Why Doing an Extracurricular Activities Should Be Required

Middle school can be really hard you might be staying up to late after you finish your homework, or your having friendship problems, or maybe your just a little lost in your middle school career and you need guidance. There's one obvious solution, extracurricular activities! I think its amazing that councilors, administrators, and principles are making after school activities required in school. Activities are a crucial part of our middle school experience and even if its not required I believe that people should still do clubs and sports. Extracurricular activities helps people, like new students make friends, helps make people feel like they are apart of a team and have a team bond, and activities help our mental health as well.

One of the biggest reasons people join clubs is to make friends. If they're the new kid or they're just really shy. Lots of students have trouble making friends, and it's completely normal. A lot of these kids join clubs or sports teams to become friends with people that share the same interest. If you share the same interest as a friend you can talk for hours on end about something you're both interested in. Which is something a lot of kids can't do, whether it be that they're too shy, that they haven't found their best friend yet, or their friends have different interest, and thats okay, but it's also good to have friends that like that same things as you. When I was in sixth grade I was extremely shy and I didn't have very many friends, so I decided to join the track team. I met so many people that I'm still friends with now, in eighth grade. Spending hours with these people at school and then going to practice and games with them really expands the friendship and makes it so much stronger. Your friends will come and go, but the friends you meet from a club or activity will last your whole school career and maybe even lifetime.

Being a middle school student can be hard. You may not feel like you always fit in and you may feel like you really don't belong. Joining a team or a club can help make you feel like you belong. Being apart of a team makes people feel important and loved. People that join teams or clubs have groups of people by their side and it feels good to have a team have your back. Joining any extracurricular makes it seem like you have your own tiny at school family. As they're together almost all the time your bond isn't really a big friendship it feels like you are all a big family. This family like feeling is great for kids who are feeling a little lost and need more guidance in their lives. The coaches or teachers that lead these activities set good examples for the students, give them advice, and even mentoring when it's needed. The coaches and club leaders really step up and help get they're athletes or people that participate in the club back on the right path. These clubs, activities, and teams are designed to help you become you best self.

Joining a club or sport also does a lot for our mental health. In a lot of clubs there is a huge amount of volunteer work that is required. Volunteering makes you feel like a better person, but also helps someone in need. Doing something to help someone else is good for our mental health and release chemicals to make us feel happier. Sports and exercise produce similar chemicals in our brains. Working out can make us happier and more focused. When I come home from practice I'm always in a great mood and I can always sit down and do my homework well. Doing sports also helps with the amount of sleep you get and how good and deep your sleep is. As students we need the best, and as much sleep as we can get. We're growing people that go to school for 7 hours a day, have homework, and chores. School life can be exhausting, but I've noticed that when i workout, and get more sleep I'm always in a better mood. One of the reasons we're "moody teenagers" is because we don't get enough sleep and it's so easy to change that. Extracurricular actives effect our moods greatly and it's so important that we take advantage of the positives. Another reason why extracurricular activities are important for our mental health is because it takes our minds off of school. School is so stressful and its hard for us to deal with the stress we're facing because we're only in middle school a lot of us are still kids or we're barely teenagers. Doing extracurricular activities helps get our minds off of our school work, homework, test, and quizzes for a couple hours a day, which is super beneficial to our mental health. Doing things like running, drawing, or writing reduce stress and can someone happier.

It's so easy to get caught up by school. You should always have time to step back and take a break, and I think one of the easiest ways to do that is by doing an extracurricular activity. The extracurricular doesn't have to be athletic or academic. You could do a fun activity like Lego Robotics or playing video games. Being apart of something bigger than yourself is very important and I think more schools should start making extracurricular activities a requirement to pass or graduate, because it forms good bonds and friendships, after school activities have positive effects on our mental health and mood, and being on a team makes students feel like they matter and are important. Extracurricular activities can really change a students while career by giving them an outlet to preform and enjoy what they love. I think more schools can take notes from the schools that are making clubs and sports a requirement.