Are Extracurricular Activities Breaking the Bank for Canadian Families?
Extracurricular activities play an important role in any child’s development, helping them build skills, make friends, and explore their passions. However, in Canada, the cost of extracurriculars—ranging from sports to music lessons and art classes—can add up quickly.
Families spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars annually on these activities, so it’s important to consider the financial and academic implications.
The Cost of Extracurricular Activities in Canada
According to Ipsos, Canadian families spend an average of $1,160 per child per year on extracurricular activities, with costs varying depending on the type of activity and location. Hockey, one of the most popular sports, can cost anywhere from $1,000 to over $5,000 per season, factoring in equipment, travel, and league fees. Music lessons, dance classes, and competitive sports have similar financial commitments.
While these activities provide many benefits, they can also strain a family’s budget. Some provinces offer financial assistance or subsidies for lower-income families. However, with the current cost of living crisis, many parents still struggle to balance the costs of extracurriculars with other essential expenses, including groceries, rent, clothing, etc.
Check out this guide to budget-friendly participation.
Balancing Academics with Extracurricular Commitments
Extracurricular activities are valuable for students’ personal growth and help to foster discipline, teamwork, and leadership. However, they also demand time, often competing with schoolwork and academic success. With packed schedules, students may find completing homework, preparing for tests, or maintaining strong grades challenging.
A common concern with parents is whether extracurricular involvement is genuinely an investment in their child’s future. While some students earn scholarships for sports or the arts, academic excellence remains the best path to post-secondary success. Canadian universities emphasize grades and standardized test scores, making it essential for students to maintain a strong academic foundation.
Tutoring: A Smart Extracurricular Investment
Between the financial and time commitments, tutoring can be overlooked as an essential investment. Here’s why you should consider tutoring to be just as valuable as sports or music lessons.
- Regular tutoring helps students strengthen core subjects, leading to better grades and confidence in school.
- Balancing extracurriculars and school can be overwhelming; tutoring provides structured academic support to prevent falling behind.
- Strong academic performance opens more doors for scholarships and university admissions than extracurriculars alone.
- Unlike school, tutoring is personalized to address a child’s specific needs, reinforcing learning gaps and improving comprehension.
A child’s academic journey will be filled with ups and downs, but it will always have benefits. Children with high levels of academic achievement are more likely to have more employment opportunities, secure higher salaries, and become more active as citizens. While elementary school math might seem disconnected from having a successful career as an adult, the skills children build now play a key role in their future success.
Finding the Right Balance
It can be easy to prioritize extracurricular activities over classroom learning. Many children find their activities much more enjoyable than school. School and sports/activities are fun, while school can be challenging. Children will choose to have fun over being challenged every time.
But the fact that school is challenging is exactly the point. Students need to be challenged to learn, grow and develop the skills they will need in the future. A child’s academic development is directly tied to achieving goals and dreams for the future. School is singularly about helping children develop both knowledge and learning skills to equip them for the future.
Balancing Academics & Activities for Lifelong Success
At Oxford Learning, we help students manage their academics and extracurricular activities. Our personalized tutoring programs help students excel in school while developing the time management skills they need for future success.
Investing in your child’s education today will yield long-term benefits, setting them up for academic and career success. Want to learn how tutoring can fit into your family’s schedule? Contact us today!
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