In early adolescence, young people begin to make their own decisions about how to spend their time after school, and these choices can have important insights into their future development. Involvement in supervised and organized activities during after-school hours is associated with positive outcomes, whereas participation in unsupervised and/or unstructured environments is associated with less favorable adjustment. When middle school youth begin to isolate themselves from their parents, they seek emotional support from unfamiliar caring adults. Participation in high-quality organized activities offers young people the opportunity to form supportive and caring relationships with adults in the wider community who can provide them with social capital. Establishing relationships with peers and connected feelings is increasingly important during this time. Extracurricular activities provide a unique environment to develop relationships with diverse peers and belong to a group. Early adolescence is a time when young people begin to engage in identity exploration. Evidence from qualitative studies illustrates the potential benefits of organized activities to facilitate identity development and personal exploration. Because extracurricular activities are