Why is it so important for kids to have hobbies? Because the benefits pay dividends in so many ways. Read on to learn more about how to help your child find their passion.
During the month of February, Cupid is busy pairing up people with similar interests and compatibility. With a nudge from the little fellow, people can suddenly see each other in a new and more attractive light. This month, however, we are encouraging parents to play matchmaker with their child and a hobby. Help your child find their passion.
All kids benefit from having hobbies. But children who think and learn differently, REALLY benefit from successes gained from non-academic activities. Why? Because of the massive amounts of emotional scar tissue many of these children have built up from repeated failures in school.
And please do not confuse this with high school students looking to impress future colleges.
Just because your child played the sousaphone for six weeks at the local senior center will not garner them extra attention from Stanford’s admissions squad. The goal is to find the authentically right activity for your child.
What this is about is finding an activity that your child is passionate about and brings them joy.
The benefits of passion projects for kids
There are so many reasons parents ought to encourage their child to find a hobby they enjoy, just for the sake of the activity.
One study found that young adults who participate in extracurricular activities had lower levels of anxiety and depression and higher levels of satisfaction for life.
Success in the activity can build self-esteem and agency, which can be transferrable to other skills. Hello academics! The thought process going, if I can put effort into (fill-in-the-blank hobby) and see positive results, then maybe, just maybe, if I put the same effort into school, I will see positive results.
Often times these activities can provide opportunities for social connections. Kids who think and learn differently can struggle with this critical skill, and finding peers who share the same interest can break down some of the social walls.
While they may not even know it, your child will also be practicing and developing their Executive Functions skills, such as time management, goal setting, perseverance.
Critically, these hobbies can recharge their battery, providing more space and opportunity to tackle more frustrating parts of life. Everyone needs time to unwind and and recover from the day’s or week’s events. Brains can fill up and reach capacity. Hobbies refuel the brain!
Finally, passion projects can reduce those pesky negative behaviors. Like a beautiful garden that is free of weeds, two things cannot occupy the same space. Psychology Today shares that if your child is busy with a hobby, they will not be acting out or participating in harmful habits.
How parents can help foster the process of discovery
Of course you, the parent, will need to offer guidance and perhaps motivation to push (lovingly shove?) your child into trying an activity. What could this look like?
Pay attention to your child’s interests. What content do they consume on tv? On social media? What do they read about? Topics of their video game selections? All of these answers are clues for possible areas to pursue.
Provide opportunities. Offer to pay for an instrument rental and lessons. Watch a sports team practice to see if it really does appeal to them. Look for free trial opportunities in the community such as an art class.
Share your hobbies. Do not assume your child knows you love photography. Share the details and why you are drawn to a particular activity.
Help build vocabulary. Young children – elementary age and perhaps even some middle school age – may not have the word bank yet to state their interests. If you see your child loves to build with Legos, you could say they may be interested in engineering. If your child loves dabbling in the kitchen, perhaps they have an interest in the culinary arts. Help your child make connections between their hobbies and the real world.
Stick-to-itiveness vs healthy boundaries. While you want your child to develop perseverance and work through blocks and obstacles, you also want them to establish healthy boundaries and to know when they simply have too much on their plate. Open and honest discussion is the best path forward.
Set realistic expectations. Quite simply, it is ok not to be the best. Encourage participation for participation’s sake, not external validation or rewards.
How to keep your child interested in the activity over time
Once your child has engaged with an activity over a period of time, naturally they may become less interested in it. This is just human nature. But children who think and learn differently, especially those with ADHD, may become bored more quickly than their neuro-typical peers.
To help foster persistence try these strategies:
Reduce friction to the activity. In other words, make it easy for your child to participate. Have whatever necessary supplies on hand in the house, as appropriate. Provide time in the day’s schedule (more on this below). Eliminate your child’s excuses!
Keep it low pressure. As mentioned above, it is okay not to be the best at the activity. Focus on fun and improvement rather than external rewards.
Celebrate wins. Whether big accomplishments or minor ones, acknowledge and celebrate the success.
Locate and introduce mentors. Connecting your child with a local mentor in your community can be powerful. Whether the mentor provides advice and or inspiration, providing opportunities for your child to meet with experts in the given field pays dividends. And promotes social connections!
Provide reading materials about the topic. When this writer was school-age, and disliked everything about school and education, my mother kept a steady stream of Modern Drummer and Skateboarding Magazines flowing into the house. And, as most ADHD individuals are prone to do when presented with a topic of interest, I devoured every word in those magazines, which (no surprise to my sneaky Special Education teacher mother) improved my reading skills.
Create a routine. In a perfect world your child would come racing home from school, give you a big hug, tell you how great a parent you are, then happily skip off to practice their bassoon. Of course this simply does not happen in today’s modern world! So help your child develop an after school routine that includes homework time (of course) and time for the hobby.
Final thoughts
With big red hearts and Valentines’ Day decorations pervasive during the month of February, channel your inner Cupid and point an arrow at your child, connecting them to a passionate hobby. With some guidance from you, your child can find an activity they enjoy that brings them pride and satisfaction. Your child may be less anxious, practice their executive functions skills and could even find some like-minded peers, allowing for social connections. Having success is the goal, especially for kids who have piled up the failures in school. Passion projects can truly be the antidote to struggling learners with troubling self-esteem, launching them into other successes, including in school.
Engage the Brain encourages all of our families to explore extracurricular activities and to find the one hobby that truly resonates with your child.