“MUM, I DON’T want to go swimming today,” said a little girl to her mother. “Well, pet, we’ve paid for the term, so I think we’re still going to go to the lesson today, okay?” replied her mum as they both walked to their car.

Eavesdropping may be considered rude in some cultures, but when it comes to feeling reassured that, as a parent, we’re all going through the same things and handling them in a similar manner, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Children today are doing a moxy load more after-school activities and weekend sports/hobbies than most of us ever used to do in the 80s and 90s. Back then, we might have done one or two things a week, but rarely was it at the level it is now, mainly because the choices on offer were more limited.

Today, though, from sports to STEM, to theatre and gymnastics, there is likely to be a niche class or club in your area that will appeal to your children’s many tastes.

There’s no denying that this is, for the most part, a good thing. It offers children new experiences, entertainment, an opportunity to develop talents or interests and the chance to meet new people their own age. But for many parents, multiple extracurricular activities can be a time-consuming and expensive hoopla, at a time when most of us are both time-poor and watching the household budgets.

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All of these ‘enriching’ extra activities sound good on paper, but when you realise it will turn your weekdays into a dizzying haze of scheduling pickups and drop-offs, while homework is done in the back of the car on the way to dance class or Lego club, you can soon start to regret your life choices. And that’s just the logistics; we haven’t even gotten to the eye-watering prices yet.

Over-scheduled, over-charged

Last week, I watched €400 disappear out of my account as I rebooked my children’s after-school activities for the summer term. They do very few compared to the average child, but it left a huge dent in the finances.

What makes it even more soul-crushing for parents is when the inevitable happens. Yes, you know what I’m about to say, because it’s a given that at some point your child will decide halfway through a term that they don’t actually like whatever the activity is anymore, or their pal isn’t doing it anymore, and they want to give it up.

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This leaves parents in a quandary. Do you encourage your child to finish out the term to help them understand the importance of seeing something through (and also because you’ve dropped €100 on it and you want to get value for money), or do you listen to their concerns and let them quit, (and be secretly delighted that you’ve one less parental taxi commitment to deal with each week?)

It’s refreshing to know that it’s not just us mere mortals who have these dilemmas either. Buffy actress Sarah Michelle Gellar recently weighed in on the issue, saying she insisted her daughter finish her dancing classes even after she said she didn’t want to do them anymore. Gellar told People Magazine, “My daughter was a dancer, and I was a dance mom sitting at those competitions. And when she decided it wasn’t for her, I told her, ‘Okay, but you have to finish. You have to see that out. That’s important.’”

For the most part, I have to agree with her on this one. While no one wants to put their child through something they absolutely hate, there is value to be found in teaching children the importance of sticking something out.

As a child, I can remember trying out multiple musical instruments over the years, despite having little to no discernible talent for any of them. I did the piano, the recorder, the flute and even the tin whistle. I stuck with none of them in the end, and I’m quite sure it drove my parents insane, but while they didn’t force me to keep up an instrument I didn’t like long-term, they did make sure I finished the course of lessons to the end. I’m glad they did, because even though I wasn’t keen on each of those instruments about halfway through the term, sticking with it taught me a valuable lesson about persistence, commitment and the beauty of trying new things.

‘Snowflake generation’

Many like to criticise today’s parents for raising tomorrow’s snowflakes by laying it on too thick with the gentle-parenting act, but getting children to stick with an activity they may not love, but don’t abhor, is something I think we need to do more of.

Giving up at the first sign of discomfort or boredom does nothing to help them in the long run, but there does have to be a balance of validating their concerns. No parent would force their child to do something that makes them visibly upset or anxious, but when a child’s reservations are of the more wishy-washy variety and you know in your gut they might actually find some good or pleasure in it, I think encouraging them to stick it out is essential.

Really, if we want our children to have a solid reserve of resilience and grit to see them in good standing in the world in years to come, then sticking by their commitments in after-school activities and hobbies is a good place to start.

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It does get more complicated, however, when their concerns are around failure or not feeling good enough. How many parents have consoled children who faced a loss in a sport or game, or didn’t win a competition they’d set their sights on?

It’s a heartbreaking feeling, often made worse when your child decides they don’t want to do said activity anymore and pack it in. Hard as it is to see your child deflated, most of us counsel otherwise, because as the adults in the room, we know it’s often in failures and the hardships that we learn the biggest lessons, like trying again, determination and understanding that in life, it won’t always go your way, but that’s okay.

Niamh O’Reilly is a freelance writer and journalist. 

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