Every parent wants the best for their child, but how each parent goes about defining what is best differs largely. Our eldest is almost five, and he is pretty much the only one of his friends who does not attend any extracurricular activities. This is partly because he refuses to attend any organised classes, partly because my husband, especially, feels he is too young to attend such classes, and partly because I have doubts about their benefits. If a child enjoys these activities, then I see no problem with them, but so much depends on the quality and patience of the teacher. No child learned to read by attending an hour-long phonics class once a week. The classes are just a part of the process; much still needs to be done at home with Mummy and Daddy.

It is hard, however, not to succumb to the pressures of being a parent in Hong Kong. There seems to be an unspoken rule that not sending your children to as many classes as can fit into their after-school schedule is failing them in some way. Well, I beg to differ.

Our children live busy and rich lives even without spending their spare hours in music or drawing classes. They have many friends and lots of play dates. My son refuses to attend an official swimming class but swims like a fish. He won't join a football class but will happily organise his friends in the park into a football or rugby match. He won't even let me raise the possibility of attending a phonics class, but he loves to sit and listen to bedtime stories and will read a story to his younger siblings when the fancy takes him. Attempts to get him to try a Putonghua class have failed, but he loves to count and sing in Putonghua. He attended a great kindergarten, and it has instilled in him a love of learning, which I think is a far more important quality to have at his age than the number of facts he can recite.

From my experience, you cannot push children to learn something before they are ready. In the same way that you can't make a baby walk before they are developmentally ready, you can't force a toddler to read, or a preschooler to write and spell. Boys are particularly sensitive to forced learning.

My son, like a lot of active four-year-olds, prefers not to practise his writing and reading. He'd much rather be using his Transformers to fight a stimulated battle against each other, or setting his toy knights up to wage war on each other. He'd much rather be practising diving into the swimming pool and retrieving pebbles from the bottom, or making giant sandcastles on the beach.

Striking a balance between having him practise his reading and writing so that he improves versus his often extreme reluctance to sit at the table with a pencil in his hand can often seem to be an impossible task. Bribery always works, but I don't want him to write because he has been promised a new Star Wars figure; I want him to write because he loves to write. I don't want him to read me a story because I have threatened no play date in the afternoon if he doesn't; I want him to read for the love of reading. It is one of the biggest challenges I have yet to face as a parent, and I am reluctant to push him into organised classes that he doesn't enjoy in case they put him off learning.

But there comes a time when you have to admit defeat. Sometimes children are just not ready for whatever activity or skill you want them to learn. I started taking our daughter to ballet lessons when she was 18 months old. The sight of her in her pink leotard, tutu and tiny ballet shoes used to fill me with delight, and, if I am completely honest, part of the reason I sent her was that she looked as cute as a mini-ballerina. And at first she enjoyed it; the classes were more music and movement than any actual ballet and she had a fun time singing and dancing along. Her interest soon waned, however, and after the fifth week of Mummy doing all the actions while she lay on the floor on her tummy refusing to join in, I realised that I had neither the energy nor the desire to keep going. She didn't want to be there, so why on earth was I insisting she be there?

We live in a vibrant, ambitious city that offers our children many different, unique and rewarding activities and educational opportunities. We can engage them in those but at the same time involve them in the wider world around them. We can teach them that being a part of a community and of a society is as important as passing exams and memorising facts. And if we can teach them to be good people who are well-rounded and have the confidence to take risks and to think creatively, then it no longer matters how they earn a living. I was always a very academic child and teenager, and have the certificates to prove it. Yet the greatest joy I have found has come from my family. There is no class to teach that.

Rebecca Tomasis was co-winner last year of the inaugural Proverse Prize for unpublished writing