them something to do. I think that as long as there are family ties, having nothing to do wont hurt the kid. If they haven't got that connection, having nothing to do can lead them in the wrong direction in looking for something to do and they can get into trouble.

But since I don't have kids, I may have no clue what I'm talking about this morning... :)

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Before my teen years I was pressured by my parents to be in a few things, notably local sports leagues for baseball (ehh) and soccer (I liked that well enough) and the scouts. If I'd known about a wider range of extracurriculars I would have tried a couple of other things, but I never did get a laundry list.

In my teen years I was at boarding school, and that cuts into parental pushing. There was some school pushing to make up for it though. My one real extracurricular of choice through the years has been music.

Not something I've really thought much about in adulthood, in truth. I've had a lot on my mind.