Intervention of after-school activities in these possible detachment cases is essential. .
There are "structured" after-school activities and unstructured after-school activities. The structured activities are those led by a competent adult with regular meetings and skill building goals. Some examples of these include scouts, sports teams, music clubs and community services. Children who participate in these activities .
After School Activities 4.
show a much better adjustment to parent-adolescent detachment than the youth who choose unstructured activities. These activities consist of peer relationships (hanging out with friends) or association with poor-quality youth centers who do not have competent adults supervising constantly (Mahoney et al 2002). When children choose peer relationships over after-school activities, social strains, such as peer pressure to participate in deviant acts, can have a negative effect on the youth and allow the youth to make poor decisions. If the child involves themselves in a structured after-school activity, the amount of negative social strains they will encounter will be reduced dramatically. The choice between structured or unstructured activities becomes very important. Some children would rather have peer relationships because they feel like they need to have some sort of acceptance which they are not receiving from their parents. Also, the parents of these children who choose to have unstructured after-school activities play little to no role in which activity the child will participate in. The identification of youth who participate in structured after-school activities consists of "exposure to conventional values, forming relationships with non-deviant peers, having a .
After School Activities 5.
sense of belongingness in an endeavor sanctioned by society, and increased skills and competence" (Mahoney et al 77). Each of these skills are essential to growing as the time in which the youth participate in them is a time which is extremely important when problem behavior is likely to occur.
