Madilyn Hall takes riding lessons once a week on her her 4 legged friend Turbo. The freedom and joy she finds during her activity has her focusing more on her responsibilities and duties at home. Her mother even claims a new found willingness for both chores and homework! How do extracurricular activities affect or enrich your home? Leave your thoughts after the jump...
Madiyln's mother Angie, makes sure to enrich her daughter's life as often as possible. It could be through books, artwork or even cooking, but she is also a firm believer in making her home as happy as possible by participating in extra activities away from her living space.
We think it's a great solution for those who might have a small square footage and lack the giant backyard, garage or driveway that others might have. Although these things can bring freedom to a child without leaving home, if your space doesn't allow for such luxuries, activities like Madilyn's riding lessons are a great way to balance things out.
Angie claims Madilyn is more focused on her school work and doesn't show the same hesitation when it comes to lending a hand. Does your family have extracurricular activities? Share your story in the comments below!
(Images: Angie Hall)
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Comments (3)
My daughter is 6 and has taken Suzuki violin since she was 4. The first year and a half were tough, but as she's noticed lately that she can learn songs and perform for classmates, we've seen a sudden surge of empowerment with her. Suddenly she's announced she wants to learn sewing and Spanish and wants to "cook things and build things." So now the trick is trying to keep from overbooking our schedule so she still gets down time.
AmberLee
(GiversLog.com)
I am really interested in this post. As a new mother of a four month old, I want to hear about others' experiences with extracurricular activities.
As a teacher, I have seen far too many students on both ends of the spectrum, some with so much on their plate that they are constantly stressed and high strung while others are without focus and spend way too much "down time" (ie. TV, video games) and seem incredibly unmotivated.
How much is too much? How often should they get down time instead of planned activities? Are we at risk of over planning our children's lives?
I have a friend who believes that some boredom spurs imagination and that way too many children are over stimulated and lack good old fashioned play time (at a park, in the backyard...). In her home, her children had no TV and lots of books, although I'm not sure what other activities they did outside the home. I see value in the idea of down time to inspire creative independent thinking.
I am interested to hear others ideas around this. :)
When my sister was 9 years old I started to bring her to work at the stables with me after school and on weekends. After spending hours and hours each week grooming horses, mucking out stalls, scrubbing water buckets and doing all the other chores, she changed for the better. She started keeping her room clean and organized, she began doing her homework and paying attention in class and just became a very responsible person.
Even today at 26 years of age, her home is spotless, her life is organized and she still rides horses.