Have you ever been forced to do something you might not always want to by a parent or a teacher, such as an after school activity? Many students are pressured to sign up for sports, clubs, or other extracurricular activities by parents, friends, and teachers. This ensures that they are getting physical activity, time off electronics, and are spending time with their community. However, students should not be forced to participate in these extracurricular activities because of their homework and jobs, lack of time spent with their families and friends, and the money some families do not have to pay for these activities.

Students' lives are almost always busy, and many rarely have a chance to relax. First, they have to spend eight hours of their day in school, only to go home and do two hours of homework. After that homework, many students go work jobs to save for college or build a resume. Even after that job has ended, students go home and may have to help do chores around the house. Only after those fourteen hours of the day have flown by is the student allowed to finally get ready for bed, struggle to get their required eight hours of sleep, and wake up only to do it all again. With this crowded schedule, it would be near impossible to manage an after school activity that lasts about two hours on top of all that. Kids should be able to enjoy their childhood by hanging out with their friends and relaxing, not having to worry about how the yearbook is coming along, if the sports teams are doing well this season, and if the school has the budget for prom at the end of the year. Those are enrichment activities that people without as busy lives should be able to choose to partake in, not forced to.

People hear a lot that they should strive to spend quality time with their friends and family, to ensure they don't become a little hermit that lives in a secluded world of their own. On top of the already insane schedule many students maintain, there's very little time left for spending time with friends and loved ones. Many students miss out on going to the mall on weekends with their friends, going out on dates with their significant other, and laughing at movies with their parents and siblings because they're busy working, applying to colleges, or doing homework that a teacher assigned to them over the weekend. Forcing them to participate in extracurricular activities does not benefit the situation at all. On top of not being able to spend time with the people that mean most to them, they're being told to run laps at sports practices, waking up at dawn to get ready for the big game, taking pictures for the yearbook at events, or going to meetings with the other student government members to plan the school dance. This causes immense stress for students, and it also weakens the bonds and strains the relationships between students and their friends and family.

It's not exactly difficult to see the fact that many students' families struggle financially. Many times, the only time students ever get to eat is at school, and often don't have enough money for hygiene, clothes, or school supplies. If these students are forced to participate in these after school activities, they may not be able to afford it; if they can, it often becomes even more of a struggle for the family, as that money could have been spent on paying the bills or food, rather than it being spent on sports uniforms and gas for cars that need to be driven to and back from practices, meetings, and events. Sports tend to be very expensive, with registration fees, uniforms, proper equipment, gas to drive the students places, and snacks to provide after school, as many students need to eat during practices. ninety percent of Americans are already in some sort of debt, whether it's student loans, house mortgage, cars, or just bad spending. Adding the cost of sports or other after school activities will drown students and their families in bills that they may not be able to pay off.

Although it is a good idea for students to participate in extracurricular activities, they should never be forced to because it impacts many students negatively because of their busy schedules, lack of time with their friends and loved ones, and because of the financial struggles many students' families face and may not be able to afford. Instead, students should be able to say whether they can and want to participate in these activities, or be able to not do extracurricular activities and be able to relax and spend their leisure time however they please.