What extracurricular activities do most teenagers do егэ

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Interviewer: Hello everybody! It’s Teenagers Round the World Channel. Our guest today is a teenager from Russia and we are going to discuss extracurricular activities. We’d like to know our guest’s point of view on this issue. Please answer five questions. So, let’s get started.

Interviewer: What extracurricular activities do most teenagers do?

Student: In Russia, for example, most teenagers like to play sports, make music, or do art. Participating in community volunteer work after school is also popular with Russian teenagers.

Interviewer: What benefits do extracurricular activities have?

Student: I think extracurricular activities offer many advantages, such as developing skills and interests, making new friends, and providing a way to explore interests and passions. They also help students to relax and have fun after a long day of school.

Interviewer: What extracurriculars are ideal for teenagers?

Student: I think it depends on personal interests and skills. Anyway, ideal after-school activities for teenagers are the ones that match their hobbies and interests. They can include sports, music, art, volunteering, and clubs related to their career goals.

Interviewer: What do you usually do in your extracurricular time?

Student: In my extracurricular time, I like to play sports and participate in music activities. I also enjoy volunteering at local organisations.

Interviewer: How much time do you think a student should spend on extracurricular activities?

Student: I think it’s subjective and can vary depending on a student’s schedule and priorities. It’s important for students to find a good balance between after-school activities and other things in their lives. That way, they can fully enjoy and get the most out of their activities.

Interviewer: Thank you very much for your interview.

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Between school and downtime, most kids do one or more extracurricular activities. These classes, sports teams, and other programs allow children and teens to pursue a special interest that’s outside of the typical educational curriculum, including sports, the arts, special-interest clubs, and technology. They also help to bolster a teens college application, while offering a host of other academic, social, and physical benefits.

If you have a busy family schedule already, you may wonder whether extracurricular activities are worth the time and money. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence that enrichment programs outside the classroom boost children’s social and academic skills. Luckily, there are more choices than ever for kids to find a pursuit that may ignite a true passion.

Benefits of Extracurricular Activities

Depending on whether the program you’re considering for your child is physical, intellectual, or creative in nature, specific extracurricular activities can build skills in different developmental areas. However, research has shown that extracurricular activities in general can:

• Build teamwork and problem-solving skills
• Cultivate self-esteem and confidence
• Develop a strong work ethic
• Encourage superior academic performance
• Enhance a high schooler’s college application portfolio
• Help children develop emotional regulation that carries over to the classroom
• Offer kids the opportunity to develop closer friends than they might make in school, due to shared interests

Types of Extracurricular Activities

You might be surprised to learn how many different types of extracurricular activities there are to choose from in schools and communities. With options ranging from hobby-based clubs to year-round competitive programs, you can find a program for almost any type of child. Here is just a sampling of what organized activities may be offered near you.

Sports

Sports are the most common extracurricular activity for kids in the United States. Swimming lessons, ice skating lessons, gymnastics, and soccer clinics are typically offered to children as early as the toddler and preschool years. Many town recreation departments offer baseball, softball, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, tennis, ultimate frisbee, running, and volleyball to elementary-school-age kids. As they age out of youth leagues, many kids can join middle school or high school sports teams or try out for a competitive travel sports team.

Rest assured, if your child doesn’t seem to enjoy or thrive in mainstream sports like these, there are a growing number of alternative physical activity programs to keep them active. Ask your child’s P.E. teacher or local recreation department for ideas. Additionally, look for martial arts, golf, skiing, BMX biking, skateboarding, dance, or rock climbing clinics or clubs in your area.

Scouting

Scouting groups are a great choice for kids who enjoy nature and are willing to try a variety of activities. Scouts learn basic outdoor survival skills, but they are also expected to earn badges in other skills like cooking, cleaning, arts, finances, goal setting, and personal care.

Historically, there have been Boy Scout troops and Girl Scout troops, but those distinctions are no longer based on traditional gender norms. The organization formerly known as Boy Scouts is now Scouts BSA, and it welcomes girls as well as boys.

Girl Scouts still only accepts girls into its ranks, but in consideration of transgender youth specifies that: «If a child is recognized by the family and school/community as a girl and lives culturally as a girl, then Girl Scouts is an organization that can serve her in a setting that is both emotionally and physically safe.»

Performing Arts

Theater and dance are popular extracurricular activities found in almost every community. Many schools and community theaters put on plays and other performances that students can participate in either by trying out or just signing up. Other students who enjoy stagecraft but not performing may help build sets, work on lights, sound, and special effects, or make costumes. 

Some kids who excel in performing arts may grow up to be professional actors, comedians, or other performers, but many more will build self-confidence, develop friendships, and go on to participate in community theater or similar groups as they become adults.

Visual Arts

With many schools shortening or limiting their special subject classes, kids who like to draw, paint, or create might benefit from joining an art program to learn art techniques and see their creativity flourish. Check with your child’s art teacher or a local art supplies store for classes and camps; some cater to very specific artistic interests, like pottery or graphic design. Many art museums host workshops for children, too.

Music

Band and choir are popular elective courses in many schools. Children can also get private lessons or join a community youth orchestra or other music groups. Educational research suggests that kids who play musical instruments do better in academic school subjects. However, learning to play and appreciate music alone is a fantastic reward in itself.

Community Service

Service organizations are great for teaching children about social and humanitarian issues. Older kids and teens often gain leadership skills and make important personal connections.

Middle school and high school honor societies often require students to perform a certain number of hours of community service, which demonstrates the important role that schools feel this pursuit plays in individual character development.

Churches, synagogues, temples, and junior versions of groups like Kiwanis and Lions offer community service opportunities for kids. Individual schools often have community service clubs that provide local outreach, whether it’s making no-sew blankets or collecting food pantry items.

Academic Clubs

Clubs or competitive teams often form around academic subjects. Intellectually curious kids might enjoy more deeply exploring topics they first learn about in the classroom. Some academic clubs that schools tend to offer include:

• Chess: Clubs might play just for fun, like during lunchtime, or guide kids toward the local competition circuit.
• Constitution Team: These clubs explore constitutional issues and may participate in competitions against other teams.
• Debate: Debate clubs commonly compete against nearby schools.
• Geography: In groups like Passport Club, kids learn geography and participate in challenges to test their knowledge.
• Math clubs: These include Math Counts or Mathletes.
• Model U.N.: These programs that allow children to explore global issues with classmates and peers from other schools.

Student Government 

Student government normally is available from upper elementary grades through college. Kids who are elected to student council are empowered to make decisions about important events for the student body and occasionally weigh in on school policy decisions. If your child has shown interest in leadership or politics, they should consider exploring student government groups at their school.

Student Media 

Many schools have student newspapers, literary magazines, yearbooks, video or audio school newscasts, film clubs, student-created websites, and more. Digging into these subjects will help familiarize kids with new technology and can create a portfolio for future jobs and college applications.

Affinity Groups

Affinity groups allow kids to gather and connect with other kids who share a similar—often marginalized—identity. High schools and even some elementary and middle schools offer clubs or groups for kids who identify as LGBTQ, Black, Latinx, and more. These groups can create a safe space for your child, a collective voice for their concerns, and service-related opportunities that might help them connect with the broader community.

STEM Programs

Programs based in STEM (science, technology, engineering, or math) are a natural fit for children who like to tinker or play on computers or tablets. Some schools offer science, computer, or engineering clubs, and more and more programs are cropping up to cater to kids’ STEM interests. LEGO-based robotics, coding, and video game development are just a few examples of programs being offered in certain locales across the country.

STEM programs are a smart choice to keep kids busy when transportation is tricky since an increasing number are available online. Companies like Outschool allow parents to sign up for fun virtual kids’ classes that focus on science and technology.

How to Choose an Extracurricular

How much you guide your child toward a certain activity will depend on your child’s age. If you have a younger child, you may need to provide a lot of direction to find the right activity. For a high schooler, you may just want to suggest a few different possibilities and then let them choose an activity that sounds interesting or fun. 

If your school-age student’s school doesn’t offer a particular extracurricular activity, find out from their school’s administration what is needed to start a club. With enough student interest and at least one adult who can volunteer their time to help supervise, your child could be a trailblazer for other kids who share their passion.

You can also look for activities sponsored by organizations in the local community. Local newspapers, bulletin boards, and social or online media often include advertisements for programs for school-age children and teens. For low-cost or free extracurricular activity options, look to your town’s recreation department or public library.

Just be careful to not overschedule your child with extracurricular activities. Many child health experts encourage parents to make sure children have at least one day a week without an organized extracurricular activity so they can have free time to relax and recharge.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do colleges look for in extracurricular activities?

Extracurricular activities that promote intellectual curiosity, creativity, compassion, and a strong work ethic tend to impress college admissions officers. Look into debate or chess clubs, visual or performing art workshops, community outreach or volunteering opportunities, or even after-school jobs. Additionally, many colleges value commitment and long-developed interests, so sticking with one or two activities over time rather than just doing several activities junior year may be more impressive.

How do extracurricular activities help students?

By doing extracurricular activities, a child can expand their social circle, develop new skills, and become better problem solvers. Research shows that kids who do extracurricular activities tend to do better in the classroom, too.

What are examples of extracurricular activities?

Extracurricular activity options run the gamut for today’s kids and teens. Popular activities include sports, scouts, art, theater, music, and community service. Many children also join school-affiliated organizations (like student council), competitive academic clubs (like Model U.N. or math club), and affinity groups that help connect kids with shared identities.

How many after-school activities is too many?

There is no set limit to after-school activities that suits all kids, as some children thrive with a busier schedule and others need more downtime. However, it’s a good rule of thumb to cut back on extracurriculars if your child is having trouble getting homework done, can’t get at least eight hours of sleep per night, or is struggling to maintain connections with family and friends.

A Word From Verywell

By expanding your child’s skillset and social circle, extracurricular activities can be an investment in your child’s future. Along with helping your child establish a growth mindset through teamwork and problem-solving challenges, pursuing interests outside of the academic curriculum may help teach your child how to establish a better work-life balance when they become adults.

The trick is figuring out which classes and programs are a good fit, so talking to your child’s teachers, fellow parents, and community organizers about local options is key. Above all, keep an open mind, and don’t be afraid to let your kids try new things. A child or teen who may lack or lose interest in one activity might find their true calling in another.

Imagine that you are doing a project on what teenagers do in their free time. You have collected some data on the subject (see the diagram below).

Comment on the data in the diagram and give your personal opinion on

the subject of the project.

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Sport, drama, Scouts and Guides, hobbies like craft or photography – extracurricular activities can be just about anything your child enjoys outside school. They can also be things you’ve encouraged your child to do, like language classes, music, debating, religious instruction, swimming, or paid and unpaid jobs.

Taking part in extracurricular activities can:

• give your child a chance to try a range of activities and find things they’re good at
• give your child a sense of achievement and boost their self-esteem, confidence and resilience
• promote good mental health and a sense of belonging
• help your child meet other people with similar interests
• keep your child busy with healthy and positive challenges like sport or community activity
• help your child learn to handle responsibility, take initiative and solve problems.

Encouraging pre-teens and teenagers to try extracurricular activities

Not all pre-teens and teenagers are into extracurricular activities. That’s fine.

Some pre-teens and teenagers are keen but just need a bit of help to get started with extracurricular activities. If this sounds like your child, you can talk with them to work out what they’re interested in. You could find out what other pre-teens and teenagers do by talking to other families, looking in the local paper or searching online. You could also help your child find out about their school’s clubs and societies.

Your child might need help to ease into a new group of people. After all, it can be hard to turn up to something new, especially if you don’t know anyone. Perhaps your child has a friend who’d like to do the activity with them. Or you could arrange for your child to meet someone who already does the activity.

Your child could also start an activity gradually. For example, if your child’s ultimate goal is to be on the stage with a local theatre group, they could start by working as a stage hand.

It’s OK if your child doesn’t do many, or any, extracurricular activities. Your child might feel that they get to try and enjoy plenty of things at school. Extracurricular activities are voluntary. If your child doesn’t want to do an activity, it’s best not to make them do it. They’re unlikely to enjoy it and they won’t benefit from it.

Finding the right balance with extracurricular activities

Balancing work and fun is a challenge for everyone – it’s a life skill that’s important for your child to learn.

If you’re worried that your child has taken on too many extracurricular activities, you could watch for signs that things are out of balance. These might include your child being tired, grumpy or stressed or having trouble sleeping.

You and your child might be able to cope with this in short bursts, like around exams, at grand final time, or before a big performance. But if your child is showing these signs at other times, it might be worth looking at how much they’re doing.

To work out whether your child is doing too much, you could just ask them whether they feel they have the balance right.

Then you could have a look at these things:

• Time away from home: how many nights does your child come home after 8.30 or 9 pm? How long are they out for on weekends? Can your child contribute to life at home, like doing their chores?
• Balance of activities: how much sleep is your child getting? Do they have any down time? Can they get their homework done on time? Does your child have time for friends? Are they spending a lot of time in singing lessons and tennis practice, for example, at the expense of schoolwork or socialising?
• Behaviour: does your child seem happy? Are they irritable? Do they seem stressed a lot of the time?
• Effect on the family: how many family meals are missed, or disrupted, by your child’s activities? Is this a problem for your family? How often does your child miss family activities? Do your child’s activities mean other family members miss out on doing things?

Different children can balance different amounts of extracurricular activity. This changes with age too. What your child can handle when they’re 9 will be different from what they can do at 12.

It can be hard to let your child stop doing an activity that they’ve been doing for a long time. But giving your child some responsibility to choose activities lets them know that you trust them to manage their own time and make the right decisions for themselves.

Working on time management for extracurricular activities

Talk with your child if you’re concerned that they need a better balance between extracurricular activities and other areas of their life. You could try the steps for time management suggested below.

1. Introduce your concerns
If you tell your child that you’ve noticed they don’t seem happy, seem tired, or seem too busy to do all the things they need to do, it can give them the chance to think about how they’re spending their time and energy.

For example, you might say, ‘You seem so busy at the moment. I wonder if you’ve got too much on?’ or ‘We need to have a think about how late the sessions are finishing, because you’re not getting to bed until 10.30 pm 3 nights a week’.

2. Work out how your child’s time is spent
You or your child could create a weekly chart, with details for each day’s activities and how long they take. You might read over the chart with your child and wait to hear what they say. What does your child think about how their week looks?

You could let your child know how things look to you. For example, ‘You must be struggling to find time for homework each night with this schedule’, or ‘There isn’t much time for just hanging out with family and friends in your week’.

Then you could say, ‘I wonder whether we need to think about this and come up with a better plan’.

3. Work out priorities
You might suggest that your child thinks about these questions:

• What would I like to do more or less of?
• What stuff is the most important to me?
• What’s important to us as a family?
• What do I have to do, like schoolwork?

This gives your child the chance to think about the issue from their own point of view, rather than having you ‘solve’ the problem for them.

Once your child has thought about the questions above, you could talk together about their ideas for what might change. You can give feedback on the things you agree with or any problems you see.

For example, there might be activities that you’d like your child to continue, but which they want to stop doing.

Telling your child why you want them to do an activity might help them sort out the pros and cons. You might say, ‘It’s important that you learn to swim. It’s too dangerous when you go to the beach if you can’t swim properly’. Or ‘I’d like you to be able to speak a bit of Spanish so you can talk to your grandmother on the phone’.

It’s OK if you want to point out your family’s priorities too. For example, ‘Sunday night dinner is important to us. It’s something we really want to do as a family’.

You might negotiate with your child to stick with an activity for another term or 6 weeks, to see whether things improve.

4. Assess the plan
Your child is learning skills for managing time and setting priorities. If you let your child put their plan into action, it gives them the chance to practise these skills.

You and your child might need to tweak the new schedule. It’s about juggling your child’s desire to make things happen with the realities of how demanding certain activities are, how much time they take, and how possible it is for your family to manage it all.