STOP trying to manipulate your child and the system. Let your child have a great childhood- defined by both learning and enjoying the teen years. This means letting your child choose what interests them outside of class. Looking for activities for your child at this age is counterproductive. Each year your child is gaining independence and making more and more decisions for him/herself. S/he takes more and more control of life. BACK OFF. Stop trying to interfere.
Got the message? By now you have done (most of) your job. Time to hand the power over to your emerging adult when it comes to choosing activities. btw- spending money on “unique” activities merely means parents are rich enough to afford them. Consider this- what if (horror) your child were to die before college? Would you be able to say the short life was enjoyed and well lived or merely preparing for a future that never came?
Different children/people have different personalities. Some are thrill/new experiences seekers, others are not. There is nothing wrong with joining the usual activities. Some are introverted while others (the majority) are extroverted- all to varying degrees. What works for one, or even you, may not work for your child. Learn to let go.
btw- the value of volunteering. It is giving up one’s time to help others. Someone has to do the less "valuable " (a judgement) jobs. All are something that wouldn’t get done/happen otherwise. They can all be equally “important”- the recipients of the time and effort will value the work for them much more than that for others you may consider “more needy” et al.
It’s difficult because every kid has different interests.
It’s about quality, not quantity. Putting your child in various clubs just because won’t help him get accepted into a prestigious college.
As a general rule, if you know your child will be attending a state school for a major not particularly difficult, for example: “I know my child is going to be going to the University of Kentucky for economics” don’t waste your time worrying about what exactly your child wants to do in his free time as it won’t matter in terms of his/her college application. Don’t waste your child’s time pretending that you’re willing to let them go to a Harvard/Yale if you aren’t.
However, if your child is hoping to take the Ivy route or the route of other prestigious colleges, it will be important that they have strong after school activities.
If your child is interested in STEM make sure they have access to: Lab internships, STEM clubs, is the leader of stem clubs, conducts research, in certain competitions
If interested in Business: DECA leadership, economics competition involvement, maybe starts their own business
Politics: Political campaign, internship, involvement with local chapters
All in all: Sports are always good if your child can balance them. Particularly for an Ivy League, awesome sports are:
Swimming
Rugby
Lacrosse
Rowing
Nothing wrong with the volunteering they are doing now. I do think you can learn things also from getting to know people from another generation or another social class.
As others have said, it’s the quality of the involvement and the passion, initiative, and drive shown with respect to any given activity that matters most.
Just playing an instrument in the orchestra alone or volunteering in a mentoring program 1-2 hours/week won’t cut it for highly selective schools - setting up a music or an arts program for kids that have no access to these types of programs or creating a mentorship peer/leader program for underprivileged youth is of greater “value,” but only if it comes from the heart and not something that your kid just does to pad a college resumé.
Basically, your kid is best advised to do fewer activities and do them well (i.e., show initiative, talent, and leadership). Remember, it’s quality – not quantity – that matters most.
I agree with figuring out what you like and getting really into it. I started an FLL robotics team for myself abd my friends in 5th grade after asking for a lego robot kit for my birthday and then doing summer camps cause I couldn’t figure out how to work it. Once i grew out of FLL I joined my high school’s FRC team and been heavily involved in that (treasurer since sophomore year, CAD leader, varisty since freshman year, Dean’s List Semifinalist (the only individual award in FIRST robotics) etc.). I also volunteer as an FLL mentor and at FLL competitions (I even got asked to be a judge this year!!). This summer I went to El Salvador (which is something I’ve wanted to do for years) and helped run a summer camp with a focus on stem in a former refugee village. I also got a job with the school district to teach robotics camp. I’m also certified in CAD, working on a personal robotics project, and in a aerospace engineering class/summer program. Next year, Im going to take dual enrollment robotics classes. The point is, I had an intrest and opportunities just kinda showed up. My parents didn’t push me to do anything (besides a sport to stay healthy, I rock climb), but they are very supportive of me. So, just let your kid explore what seems interesting to him, and he’ll probably end up with an interesting story to tell.
Check out “How to be a High School Superstar” by Cal Newport.
“The basic message of the book is this: Don’t wear yourself out taking as many classes as you can and being involved in every club and sport. Instead, leave yourself enough free time to explore your interests. Cultivate one interest and make it into something special that will make you stand out among the other applicants and get you into the toughest schools, even if your grades and scores aren’t stellar. Newport calls this the “relaxed superstar approach,” and he shows you how to really do this, breaking the process down into three principles, explained and illustrated with real life examples of students who got into top schools: (1) underscheduling—making sure you have copious amounts of free time to pursue interesting things, (2) focusing on one or two pursuits instead of trying to be a “jack of all trades,” and (3) innovation—developing an interesting and important activity or project in your area of interest. This fruit yielded by this strategy, an interesting life and real, meaningful achievements, is sure to help not only with college admissions, but getting a job, starting a business, or whatever your goals.”
My kids did the above before Cal Newport’s book, and almost entirely by accident, so to speak. if your kid’s well-being is your focus, it works well, and the byproduct is indeed admission to some good schools : )
I am a public school orchestra teacher (beginners). One of my former students, who is a senior, has offered private cello lessons to my elementary cello students. Only one took him up on it, but from what I can tell, he and tehstudent are really enjoying the experience.
My friends son is a controlled buyer of alcohol. ( He works with police and attempts to illegally buy alcohol at stores) wrote about it in his essays. One of his colleges which accepted him mentioned at accepted students day this as one of " wide ranges of unusual experiences our accepted students have had" LOL
@wis75 There are so many kids who left to their own devices will go on their phone or Netflix when they have freetime. A lot of kids are so burned out from the crazy amounts of homework that is in vogue these days. Many are burned out from the AP classes. Any parent who has done their research knows that if your kid wants to get into a good school they need intereresting ECs. It’s not fair to tell a parent to back off. In an ideal world everything would be student driven, but the reality is that many of the top colleges are filled with kids whose parents helped them find ECs, encouraged them to do educational things in the summer when they rather have gone to the beach etc. I don’t believe in making a non-athletic kid play sports or a humanities kid to do STEM ECs, but I think it’s okay to find out what your kid would like and then help them find out ways to do what they enjoy. I also think it’s okay to tell them that they need to volunteer and do something of their choice that has an academic bent at some point in HS.
It all depends on what your kid’s goals are. When my D told me the kind of college she wants to go to I had to tell her what these colleges expected from applicants. She knows that she has to do “stuff” if she wants what she wants. Some kids don’t care. Some do.
citymama I agree that if a young person wants to go to a good college, they need to do some interesting things. But raising a teen in such a way that activities are explicitly geared to admission is unhealthy. I think parents can support, encourage (and drive to!) outside activities, but that it should be because of authentic interest or talent, and colleges should not even be mentioned. This kind of external goal can really taint motivation in the long run, or make them stick with something they no longer want to do. Just my own feelings.
You should be very grateful - not everyone is lucky enough to have opportunities just show up. I suspect that most people do not go to high schools with robotics teams, and I suspect that many people are not even aware that high schoolers can even make robots.
@citymama9 While I agree that a student wishing to go to a topnotch college needs to be interesting, parents do need to step back and let students take the lead. D’s high school is considering limiting the number of APs a student can take after one student - taking a full 8-class load of APs - had a breakdown at school. We, as parents, need to be careful of the price paid for the pursuit of perfection.
@warbrain you’d be suprised. The program (and others like it) are really expanding. One of the great things about the program I do, FRC, is that they put a lot of emphasis on teaching others about STEM and robotics by doing things like starting and mentoring new teams.
Also, if there isn’t a team you can always start your own, that’s what I did in elementary school. And how do you think the teams got started? Most of them didn’t just randomly appear one day. Its a lot of work, but very rewarding and if you do it in high school it "looks good on a college application ".
My main point though was to find something you like and get really involved in it, by no means does that something have to be robotics.
I doubt robotics is that unique anymore. Useful, yes, but not unique. Every single school near me has robotics, and my son’s 500 kid HS has over 30 of them. Same for music, common in high stats kids.
My youngest, for example, took advantage of our proximity to some of the world’s finest mountaineers and learned to climb and survive at altitude. It is not unique when applying to UW Seattle but would be for colleges out in the flatlands.
I agree with some of the others here, my youngest would sit in his pajamas playing video games all day if we allowed him. We encourage him to try things, at least one EC per quarter, and insist he carries out what he starts to the end.
My kids’ former hs just eliminated APs and is getting positive feedback.
It’s not about everything being “interesting” to a kid. Or doing something no one else in that hs does. It’s about balance, incl some that may not be a “passion,” for the experience or challenge or teamwork or just because it’s a good thing to do.
There are about 2,600 FIRST robotics teams in the US, and there are over 30,000 high schools. I know that there is more to robotics than FIRST, and that many teams are not associated with a specific high school. I am not convinced that is enough to make robotics very easily accessible for most high schoolers. (I think music is common, but I suspect the number of high schools without orchestra or band programs is higher than you think).
My point is that most people can not expect opportunities to fall in their lap. Yes, if you do not have a robotics team in your high school or in your community, you can always make one yourself. But if you don’t have access to a robotics team, how will you even know that robotics teams exist, to be able to organize one?
To be fair there are a lot of unique programs an after school activities. And the more unique something is, the less likely you are to hear about by asking generic questions. I think any interest can lead to many cool extracurriculars, so I agree with the advice to start with what your son is interested in. For example if your son enjoys participating in the newspaper, he could maybe help out at a community newspaper or start a blog. Or if he likes Spanish but can’t do an exchange, be involved somehow with the Hispanic community in your area.
Our Girl Scout Council has some robotics teams a few that do Lego type robotics and another the does big robots. Even if your high school doesn’t offer robotics and that’s something you’re interested in you can find a team in your community or try to start one yourself. My daughter could not find an ensemble that worked for her so she started one that met her needs when she was in 8th grade, she’s a college freshman but the ensemble she started is still going strong. The two kids that went off to college played a ‘reunion’ with the younger kids at Christmas, it was adorable!
One of my daughter’s friends (homeschooler) wanted to do archery so got a group together and started an archery team. The main point about EC’s is that they be meaningful for the student not just something to put on a resume.
"One of my daughter’s friends (homeschooler) wanted to do archery so got a group together and started an archery team. The main point about EC’s is that they be meaningful for the student not just something to put on a resume. "
This. Some kids at D’s high school recently formed a rowing team. Yes, I know that crew is very popular in some areas of the country, but not here. I have no idea where they practice or who they row against, but I think the fact that someone stepped up to the plate to get the ball rolling speaks a lot of that person.
I’m in my 4th year of university (art/english), and have been volunteering at a local art center as a classroom assistant for children’s courses. I am planning to start my post degree education program next year. ALWAYS choose your extracurriculars on what you are passionate about!