So I came across one lady who had come for enquiry in my dance class for kids. After discussing about timings and other details, she wanted to know if there is batch taken at time suitable for her daughter. After the conversation I was amused to know that her daughter just had a specific time slot available in her busy schedule attending all sorts of extra-curricular activities. And this lady wanted to enroll her daughter for another activity (dance) at this particular time slot. And this was for weekend! Can you believe it! A little girl 8 years of age was busy all the time in the week attending school, tuition and in the weekend hell lot of other classes which we assume would be enjoyable! Ironical!
I could obviously sense the enthusiastic and aspiring mother out of the lady who is grooming her beloved daughter with all that is possible. Something really struck my mind. Do we really need to burden kids hoping that they will learn all the possible talents at such an early age? Yes I agree that skills develop at early age and give a child much time to perfect it and gain excellence but are all the skills required to each one? I think an important question follows is that whether children are happy attending all those classes? Are they forced to attend? Do they wish to play instead of attending those classes? And if the answers are No-Yes-Yes then it’s like parents are themselves ruining their kid’s future.
It is very important for every parent to observe a particular activity that their kids are interested to do and enjoy it every time they do it. Honing skills of kids at a particular extra-curricular activity can help them develop expertise and add a greater impact on health and life on contrary to loading them with burden of excelling in every activity.
