Helping Your Teen Pick Extracurriculars

By: Hailey Traum

The fastest way to help your teen choose an extracurricular is to stop offering suggestions and start asking questions! What makes them lose track of time? What would they try if no one was watching? What have they said “maybe later” to more than once? Most parents skip straight to options: try robotics, try soccer, do something that’ll look good on an application. That usually produces a kid who signs up, coasts for six weeks, and quits by October, because the activity was never really theirs to begin with.

If your teen is staring at a list of clubs and sports with no idea what to pick, or picking something and dropping it a month in, the problem usually isn’t a lack of options. It’s that they haven’t been given the chance to figure out what they actually want, only what’s available or expected. Here’s how to actually help.

Start With What Makes Them Lose Track of Time

Before you look at a list of clubs, look at your kid. Think about the last few times you saw them genuinely absorbed in something, not told to do it, not doing it for a grade, just doing it because they wanted to. Maybe it’s editing videos, building something with their hands, arguing about a book, organizing their friend group’s plans down to the last detail. That’s real data. It’s more useful than any list of “recommended activities for college applications,” because it points at something true about how your teen’s brain works, not what a website thinks looks impressive.

Ask Questions Instead of Supplying Answers

Your job here is to ask, not to steer. Instead of “what about the debate team?” try “what’s something you wish you were better at?” or “if you had three free afternoons a week and no one was watching, what would you do with them?” These questions are harder to answer on the spot, and that’s the point. They push a teen to actually think instead of just agreeing to whatever you proposed to end the conversation. If your teen answers with a shrug, that’s fine. Ask again in a different way next week. Discovery like this rarely happens in one conversation.

Let Them Try Things and Let Them Quit Without Shame

A tried-and-dropped activity isn’t a failure, it’s information. One of the biggest things that keeps teens from ever finding the right fit is the fear that quitting will disappoint you. If every activity comes with an unspoken “you’d better stick with this,” teens start avoiding anything they’re not already sure about, which means they never try the things that might actually click. Let your teen know upfront that trying something and deciding it’s not for them is a completely normal part of figuring this out, not a mark against them.

Watch for the Difference Between Real Interest and Just Filling Time

Not every activity a teen sticks with is one they actually care about. Some kids will stay in something out of habit, social pressure, or simple inertia, without it ever becoming something that energizes them. A good signal to watch for: does your teen bring it up on their own, unprompted, when you didn’t ask? Do they ever choose to spend more time on it than required? An activity a teen is only tolerating usually shows up as flat affect: going through the motions, no complaints, no enthusiasm either. That’s worth a conversation, not a lecture.

Resist the Résumé Instinct

This is where it’s worth being direct: a lot of parents pick activities based on what a college application will eventually look like, and that instinct, while understandable, usually backfires. Traditional thinking treats a teen’s schedule like a checklist to optimize (leadership position, community service hours, a varsity letter, something STEM-adjacent) as if the right combination guarantees the right outcome. But admissions officers can tell the difference between a kid who did things because they cared and a kid who did things because a parent built a strategy. More importantly, so can the teen, eventually. An extracurricular chosen for a résumé rarely produces the confidence or skill-building that one chosen out of real interest does, because the teen was never actually invested in it past the line item.

Bring In an Outside Voice When You’re Too Close to See Clearly

Sometimes a parent is genuinely the wrong person to have this conversation, not because you don’t know your kid, but because you know them too well. That’s part of why LSA’s 1:1 Success Coaching exists: a mentor works with your teen year-round to help them find their own strengths and interests instead of being told what to pursue.

Give It Time Before You Assume It’s the Wrong Fit

One slow month doesn’t mean the wrong choice was made. Almost every new activity has an awkward beginning: a new group, unfamiliar skills, the discomfort of being a beginner in front of other people. Before you or your teen decides something isn’t working, give it a real trial period, usually six to eight weeks, and check in casually rather than issuing a verdict. “How’s that going?” opens a conversation. “Are you sure you still want to do this?” closes one.