Where Are The Parents?

Our son attends Karate every Monday evening. The setting is informal – it is not a dedicated Karate Dojo. Instead, it is a class run by two (sometimes three) black belts and taught out of a school gymnasium. At least two of the black belts have their own Dojo, and I believe this is a way for them to reach more people than they could in their own Dojo. It’s certainly not charity, but for us it is a much less expensive alternative than putting our children into a class taught in a proper Dojo.

Of the 20 or so kids in this class, there are only a small handful that take it seriously and pay attention. Also, of the 20 or so kids there are only a small number of parents who are regularly present and pay attention to their children’s class. Many of these parent-less kids are the ones not paying attention and disrupting the class for everyone else. Where are the parents?
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How Busy Should We Keep Our Kids?

Just for a minute, forget about the cost of after school activities. Pretend you have unlimited money. Ignore your own time constraints and the fact that you have to fix dinner and go to work.

Now that’s out of the way we can have a philosophical conversation.

How busy should we keep our kids?

And what should we keep them busy with?

There are a number of ways of looking at this. The two extremes are of course

  1. Keep them really busy so they stay out of trouble, and
  2. They’re kids, let them be kids and let them play.

I think the answer is somewhere in between these two, and of course some will depend on your religious, community, or family involvement which will take away from activity time.
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