School should definitely be the most important institution for education but it doesn’t necessarily need to be the only one. There are many things that a school cannot teach the children and neither can their parents. Schools mostly emphasize on bookish knowledge and to enhance a child’s academics but there are many life development skills that any school lacks. These life survival skills help in the overall growth of the child emotionally, physically and psychologically. These after school programs exactly specialise in these arenas. Not only would they result in better academic success but also to learn some viable lessons of life.
An after school program helps to:
- IMPROVE SOCIAL SKILLS – It’s very important for children to learn proper communication, team work, helping others in need or learning to share. Oftentimes schools lack this because with so many children in a single class it’s difficult to focus on any one child. The proper social skills should be taught to children at an early age because that helps them to turn into a confident adult and helps eradicate social anxiety. Socializing is an important part of a child’s growth and is the basis of many other developments.
- BETTER ACADEMIC RESULTS – Most of the after school programs help children with their homeworks or prepare the children for any forthcoming exams. Every kid has a different learning capability and every kid learns at a different pace. These programs teach every child at their own pace without putting pressure on them to match others. These programs often indulge in fun teaching activities and games which help the children to concentrate more on their studies and even enjoy doing it.
- DIFFERENT SKILL BUILDING OPPORTUNITIES- Every school teaches the same old maths, science, English, etc which are definitely very important but now with the world being so modernised and so many different career opportunities available, it’s not sufficient. The programs provide opportunities to learn many different skills which might help the kid choose a career in the future. For example, many programs emphasize art and writing, coding, entrepreneurship or how to run a business, dancing, learning self defence, etc. Schools are never going to give this much importance to anything apart from academics. Furthermore, many schools don’t even provide sufficient extra curricular activities.
- ALLOW ROOM FOR CREATIVITY AND CURIOUSNESS – After school programs give children their creative space and let them speak their mind. They allow children to make discoveries about their identity ,about their environment, about how there are bigger things that exist beyond the classroom. Schools only allow you to limit your creativity to one sketchbook or one classroom but the programs let the creativity run free. It’s very important for the overall growth of a child to let them be curious about the smallest of things. The questions ‘how’, ‘why’ , ‘when’ and ‘where’ might lead to developing so much knowledge that one cannot imagine.
- MORE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY – In the growing and teenage kids having proper and sufficient amount of physical activity is a must have. Schools often limit their physical activities to one game period and that is not enough. Schools don’t encourage children to go out and play rather stop them from that. The after school programs motivate children to go out, play, communicate with nature, etc. Many activities like taekwondo and Karate are also included in these programs.
These are some of the most important reasons to consider an after school program for your child. Not only supports your child with academics but with other important life skills too. It helps your child to build a personality of their own, instill confidence in them and helps them to understand their overall growth and why is it important.
