Band 6+: ome people believe that it is important for children to attend extra classes outside school, while others believe that they should be allowed to play after school.

In the career-driven world where the education is valued as the utmost key to success, parents will give their favor towards investing in their children’s extra classes than letting them play freely after school. While it is undoubtful that by attending extra lessons youngsters will become more academically adept than their peers, playing might enhance kids’ creativity and adaptiveness to the world.

First of all, from the perspective of parents, it may seem plausible to think that their kids should spend most of their time on studying because of the high competition in schools and later in the job market. Not only that, studies suggest that youngsters learn faster compared to adults, and thus, parents may think that early investment in extra lessons would be more fruitful later in life. For example, learning languages or instruments starting from the childhood years can increase child’s intelligence and skills to the levels that of professionals in respective fields. Yet, too extensive lessons might bore children, in the end, them becoming gloomier, reluctant to study, and not meeting the parent’s academic expectations.

Nevertheless, pure playing might boost children’s imagination, thus, resulting in higher confidence in undertaking more difficult tasks, as a result. For example, in some school it was observed that kids were more willing to write about their experience after playing than if they have to write without playing. Also, playing makes kids more cheerful and sociable, as well as learn the rules of world through role-playing and board games. But, when it comes to outdoor games, it is hard to look out for children’s safety, in the neighborhood full of traffics and possibilities of crimes.

Consequently, children having extracurriculars has its advantages, yet parents shouldn’t force them doing it regardless of child’s wishes, and consider benefits of playing as well. Hence, it could be much better if parents and children could find the middle ground, by balancing out the time spent on leisure activities and extensive studies.