Parenting Matters Now with Dr. Roger Smith
Aug 21, 2026 · 6 min · 4 segments
In this episode of Parenting Matters Now, Dr. Roger Smith asks an important question: What kind of tools do you use to train your children? The answer might be found in your local community. Youth…
Roger SmithHost
I wanna talk about extracurricular activities, uh, particularly youth development organizations.
And so there are a number of organizations that have, as their mission, uh, the development both in leadership skills or communication, uh, uh, just, um, general life skills training.
In fact, this shirt I put on today for the video, uh, has a 4H emblem on it, and it reminded me of us being involved in the 4H organization.
But there are many other youth organizations that, that help train your child, or at least they are a resource to you as you train your child to be mature, to communicate, to learn, uh, life skills, i- uh, whatever their focus is.
Sometimes it's because, uh, their other friends are involved and, and that's an okay reason to get started, but that may not be a good enough reason for you to continue to be involved with, uh, organizations.
And so, um, organizations do change over time, so evaluating what is their real mission, what are their, what underpinnings or their values.
But each of those organizations have had a committed or a focused development of a program.
Uh, we used, uh, scouting programs for, you know, learning different things, and there were programs or were awards or merits for tho- those things.
Uh, we, we used a variety of different, uh, quote, "extracurricular activities" to pursue the development of our children.
And, and the more that you are involved with those organizations and helping your child to reap the benefit of them, the more benefit they will reap.
And, and so, uh, we, we considered a- as, um, our children's involvement, when, when people refer to those things as extracurricular, we just refer to them as curricular because it is part of their learning, and there's great value in choosing those organizations well and being fully engaged in them.
But the more that you're involved, the more you can guide what it is that they, uh, gain from it and how well they do and how much they gain from it.
And, uh, sometimes if you have multiple children, you can't do all that you want to do.
And so prioritizing what you'll be involved in, whether it's sports or whether it's music or other activities, uh, camping, uh, high adventure stuff, you, you have to make those decisions, and that is an ongoing decision.
I wanna talk about extracurricular activities, uh, particularly youth development organizations.
And so there are a number of organizations that have, as their mission, uh, the development both in leadership skills or communication, uh, uh, just, um, general life skills training.
In fact, this shirt I put on today for the video, uh, has a 4H emblem on it, and it reminded me of us being involved in the 4H organization.
But there are many other youth organizations that, that help train your child, or at least they are a resource to you as you train your child to be mature, to communicate, to learn, uh, life skills, i- uh, whatever their focus is.
Sometimes it's because, uh, their other friends are involved and, and that's an okay reason to get started, but that may not be a good enough reason for you to continue to be involved with, uh, organizations.
And so, um, organizations do change over time, so evaluating what is their real mission, what are their, what underpinnings or their values.
But each of those organizations have had a committed or a focused development of a program.
Uh, we used, uh, scouting programs for, you know, learning different things, and there were programs or were awards or merits for tho- those things.
Uh, we, we used a variety of different, uh, quote, "extracurricular activities" to pursue the development of our children.
And, and the more that you are involved with those organizations and helping your child to reap the benefit of them, the more benefit they will reap.
And, and so, uh, we, we considered a- as, um, our children's involvement, when, when people refer to those things as extracurricular, we just refer to them as curricular because it is part of their learning, and there's great value in choosing those organizations well and being fully engaged in them.
But the more that you're involved, the more you can guide what it is that they, uh, gain from it and how well they do and how much they gain from it.
And, uh, sometimes if you have multiple children, you can't do all that you want to do.
And so prioritizing what you'll be involved in, whether it's sports or whether it's music or other activities, uh, camping, uh, high adventure stuff, you, you have to make those decisions, and that is an ongoing decision.
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