Parents who are saying no to "extracurriculars"

https://slate.com/life/2024/05/smartphone-children-youth-sports-activities-overscheduled.html

by jseliger • 2 years ago

45 87 2 years ago

taeric• 2 years ago

This seems silly. Parents that had the resources to shuttle kids to competitions have long been a thing. Yes, it was and is essentially an arms race, but opting out of it just means you are opting out of the race. Good luck with that, if it is in the direction you want your kids aimed.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that depression and anxiety are real. I'm not entirely convinced opting out will accomplish much. This is like thinking if you opt out of eating, you will avoid food health related issues. Seems much more likely that everyone will have a different relationship with these things and finding what is healthy for you will be difficult.

And lumping this in as somehow being as bad as phone related distractions is... dubious.

spicyusername2• 2 years ago

Just do the things you or your kids want to do and not the things that you or your kids don't want to do, doesn't seem that hard in this case...

Nobody's twisting your arm, forcing you to spend more time than you want to at these activities other than your feeling of obligation to your children...

Don't complain, just don't go..

beart3• 2 years ago

The issue with this mentality is it ultimately leads to doing nothing at all. It's incredibly easy to look at an obligation and turn it down, even if it will benefit you and your family. My kids would love to do nothing but play video games all day long. Honestly, so would I. But I coach them in sports because it gets me involved, gets me out of the house, and teaches them a ton of valuable lessons. Lessons I wish I had learned.

avmich• 2 years ago

The issue with this mentality is it ultimately leads to doing nothing at all.

Not necessarily - but too often to be important.

Surely kids left alone would do wonderful things by themselves... if they figure out what are those wonderful things they'd like to do. Most often they don't know. Have no idea what are those wonderful activities, which they like, and which they can participate, or solo, in, and how to organize whatever is needed. Now it's the ball in our court - and we don't have a good solution for how to present those opportunities to kids, so that they'd not just sit and figure nothing interesting to do, and get distracted with more passive things, like TVs or videogames, but something which strikes a better balance between enjoyment and benefits in learning.

It's interesting that the problem is literally ages old - yet we as civilization still have rather crude solutions for what to offer our kids so they'd grow involved and benefiting from learning opportunities. Seems like a good topic for a targeted efforts for a company or a non-profit, if government is moving too slow.

spicyusername2• 2 years ago

Then it sounds like that's an obligation you do want to do, and will go to.

But later, if you change your mind... then don't go.

CharlieDigital2• 2 years ago

My daughter hated, HATED, gymnastics for a period when she was younger. She would kick and scream on the ground when we took her. Part of it was that the coaches were old-school, Eastern European gymnasts. Part of it was the timing -- right after school when she probably wanted to nap.

Wife and I debated long and hard whether we should just let her quit but decided to keep her in it because she showed some talent for it. It wasn't easy because we effectively "forced" her to do gymnastics even as she would kick and scream and cry on some days just getting into the car. Some days I'd complain to my wife why we bother with this because she clearly doesn't want to do it.

This past weekend? She placed first all-around in her division at a regional competition. We got her an adjustable dumbbell set this past Christmas and she trains every night on her own volition. She hates missing gymnastics now because that's her happy place now. I'd say it's part of her identity now.

I think sometimes, kids don't want to do things because they aren't good at it. But they can't become proficient at anything without a lot of practice and training be that an instrument or a sport. And with that proficiency comes enjoyment and engagement. It's not so black and white as you propose; sometimes there's a judgement call to be made to start the ramp of proficiency that feeds into enjoyment and achievement.

JumpCrisscross3• 2 years ago

sometimes, kids don't want to do things because they aren't good at it. But they can't become proficient at anything without a lot of practice

You’re good parents. Learning to get over that hump is a huge deal. You come across kids who lack that capability. It’s particularly disheartening if they’re already in puberty, because a lot of evidence shows by that point it’s too late for most. (But never altogether too late. The relearning will just be traumatic.)

mdorazio• 2 years ago

The trouble with this is that you don't have any data for the alternative case, so you can't say if forcing her to do gymnastics was actually a good move. Maybe she would have loved piano even more and been performing at concerts now. Maybe she would have loved soccer and been on a path to the Olympics.

Personally, I think forcing kids to do an activity after they've tried it a few times and decided they hate it is generally a bad tactic. I'm a fan of giving kids options - they have to do something that gets them out of the house and off their phone / iPad, but not necessarily the thing I personally think they should do.

28304283409234• 2 years ago

In the Netherlands, gymnastics in the Eighties were child torture. Child. Torture. As in: "Run until you puke. If you have not puked, you have not done your best." As in: "Train 4 hours non-stop on one cup of water." As in a grown man putting his full weight on a 7 year old's shoulders in order to get her to do the split.

I hope for your kids' sake this is not the case for her.

IshKebab• 2 years ago

The parents who have decided not to do the completely optional thing they hate doing.

ceejayoz2• 2 years ago

It's my understanding that extracurriculars are heavily considered in the college applications process.

beart3• 2 years ago

The social aspects of these things also cannot be underestimated. For both the kids and the parents. Many friends are made and networks expanded through school sports.

vundercind3• 2 years ago

In, like, the top few percent of schools that only a small proportion of college-bound students are even considering.

elevatedastalt9• 2 years ago

Competition is harder, kids are getting a head-start in every activity of life. What would have been an impressive final-year project when I was in university is something high schoolers are churning out as a bare minimum. How do we ready our kids (who are competitive) for this if not by ensuring that they don't miss out any opprtunities?

Note that this is specifically for kids who do show promise.

A_D_E_P_T3• 2 years ago

To quote from a post I made in a previous thread: I'm increasingly of the opinion that the winning move is not to play.

The educational Red Queen Race that S.Korea and China have been famous for -- with childhoods utterly dominated by schooling and "extracurriculars" -- is now also an American thing. It's hard on kids, hard on parents, and the real educational benefit is less than zero. (In that kids would genuinely be better off without excess schooling and with more self-directed free time.)

The Ivy League path is simultaneously ultra-high-stress and ultra-conventional. It's no longer a golden ticket to the good life. Unless you like grinding and competition, and want a career which features both, I feel it's usually just the opposite. So it makes sense to "say no," as those in OP do.

Truly, kids aren't getting a "head-start" these days -- they're engaging in ever more complex and Byzantine make-work. And, emphatically, I do not believe it has any impact on their intellectual achievements later in life.

elevatedastalt9• 2 years ago

It's a coordination problem (prisoners dilemma). It's a winning move only if no one plays (aka everyone hits cooperates). If you are the only one who defects you will be worse off.

liveoneggs• 2 years ago

There is no real way to identify if your kid is extra smart + motivated + lucky enough to "make it" without advantages, of which an ivy education is a big one.

The numbers say push them to the max because the best opportunities are given, in the highest numbers, to the kids with the most boxes checked.

America is still where you can come from less than nothing and make it, but your parents don't determine that -- You do.

JumpCrisscross3• 2 years ago

What would have been an impressive final-year project when I was in university is something high schoolers are churning out as a bare minimum

Isn’t this progress? The stress components, obviously not. But over time our teaching methods and tools progress, at least in respect of specific concepts.

elevatedastalt9• 2 years ago

It is progress, but the progress doesn't come for free, as this article and associated discussion shows.

The progress now means that this is now a default expectation at the high school level, which means more work for high-schoolers to just stay afloat.

ozim• 2 years ago

How can this be true while on the other spectrum I read that schools are lowering requirements and in general maths and physics are dumbed down - while there is a bloom of bs social science where required is showing up an that’s it.

elevatedastalt9• 2 years ago

Both can be true. Entrance examinations are at least meritocratic in some sense. On the other hand, these open ended admissions means there's an arms race to the bottom to make your profile look stronger than someone else's, that's why the need to fill it with extra-curriculars and stuff.

whimsicalism6• 2 years ago

American society is multimodal. I went to an urban high school that was frequently lowering requirements/making it easier to graduate, but among the people I considered my peer college competitors, the extracuricullar oneupmanship is frequent and seemed much more intense than in the prior generations.

listenallyall• 2 years ago

What would have been an impressive final-year project when I was in university is something high schoolers are churning out as a bare minimum.

Funny that people dont see the parallels between this, and housing. So much written about "boomers could easily afford a home on one salary, then they pulled up the ladder." No, not really, buying a house was always somewhat challenging, lots of families realized that two incomes would make affordability easier, that started to catch on, prices rose, soon two incomes became the bare minimum to afford a decent house. As competition rose for desirable cities/neighborhoods, not a surprise that now you need two well-above-median incomes to get into something decent.

DoingIsLearning2• 2 years ago

What would have been an impressive final-year project when I was in university is something high schoolers are churning out as a bare minimum. How do we ready our kids (who are competitive) for this if not by ensuring that they don't miss out any opprtunities?

This sounds US-centric, looking from the outside it appears that you tried so hard to not use tests and marks to rate students that you made it all about projects/volunteering which mostly benefit kids with a lot money and time support from parents. It very much looks like performative kabuki for admissions officers where teenagers have lost interest in building something for the sake of it.

Anywhere else in the world, bar the US and the rest of the Commonwealth, it is all about grades and having exams with normal distributions as the great equalizer. For all the pros and cons at least anything else you do in your spare time as a teen you do it without any external agenda. A 16 year old shouldn't be worried about how something will look like on their CV.

elevatedastalt9• 2 years ago

Yeah, while things are much worse in India or South Korea due to the sheer number of students, the one benefit of entrance examinations is that they are meritocratic and allow everyone to focus on one common goal instead of this whackamole nonsense of activities where no matter how many you do there could be more.

silverquiet2• 2 years ago

America is a big place and the Ivies are relatively few and very selective. There absolutely are tests and all serious applicants will have high 90th percentile scores as table stakes. That's why there are other, elaborate requirements.

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

The challenge is this approach flies in the face of so many of the messages parents are getting about admissions to selective colleges. At a recent event hosted by her 17-year-old daughter’s high school, “the college counselor was talking about kids’ essays, saying that teens should tie their passions and interests to what they want to major in,” she says. “To be pre-med, these teens are expected to already have volunteered in a hospital or a lab.

This is the root cause of the madness. Colleges insist on weighing these activities heavily in admissions decisions, so parents have no choice but to force their kids to jump through the hoops. It's a Prisoner's Dilemma problem: If parents all at once decided cooperatively that enough was enough, it would end. But any single parent who chooses "defect" and pushes their kid towards "activities" will be rewarded with an edge in admissions, so everyone else must choose "defect" and we're all worse-off because of it.

Colleges need to get their heads out of their asses. Is my kid really going to be a better student because she volunteered at a hospital or played high school softball?

ravenstine• 2 years ago

Is my kid really going to be a better student because she volunteered at a hospital or played high school softball?

Not if it's a mere exercise in box-ticking.

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

How do college admissions departments figure out who is box-ticking, to know whether the person they are looking at is a better student?

kelipso• 2 years ago

Pretty sure the whole extracurricular thing is to look for upper class markers than success in the field they major in... Probably just SAT would be enough for that lol.

elevatedastalt9• 2 years ago

Despite people wanting to pretend otherwise, the SAT correlates pretty well with general intelligence.

morkalork• 2 years ago

I can't say anything about sports but volunteering at a hospital or long term care home is a good way to find out if they've got the stomach for it. Nursing programs suffer huge drop out rates when they put kids in a clinical setting so they move that up as early as possible the program. An applicant who has already done some volunteering and still applied isn't the one whose going to bail out after seeing blood and poop their first clinical day.

Swizec• 2 years ago

It's a Prisoner's Dilemma problem

I think it's a Red Queen's Race problem. If everyone is running, you have to be running just to stay put (relatively). To out-compete, you gotta run faster.

But there's only so hard anyone can run. The real game is in finding or creating leverage. What can you (or your kids) do that nobody else can do?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race

Retric3• 2 years ago

The vast majority of colleges accept students just fine without any particular extracurricular activities.

So this isn’t about collage, just the artificial hoops that some colleges use to maintain their elite status. Elite schools offer a few real advantages, but far less than most people assume.

diob2• 2 years ago

The advantage is the network / badge that comes with it. That and you tend to have great funding / access to more opportunities.

So, I'd argue there's a great advantage.

But it's more accessible to those who already have advantages, since they look for these "early life" markers which many normal folk have little to no control over.

steveBK1237• 2 years ago

Elite schools still offer far greater advantages than they should, let's not fool ourselves. A lot of hiring companies use elite college as a screen to run simple recruiting pipelines.

GOOG was notorious for only recruiting from a handful of elite tech schools with very high GPA requirements to filter out resumes.

In finance just about every single person I have met in a risk taking role came out of an Ivy program. If you went to top engineering school the best you could do is work for the Ivy guy writing algos for him. If you didn't go to a top engineering school, you probably got recruited for desktop support.

I'm sure every industry has a version of this, given the 2 I am familiar with most both do.

giardini• 2 years ago

Retric sez "So this isn’t about collage, just the artificial hoops that some colleges use to "

Whew! I am truly relieved to hear this "isn't about collage[sic]...".

rileymat2• 2 years ago

Is my kid really going to be a better student because she volunteered at a hospital or played high school softball?

Is the goal the best student or creating well rounded enlightened contributions? If that’s the goal, probably. If they are thrown in them to check boxes, probably not.

jameshart• 2 years ago

It’s a peacock tail.

Diverting effort and energy into external signals of intellectual health to impress potential collegiate mates.

zeteo• 2 years ago

Is my kid really going to be a better student because she volunteered at a hospital or played high school softball?

Unfortunately, kids from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds have fewer opportunities to volunteer and to pursue expensive sports. These colleges are, in effect, selecting for what Thorstein Veblen would have called "conspicuous leisure" and "conspicuous consumption", i.e. for an upper middle-class background (or above). A long time ago I applied to one of the top business schools in the US and was told quite directly, during the interview process, that the MBA program was mostly about networking and not so much about academics. It looks like this attitude has now expanded to many four-year colleges as well. In business terms, it's all about "culture fit" these days.

diob2• 2 years ago

Yep. It's a cycle where they select based on this, and those folks go on to do well due to network / opportunity. Not saying they don't have talent, but there isn't a lack of talent in the lower class either.

csa3• 2 years ago

kids from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds have fewer opportunities to volunteer and to pursue expensive sports

This is very much factored in during admissions at elite schools.

csa3• 2 years ago

This is the root cause of the madness. Colleges insist on weighing these activities heavily in admissions decisions, so parents have no choice but to force their kids to jump through the hoops.

This matters pretty much only at elite schools.

These schools are looking for ambition and the ability to get shit done. This is not a bad way to do it. Maybe not the most optimal, but it’s not bad.

Some folks think this is not fair or reasonable. The reality is that elite schools can’t just admit based on scores and grades (easy to inflate) due to that system not being selective enough for the number of available slots.

Is my kid really going to be a better student because she volunteered at a hospital…

Hmmm…

1. Probably doesn’t matter for most schools.

2. Less likely to wash out of a pre-med major if s/he has done this. There is a very high percentage of pre-med washouts (that’s totally ok), but an applicant with a good why is more likely to stick to it, and that’s probably good for the school.

3. Elite schools, which are the pretty much the only ones where this is relevant, will want more than “volunteered at a hospital”. They want to see significant contributions and/or leadership.

or played high school softball?

Probably not, but regarding elite schools (probably doesn’t matter elsewhere)…

There is a culture around sports and upper middle class / elite culture in the US. This is especially true for varsity athletics (I call it a totally-not-a-club-club).

Some folks may not like that this is true, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

brigade• 2 years ago

It's very much "figure out what AOs want and fake it" rather than "show ambition and ability to get shit done", and kids are acutely aware of the fakeness of it all.

Like, it's a meme among the "applying to Ivies" crowd just how many nonprofits high schoolers start that are total shams, designed for the sole purpose of being able to say they "founded a nonprofit dedicated to giving ukulele lessons for historically underserved neighborhoods" on their application without technically lying.

It is an important lesson that the biggest controllable factor in success is figuring out how to play the game, rather than actual passion in doing something.

fargle3• 2 years ago

disagree. extra-curriculars can be faked, gamed, etc. you can take this to a crazy extreme and end up with burned-out kids. but, colleges weighing these activities for admissions? 100% the right thing to do.

Is my kid really going to be a better student because she volunteered at a hospital[?]

as a sibling comment pointed out, certainly. because you'll know what your getting into vs. a romanticized fantasy or some salary-based-major selection.

Is my kid really going to be a better student because she [...] played high school softball?

yes, 100% yes. of course it doesn't have to be sports, but it has to be something other than sitting on the couch. sports teaches teamwork and leadership skills. music does the same and more. other hobbies promote exploration and independent learning, and could be tied to developing interests. kids that have done stuff are going to be way better at college and life than those who never did anything outside of the limitations of public school.

- just don't take it to extremes (if one extra-curricular activity is good, 5-10 should be great!)

- just don't get focused on sports only. not everyone is an outdoor sportsman. anything should be fair game.

itronitron• 2 years ago

All of my 'extracurricular' activities that turned out to be useful/productive/important were not organized in any way by adults. I think many people are arguing that students should have more free time available to develop their own interests.

toss1• 2 years ago

>Is my kid really going to be a better student because she volunteered at a hospital or played high school softball?

Yes, IFF the activity was pursued seriously, as in a serious sustained effort seeking mastery. There are lesson learned in serious endeavors that simply will not be learned in any class, yet apply to every part of life.

My example: I was very serious about alpine ski racing in my teens+; it was not really affordable, but I found support, put in sometimes crazy effort and got to international levels. The small role it played in getting me into college was the least benefit - the lessons learned played a huge role in my being able to succeed in college and in life. For example, I completely leaned to control test anxiety and knew how to reliably put down my best performance (pretty easy to do it sitting in a chair vs launching out of the starting gate on an iced trail where the test is at 85mph). Applying oneself to study vs physical training, again the training improved the study. On and on. Also, pursuing activities usually entail travel, and if it is international, it's far better. Going to other countries as something other than a tourist gives a far broader perspective to life, which lasts a lifetime

And I can tell you similar stories from every athlete, musician, and other person I met at my college and others. Being 'well-rounded' is a real and valuable characteristic.

Of course, as others mentioned, this must be a serious effort, not merely an exercise in box-ticking. But even having said so, even just getting experiences as an exercise in box-ticking can provide more experience than sitting home.

The key thing is to have kids try enough different things so they find the thing THEY are passionate about. Then, organize their studies and activities around that. I just read one very interesting story about a girl doing just that -- fun read [0]. She got interested in mycology, made a boat from mushrooms, and would up with a full-ride scholarship. THAT is how it should work.

[0] https://theheartysoul.com/this-community-college-student-mad...

bena• 2 years ago

The problem is everything is an arms race.

You want little Johnny to do well. To get in good schools, to get a good job, to get all the good things you may not have had.

And at first, you just had to meet some qualifications, and that was good enough.

But then, Becky did all of that, and was in band. So band becomes a differentiator. So now, you have to do all the good AND be in band.

Then Tommy also does all of that, band, and wrestling.

Then Jack does wrestling, but travels to various competitions in addition to school wrestling.

And every step is just trying to distinguish yourself from everyone else doing the same. Because, all other things are roughly equal. It's why we have people graduating with greater than 4.0 GPAs. Because, after a while, straight As wasn't enough. You needed extra As.

whimsicalism6• 2 years ago

Traditional American elites are feeling increasingly insecure about their position as they face stronger and stronger academic/meritocratic competition every single year, giving rise to articles like these.

Traditional elites have been outcompeted out of the top unis for at least two decades now and the competition is increasingly coming for their stronghold schools like NYU and USC. It is no longer enough to be a relatively bright child of rich parents and that is causing a lot of anxiety.

jld• 2 years ago

I kinda feel like this is a result of suburban car-centric living too. If every 45 minute practice comes with another 45 minutes of commuting time it eats up all of everyone's time, attention and downtime.

I'm happy to let my kids do the activities they want to do, as long as it's within 5-10 minutes

ohelabs• 2 years ago

Love how all the initial comments on this are about how these parents are going to massively influence their children’s future by not _making_ them do multiple “extracurriculars”… TBH YOU ARE THE PROBLEM-> gamification of their life is what is causing all of this strife.

Not everyone needs to be a 10X-er (to use a HN favorite term) honestly I would much rather work with 2x-5x engineers that went to a regular school than the unfortunate ones who have had their whole lives gamified for some social credit game played by their parents. Im not saying that there isn’t value in Ivy League but the games being played to get people in and this idea that it will == successful life is at best a marketing strategy…

stainablesteel• 2 years ago

its also worth noting unsupervised play as a mode of personal growth for kids

every team has a coach and is being told what to do, none of the kids are figuring it out for themselves, and they're always being watched

kingrazor• 2 years ago

I have a hard time relating to this. My mom never had any pressure to do have me do any extracurriculars, and I didn't really do any. It was enough to just pass my classes and graduate. My local community college certainly didn't care.

carabiner• 2 years ago

Go to an undervalued school like Western Washington University which has a 90% acceptance rate and regularly sends CS grads to Google and the like. Someone could probably automate creating a list of such schools by scraping LinkedIn profiles, class size data (to know what % of each class goes to a top company) and cross referencing with each school's acceptance rate.

throwaway22032• 2 years ago

At least in the UK I think that the idea that University is the be all and end all is well past its peak.

I know people in their 30s with degrees who are in house shares in the capital earning 30K a year.

They are doing substantially worse than the folks I know in cheaper areas doing stuff like construction, sales, home renovations etc and I don't think that most of them are likely to catch up any time soon.

I think graduating at Oxford, Cambridge, LSE and a few others is worth it. Otherwise you're probably better off living at home for as long as possible, saving a bunch of money and striking out on your own.

pessimizer• 2 years ago

If you're born wealthy, it's easy to die wealthy (unless you both have access to, and are stupid enough to actively destroy, your wealth.) If you're born poor, it's easy to die poor. The middle class is the only group that has to reproduce itself every generation. The middle class is shrinking due to technology, immigration, foreign competition, dogshit labor laws, and simple scaling (just because you had three kids doesn't meant that it will now take 1.5 kids to do your abstract job.)

It leads to desperation and superstitious behavior; people trying to exactly repeat things that they've seen and experienced, consulting trendy oracles and gurus, and rationally trying to maximize the number of things that they try in the hope that one or more will save their children from a lifetime of gigwork.

If you don't push your kids like that, and they end up successful, others will just say you were lucky. If they end up failures, they'll say you failed them.

adolph• 2 years ago

Slate has the mobile back-button-takeover cancer as if they are the only site to which one would navigate.

It’s like we all got launched out of a catapult, as the activity/sports industrial complex roared back into life, sweeping away game nights and family grocery shopping in its inexorable gears.

It’s like the author has zero agency and projects their own outlook onto everyone.

steveBK1237• 2 years ago

It's funny because colleges will spout things about equity and helping the disadvantaged but the emphasis on esoteric extracurriculars is defacto classism.

I grew up in a small nowhere town and played JV & rec league sports (basically free) while working a part time job from when I was like 15. So my extracurriculars don't really count, and were cash flow positive.

These days being in NYC, my friends kids are adopting expensive signaling hobbies, going to Oxford & Princeton pre-college summer prep programs, using parents connections to get high school unpaid internships, and all sorts of other time & money intensive endeavors that could easily cost $50K by the time the kid is applying to college.

nathants• 2 years ago

imagine teaching kids to play this game instead of teaching them to self study with gpt4, kagi, and all the other tools revolutionizing information access.

when your brain is tired, go outside and make your body tired too. with all the time saved, we can take a long drive to some distant activity.

why not, it will probably be fun! otherwise, just try something else next time.

no pressure, no drama. just play and growth.

Parents who are saying no to "extracurriculars"

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