many kids on a daily basis are juggling between taking care of their younger siblings, going to work (if they have one), and doing the best they can in school but now with the principal demanding they take the only little time they have left in the day after school to do extracurricular activities they might damage a kids mental health. a school never knows what a kid has going on in their personal lives and so why should they take that away from them. maybe the kid has to go to work to help their family pay the bill, or what if they stay home to take care of their younger siblings in order for their parents to go to work and get paid. school faculty dont seem to realize that going to school on its own is anxiety inducing and to force someone to take a program they dont like may be a bad way to go.

the only time kids get to actually be by themselves is out of school and to pressure a kid into doing an after school activity and waste their time would make them grow a hatred for school and would cause them to go less just so they wouldnt have to stay after school. one of the main things schools strive to get out of kids is good attendance so they can learn but to have them be forced into extracurricular activities might cause a dent in their attendance. it will end up being a bad idea because many kids will not do the extracurricular activities given and if the principal is that set on making kids participate on those activities he will probably have to set some rules for example if you dont go you will have Saturday school or detention but maybe the kid had to rush home because of an important matter. making every single student participate in an activity will cause them to lash out even more and make it more difficult on the schools faculty. the schools hope that by putting a kid into an extracurricular activity it will make them learn to love it but having a kid be forced to do something they dont want to do is going to automatically make them hate the activity and the person forcing them to do it. for them to hate the activity will make them not want to participate and eventually they will begin to be insubordinate.

a kids mental health should also be the priority for every school. if you put a kid in an after school activity it is going to be a waste of their time because they may not like it and then when they come home they study and work on their given homework it will frustrate them and cause them to be bitter towards everyone because of no sleep. the kids will feel miserable in themselves, they will be tired and so it would be difficult for them to do schoolwork which would bring down their grades and cause them to possibly fail a class. if a school decides to force kids to participate in after school activities just for them to end up up with multiple E's in multiple classes the decision might have to be looked at again. if a kid comes to school because of no sleep from working on school related things and falls asleep in class the teacher will not let them sleep of course so they will have to be awake for a whole 7 hours of sitting in a dull classroom listening to a teacher while trying to keep their head up. then after they go home they will immediately fall asleep and it will mess with their entire sleep schedules.

lastly, as i have said before many of the kids have younger siblings and/or work. if school prevents the kid from picking up their siblings from the bus stop or taking care of them at home they might have many complaints from parents as to why they are doing that. many complaints leads to the school boards reviewing the reason of all the complaining and then deciding if what they are doing is really going to be a good idea. theres also a possibility that a kid might have work after school. to go to work especially in customer service you need to feel good and cheery but having not slept for hours may bash that. and what if you have to go to work straight after school and because of the after school activity you will have to call in and tell them you cant go which might not sit well with your parents.

although there are many reasons as to why we shouldnt force kids to participate in extracurricular activities there is also a good side to it. many kids who love playing sports and doing the yearbook would not be affected by this new rule because the school is basically asking them to participate in something they would have participated in either way.

coming from a student this may sound very biased but if a kid does not want to do after school activities they should not be forced to. everyone has there own thing going on and not everyone can take their free time to do school sports or yearbook.