As a more sophisticated parent (thanks to Mothering Haley) it doesn't take as much time, effort, or money to realize whether or not an activity that occupies your child's time is "worth the trouble." Sure, broad exposure to various sports/instruments/extra-curriculars are beneficial. But too broad of an exposure is useless and frustrating. And even "very broad" becomes more expensive and labor intensive than it's worth. Choosing a "specialty" for your child early yields the highest return on that investment. And certainly resisting the urge to "waste" time and money on "expensive, organized play-time" frees up family resources that are better invested in...
...something that will likely carry the child through to adulthood with an added 'lagniappe'. It is this 'specialty', 'hook', or 'lagniappe' that will make them competitive for anything they apply for in the future (college, scholarships, jobs). It is these activities that should comprise the bulk of the child's dedicated *scheduled* "extracurricular" time, since the more devoted they are to developing their niche', the more developed their niche' will be.
And this specialty should be something in which they are interested, AND have the ability to excel (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually). No sense it "wasting time" forcing a child with no rhythm into a dance class. Even if THEY think they want to dance...as the parent, it is our responsibility to help them choose activities in which they are more likely to succeed.
This is NOT to say that a child with no rhythm CAN'T learn to dance, and/or shouldn't be allowed to try. Just enter into the studio with a realization that they would have to overcome a natural deficit in order to compete and be considered top tier...and with that 'handicap' comes additional struggle, time, money, and in the end may not be enough to reap the "reward" of being a 'specialist.' And the ability to recognize this fact makes things much less stressful because you can appropriately allocate resources to a given activity.
Anyway, after going through multiple activities with Haley, we realize a lot of frustration could have been avoided had we:
1) Offered her recreational/fun activities (low cost, low commitment) when she was a very young child with no expectation that she develop the necessary skills to be "good" at said activity, but rather just offer exposure and good times.
2) Then, as she matured and her strengths and preferences became apparent, begin focusing on those and deprioritize all the other activities that may be simply serving to distract from her specialty.
Our mistake was, we spent more money and were more "dedicated" than we should have been very early on in the "trying out" period of an activity. So with Ian, we allowed him to participate in a few recreation activities, but didn't feel the need to force him. And when it became clear that he had no interest, or little natural talent in a particular area, we didn't dawdle...
We are "smarter" now!!
