The Benefits of After-School Programs

Children today have to deal with many issues ranging from absent parents, bullying, obesity, and a lack of social skills on a daily basis. From the help of after-school programs, many of these children are able to relax in a positive environment and obtain necessary needs to help them to cope with the troubles in their lives. They’re also able to achieve personal and academic goals that they have set for themselves and have positive models to help them reach those goals. When after-school programs are done in an appropriate manner, it can have tremendous effects on a child’s life and help them to want to improve their life even further. After-school programs help children in many ways including keeping children off the streets, improving their social skills in an appropriate setting, helping children to achieve academic goals, promote overall well being and helping children obtain tips on staying healthy, and all the while being able to have fun in their lives without worry.

The history of after-school programs is that during the later part of the nineteenth century, the need for children in the industrial labor force greatly declined and the want for higher education became a large importance set on American society. Many educators believed that a time was needed during the day where children could have what’s known as “discretionary time”. Children would go to what was known at the time as “boys clubs” to fill in the short period of time after school and prior to returning home for the night. Later on, ideas of academic achievement as well as social skills were put into place in the after-school setting in order to promote a more diverse education for the America’s youth. Additional ideas included providing developmental supp...

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