I have started discussing the subject of choosing extracurricular activities (further – ECA) for kids in one of my previous posts (see here). In that post I talked about the practical aspects of making a choice, like time, costs, balance with household chores and homework. Today I intend to start talking about a substantial aspect of this choice. In other words, how to choose which ECA kids should actually follow. The simple answer would probably be – find out the talents and preferences of your kid and find the respective ECA. Ha! Easier said than done. Moreover, I cannot help but wonder if talent is something that you are born with or something that you can train with the right focused effort.
If we look at the biographies of some of the famous athletes, we see an interesting pattern: the father of the famous Williams sisters chose that his daughters were going to play tennis. All family efforts, all money, everything was put on making them famous tennis players. Same story for Tiger Woods. His father was a well-performing amateur golfer who introduced his son Tiger to golf before the age of two and ever since pushed him forward. There are two things here. First, Continue reading Balancing act: Choosing extracurricular activities for kids – Part 2 →
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Already for a while I am pondering about extracurricular activities for our kids. When I was a kid myself I did a whole bunch of stuff – gymnastics, figure skating, languages (English, French, Spanish, Modern Greek), self-defense (street fight), aikido, theater, modern dance, salsa and some others. I was a busy kid. However, I also studied in a different system. During my school years we had much more time for extracurricular activities (further – ECA) with lessons starting at 8 o’clock in the morning and frequently ending shortly after noon. On the contrary, the schooling system in Belgium is different than that in Latvia. Our kids will study longer hours and basically will only have time on Wednesday afternoons or on Saturdays to do something else. Additional issue here is that every kid in Belgium has, for instance, Wednesday afternoons off, meaning that there are a lot of different ECA organized at the same time slot. All this calls for a fairly selective approach – you simply cannot have it all!
The subject of ECA in general has two main aspects: Continue reading Balancing act: Choosing extracurricular activities for kids – Part 1 →
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Self-development, reaching goals and lifestyle balance through the prism of parenthood and immigration
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