Do homeschooled kids need extracurricular activities?

There's more to life than a solid book-and-facts education. If children do not learn how to work as a team – interact, cooperate and compromise with others — they will have a difficult time succeeding in many situations outside of school.

Recent research of children in public school showed extracurricular activities helped students improve their grades, attitudes and overall well-being. While researchers couldn't be certain why without further studies, the results definitely showed a strong correlation between higher grades and motivation and participation in activities such as sports, performance groups and other outside interests involving other participants. The researchers reasoned that the students learned character-building skills in the activities that they could use in their studies and life in order to succeed.

An introduction to the real world
Learning to accept criticism of their work in art and music classes, to be a part of a group in theatrical performances, or to work as a team in sports is very critical to learning how to cope in most work situations. Remember, once our children leave the protection of our home schools, they will enter into "the real world" where they will need to work with others on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

Public school is not the best way to teach socialization skills. Studies show it actually prevents children from becoming more open and social because they are always stuck with the same group of children, mostly of the same age, and they form cliques where they hang around children with almost exactly the same interests.

Homeschooling families have the option of introducing their children to many kinds of people, of various ages and interests. Having this variety allows children to learn to be more open and better able to cope with people who are not like them when they have to work with them.

Benefits of extracurricular activities
Extracurricular activities gives you the opportunity to introduce your children to the world. In most activities children learn to work with others as a team, to compromise for the good of the final goal, and to understand their position as an important part of the team.

Children also learn how to organize and manage their time more efficiently in order to get their tasks done by deadline. They take these skills home with them as well because they know they need to complete other work at home in order to successfully participate in their activities.

Working together with others for a common goal helps motivate children to complete what they've started. They know they have a team to back them up and they don't want to let that team down. When they understand that the work they do has an impact on the larger group, they tend to work harder to complete their tasks.

Life skills
I've mentioned before that life skills are more important in home studies than the standard public school curriculum (see A financial education and Cooking). Knowing how to live in the modern world is much more important than knowing the exact path Louis and Clark took on their trek across the country (threatening the natives that the country owns them along the way).

Participating in extracurricular activities gives children a tremendous life-skills education. There are so many more benefits than the ones I mentioned above. Not to mention, children may find their calling by participating in these activities. They may learn to become a leader in teaching others the skills they learn. They may chance upon the time of their lives.

Most importantly, however, children participating in extracurricular activities will learn to succeed in life. That's the greatest benefit you could ask for.