With the start of the school year, doubts arise about which extracurricular activity to choose for your child. The range of activities on offer is increasing, so it can be difficult to make a decision. Answering the question “what is the best after-school activity for my child?” is not easy. As it all depends on the child’s tastes and interests, his or her aptitudes and, above all, his or her personality. At this point, you should know that genetics in children plays a fundamental role in choosing the perfect after-school activity. Also it is important to bear in mind that the child should find in the activity a source of entertainment and relief from the long school day. So it is advisable to pay attention to the child’s preferences and not overload him/her. But how to choose the right activity, the answer could lie in a DNA test.
Benefits of genetic testing in children
One of the objectives of extracurricular activities is to enhance your children’s skills and improve their future employment profile. However, it is also important to offer them experiences that allow them to overcome some problems and acquire tools so that they can become functional and happy adolescents and adults.
Unfortunately, our children’s needs are not always easy to identify and it can be difficult for parents to decide what will be most beneficial for our child in the long run. In particular, it can be difficult to strike a balance between what we find most useful academically or at work and what can offer the greatest level of emotional well-being for our children. Being a parent is really complicated. Who hasn’t wished at some point that their children came with an instruction manual? And while it is true that such a manual does not exist per se, genetic testing in children has become an increasingly useful tool. Because that allows us to get to know our children better and help them develop their skills and talents.
Some of the benefits of genetic testing in children include:
- Identify genetic risks: analysing genetics in children can help identify risks for developing certain disorders or psychological problems. That allows us to take preventive measures and detect any problems early.
- Knowing personality tendencies: a genetic test in children can help to know their personality tendencies. And thus be able to choose the most appropriate extracurricular activities and educational goals.
- Knowing the child’s natural talents: analysing genetics in children provides us with information about the child’s natural talents. This makes possible to enhance their skills and improve their future employment profile.
- Offer experiences to overcome problems and improve self-esteem: DNA tests that allow us to analyse genetics in children can help us to understand the psychological problems that the child may develop. Such as social anxiety, impulsivity problems and aggressive behaviour, among others. This allows us to choose the right extracurricular activities to help them overcome these problems and improve their self-esteem and confidence.
- Detect learning problems: a genetic test in children can help detect early learning problems, such as dyslexia or mathematical reasoning problems. Therefore, analysing genetics in children is a tool that can help us to be more alert and provide early interventions to improve the academic performance of our children.
What are the most suitable activities for your child according to their psychological profile?
To choose the most suitable activities for your child, according to their psychological profile, it is important to take the following into account:
- If your child is introverted or shy, it would be advisable to enrol them in group activities. This will allow them to develop their social skills and encourage them to interact with other children and overcome their fears. In this way, it will provide them with more security and self-esteem. Some suitable activities would be basketball, football, water polo, dance.
- Very active or hyperactive children may benefit from activities that allow them to release their energy and, at the same time, provide them with a source of positive reinforcement. It should be borne in mind that a hyperactive child accumulates many small experiences of failure in the course of his or her daily activity. It is therefore important to choose activities that support the development of self-competence. Some recommended activities would be rugby, martial arts, athletics, swimming. It may also be of interest to aim them at activities that help them to train their concentration. Such as painting, but activities that imply a great need for self-control should be avoided, such as those that are very similar to the activities they carry out at school.
- More inactive or indecisive children often benefit from activities that are done individually, such as tennis, music or swimming. So that they do not have the opportunity to hide behind the group and are forced to work harder.
- Finally, if your child is creative, it would be best to find activities that allow them to develop their imagination and channelling skills such as drama, photography or painting.
Importance of genetic testing in children
As you can see, the choice of the best extracurricular activities for your child depends on their personality, abilities and interests; that is why it is important to know the genetic tendency in children (what is written in their DNA) in order to guide their development and provide them with the tools to face their future successfully. For this reason, a genetic personality test can be the key to help them develop better and happier.