You think your three year old should learn how to
swim and attend the library story hour. Your five year old wants to play
soccer on a team with his friends, not take piano lessons. Your eight
year old would like to continue in Scouting, join little league, and try
out for a part in your community's summer play production. Your
teenager is on the school track team, plays in the school band, and
wants to take private golf lessons.
Analyzing Your Options
Even with all of the open
time you've created in your family's schedule, you'll want to choose
enrichment activities wisely. You should analyze the value of the
activity in terms of the benefits it will provide in relation to its
cost to your family in terms of money, time, and energy. To that end,
you need to decide what the purpose of participation in the activity
would be:
Does the
participant have a particular interest in the activity? Perhaps a brief
exposure to the subject through school, work, reading, television, or
the Internet has piqued an interest to learn more about it or to try it
for oneself.
Is
the activity fun? Maybe the reason for participating is nothing more
complicated than the fact that the person enjoys spending her time that
way.
Are there
benefits to the activity? Some children need physical activities to
expend their boundless energy or to develop their coordination; an adult
might need a physical activity to improve his fitness. Still other
activities may help the participant achieve a goal: A student may
improve her test scores or an adult may learn how to manage her
finances.
Is it a
social activity? Young children need to learn how to relate to other
people; older children need to have activities in common with their
friends; adults need interaction with other adults.
tip
Enrichment
activities don't have to be individual activities. Consider parent/child
classes (swimming, art, storytelling), multiple child activities (three
siblings in the same ice-skating show), and family enrichment (everyone
attending a tour at a local museum), all of which can actually ease
your scheduling dilemmas.
Is
the participant's interest in the activity purely exploratory? Some
people, especially children, don't know whether they'll be interested in
pursuing an activity until they give it a try. Some adults have ideas
of things they've always wanted to try and finally get the opportunity.
In general, parents
should probably expose their children to a broad range of activities, so
they can develop and explore their interests, whereas the older members
of the family will probably already have a pretty good idea of what
they would like to do. Once a person has given a particular pursuit a
try, then his degree of interest will start to develop. You can roughly
gauge this degree of interest using a five-point scale.
Interest may be minimal. In that case, consider these options:
If
the reason for the activity was exploratory, then there is no reason to
continue the activity. The person should move on to try another
activity that may prove more captivating.
If
the reason for the activity was to be sociable, then the social
benefits must be weighed against the dislike of or boredom with the
activity. Perhaps other, more appealing activities afford an opportunity
to socialize with the same group of people. Perhaps this group's choice
of activities is an indication that this is the wrong group with which
to socialize.
If
the activity offers a benefit—personal improvement, and so on—you need
to determine whether a more pleasurable activity will supply the same
benefit or whether the benefit is so great that the activity must be
continued. Keep in mind that if the participant really dislikes the
activity, the benefit may never be realized even if he continues the
activity.
The activity may be a pleasant pastime.
Regardless
of the reason for participating, if the activity is a pleasant enough
pastime, it can be continued until such point as it interferes with the
pursuit of activities that are more interesting or provide greater
benefits.
The activity may become an avocation.
If
the person develops a true interest in a pursuit, then she'll want to
continue to have her life include an enrichment activity to improve her
knowledge or skill in that area.
The activity can be the person's life's work.
Whether
a person's interest leads him to pursue a related vocation, or whether
the person's vocation leads to engaging in the enrichment activity,
self-improvement in the area of one's career generally carries with it a
high benefit.
The activity may turn out to be the person's passion.
Passions
coupled with true talent are rare, but when they exist, they become
real challenges to organizing the family's schedule. We're all familiar
with stories from the sports and music worlds in which entire families'
lives have revolved around ensuring that the talented, passionate child
has been able to pursue his dream of greatness. If your family finds
itself in this position, specialists are available to help you make the
appropriate choices and adjustments for your family.
What you'll want to keep
in mind as you work your way through incorporating enrichment activities
into your family's schedule is that you should consider where along the
interest scale each activity ranks for each member of the family. This
evaluation will help you choose wisely among the many options available
to you. The higher up the interest scale the activity rates, the more
time—both the individual's and the family's—you'll want to dedicate to
the activity.
Piano
lessons are a good example of an enrichment activity that you or a
family member might undertake for its benefits, both obvious and hidden. In addition to the ability to play music, the more obvious benefits include An improved ability to concentrate Greater confidence in oneself Improved hand-to-eye and body coordination
Some of the more hidden benefits may include Enhanced brain neural-circuitry for spatial-temporal reasoning Thicker nerve fibers between the two hemispheres of the brain Improved object assembly skills in preschoolers Higher math test scores for elementary school students Better verbal memory Higher SAT scores Stress relief
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Sorting Out Your Preferences
The number of people in
your family and their ages will affect your family's method of making
choices for each person's enrichment activities. If you have only three
or four people to consider, you may find that making a decision on each
activity as the opportunity arises will work for your family. On the
other hand, if you have more people to consider, or you have a person
who wants to do everything, then you may find that establishing some
ground rules first works better.
The first step is to decide whether the potential participant should consider the activity at all. The questionnaire in Table 1 is a tool that can help make that determination.
Table 1. Should You Try an Enrichment Activity?
| Answer the question. Parents may answer on behalf of their child, if appropriate. | Enter the number of your answer. |
|---|
| a. Do you want to find out if you'll like the activity?
| |
| b. Does something about it interest you?
| |
| c. Does it sound like fun?
| |
| d.
Will participating in the activity make you a more well-rounded person
(for example, add physical activity to an inactive lifestyle, expand
your knowledge)?
| |
| e. Will the activity help you attain a goal (for example, physical fitness, improved coordination, better grades, a promotion)?
| |
| f. Do you like the people involved with it?
| |
| Total |
| Scoring: |
| 5–7 | Don't spend your time on it. | |
| 8–10 | Try it if it fits easily into your schedule. | |
| 11–13 | Try to work it into your schedule. | |
| 14–16 | Give it priority over your other choices. | |
After your family is
engaged in a set of activities, that doesn't mean the decision process
is over. The questions of whether to continue activities and whether to
try new ones need to be considered whenever it's time to sign up for the
next session or season and whenever something new presents itself. Each
participant should ask himself the questions found in Table 2 every time he's getting ready to renew his participation.
Table 2. Should You Continue an Enrichment Activity?
| Answer the question. Parents: Try to let your child answer the questions for himself. | Enter the number of your answer. |
|---|
| a. Does the activity interest you?
| |
| b. Do you enjoy doing it?
| |
c. Is it helping you attain a goal or be a more well-rounded person?
Yes, but another activity would do the same thing. Yes, and no other activity would do the same thing.
| |
| d. Is there another activity you would rather do or try?
| |
e. Do you like the people involved with it?
Yes, but I do lots of other things with them, too. Yes, and this is one of the few things I do with them.
| |
| Total | |
| Scoring: |
| 5–6 | Don't sign up for it again. | |
| 7–9 | Sign up again if it fits into your schedule. | |
| 10–12 | Sign up for it again if at all possible. | |
tip
If your family is
having a hard time remembering to assess enrichment options on a regular
basis, then schedule the reevaluation process as an event in your
family's planner.
Keep in mind that young
children rarely have an appreciation of what their options are, so they
may say they want to continue with an activity because they aren't even
aware that a more appealing choice exists. Older children tend to fall
into routines and may have a sense that sticking with what they're doing
will be less effort than switching to something else, even if the new
activity would be more fun in the end. Adults, who don't have parental
pressure to deal with, frequently overlook the fact that they have any
options at all and simply avoid personal enrichment altogether. These
are all reasons why it's important for your family to reevaluate your
members' enrichment choices at regular intervals.
