Supreme Court urges parents to focus on meaningful family conversations over extracurricular overload for children

The Supreme Court of India has cautioned parents against overloading children with extracurricular activities, emphasising the importance of home conversations and values for healthier childhood development.

In a child custody hearing, the Supreme Court of India has warned parents against cramming children’s schedules with too many extracurricular classes, saying time spent talking at home matters more than chasing a competitive edge through music, art or taekwondo lessons.

A bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan questioned whether stacking activity after activity was really helping children. Nagarathna said parents should be the ones teaching manners and respect, particularly to boys, including how to treat girls and women, rather than relying too heavily on outside instruction. She added that direct conversation at home can deepen the parent-child relationship.

When an advocate argued that such classes support a child’s overall development in a demanding world, Nagarathna replied that overload was not healthy for children. She suggested that parents should sit with their children and talk to them, saying that closer interaction would help them grow into better children.

The court’s remarks fit a wider judicial pattern of stressing children’s well-being beyond academic performance. In earlier proceedings on sports and physical activity, the Supreme Court said involving children in sport can help keep them away from screens and gadgets, while in separate cases it has linked education to broader goals such as forming good citizens and, in another matter, highlighted sex education as a way to improve health outcomes and reduce sexual violence. Together, those observations point to a consistent message from the bench: childhood should not be reduced to relentless competition, but should also include values, movement and meaningful family contact.