Second Grade: Choices of Children

"As long as the children are happy and having fun!" Have you ever had thoughts like this? It may reassure you, but sometimes it can be misleading.

Parents want their children to enjoy a variety of experiences. Therefore, parents need to provide opportunities for trying different activities. As a child develops an interest, she will want to continue in that experience more often and for longer periods of time. This can be a cue to you in discovering where your child's interests are. This can also help you determine which activities to emphasize and which should be discontinued.

Children are sometimes expected to follow their parents' footsteps or to try certain activities because their parents didn't have the opportunity. Sometimes parents push scholarship or athletic skill or music. The activity becomes so serious that little thought is given to enjoyment. If the pressure becomes too great, children may drop the activity completely for fear of disappointing their parents.

Parents need to remember that every child is unique. Differences in children should be expected and accepted. Children of baseball fans are not all natural athletes, and coordinated parents may have awkward children.

Praising children is great, but sometimes it's overdone. Promising rewards for achievements is not always necessary. Rewards could give a message to a child that the activity itself will be no fun so more is needed. Rewards may also make it appear that perfection is the goal. Learning and fun should be the goal of activities. If a child believes he must be perfect, he will be easily discouraged and will quit trying.

So Much To Do

Excluding time spent eating and sleeping, your child has roughly 80 hours a week in which to do things. Subtract another 50 hours for school, homework and chores and this leaves your child only 30 hours a week for everything else.

As you can see, even your child's time is limited. This means you need to help your child choose which activities are most important. Exploring choices means parents can help their child in identifying, thinking over and evaluating each choice. This is different from giving advice or telling the child what to do.

Make a list of item for a day in your child's life, having slices correspond with time spent. Here is how the list might look:

• 10 hours sleep
• 7 hours school
• 1/2 hour bus riding
• 1/2 hour homework
• 1/2 hour chores
• 11/2 hour piano
• 1 1/2 hours meal time
• 3 1/2 hour free time

Consider: Music lessons,  Television, Church and church school, Sports Time for self, Play