Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

Parents should spend time with their children helping them with schoolwork rather than playing games and sports. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

A child's life is full of important experiences that will come to shape and define them later on. Children need to play and be active, to explore the world physically; but they also need to begin the process of learning and acquiring knowledge, and expand their mental capacities. What role should the parent play in these areas of development? Ideally a parent should be involved in both, but in today's world, time is limited. Under these circumstances, a parent should focus on helping their child with schoolwork.

The most important reason for this is because parents should strive to discover where a child's strengths and passions lie, and then help cultivate those strengths and passions. This will make a huge impact on a child's future success—and more importantly, also their future happiness. When I was younger I was moderately interested in all subjects, but I had a particular bent for art. My parents could see how excited I was about art homework compared to my other homework. Some parents might have quashed this interest, declaring it impractical. They didn't. They encouraged me to pursue art, as long as I didn't neglect the rest of my studies. Since then, art has become an indispensable part of my life and studies, and I am eternally grateful to my parents for that.

Another significant reason for parents to involve themselves in their children’s schoolwork is the fact that job competition has grown tremendously. Helping your kids with homework is no longer optional. In order to secure a steady job, merely graduating with a bachelor's degree is no longer enough. With such a saturated job market, parents need to help their kids find their calling early on, and then support them in pursuing that calling so they have a chance to distinguish themselves among their peers. Studies have found that over half of recent university graduates are unemployed, employed only part-time, or working at a job far below their qualifications. Without proper academic advice and guidance from parents, it is easy for children to grow up feeling somewhat directionless and fall victim to these circumstances.

Finally, children will have many friends to teach them how to play, but only parents can really teach them how to work. Most children do not enjoy schoolwork. If given the choice, they will want to play games and sports. They will have plenty of opportunities to do so with their friends. It is only from parents that they can learn the importance of hard work and discipline, because it is only parents who have the benefit of life experience. Of course, children will resist. They may even resent their parents at times. But it is the parent's job to sometimes be the "bad guy," because nobody else will teach the child if the parent doesn't. Through helping children with schoolwork, parents can instill the mentality values that will allow children to successfully pursue their ambitions.

A child's development needs to be carefully balanced between play and work in order for them to find their true passion and succeed later in life. While friends can take care of the "play," it is up to parents to impart the difficult lessons of "work."

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