Kids
whose time is less structured are better able to meet their own goals, study
shows
Children who
spend more time in less structured activities -- from playing outside to
reading books to visiting the zoo -- are better able to set their own goals and
take actions to meet those goals without prodding from adults, according to a
new study by the University of Colorado Boulder.
The study, published
online in the journal Frontiers
in Psychology, also found that children who participate in more structured
activities -- including soccer practice, piano lessons and homework -- had
poorer "self-directed executive function," a measure of the ability
to set and reach goals independently.
Executive function during childhood also predicts important
outcomes, like academic performance, health, wealth and criminality, years and
even decades later."
The study is one of the
first to try to scientifically grapple with the question of how an increase in
scheduled, formal activities may affect the way children's brains develop.
Munakata said a debate
about parenting philosophy -- with extremely rigid "tiger moms" on
one side and more elastic "free-range" parents on the other -- has
played out in the media and on parenting blogs in recent years. But there is
little scientific evidence to support claims on either side of the discussion.
Jane Barker, a
CU-Boulder doctoral student working with Munakata and lead author of the study,
said, "These are societally important questions that come up quite often
in social commentary and casual conversations among parents. So it's important
to conduct research in this area, even if the questions are messy and not easy
to investigate."
For the study, parents
of 70 6-year-olds recorded their children's daily activities for a week. The
scientists then categorized those activities as either more structured or less
structured, relying on existing time-use classifications already used in scientific
literature by economists.
"These were the
best and the most rigorous classifications we could find," Barker said.
"They still fail to capture the degree of structure within specific
activities, but we thought that was the best starting point because we wanted
to connect this with prior work."
In that classification
system, structured activities include chores, physical lessons, non-physical
lessons and religious activities. Less-structured activities include free play
alone and with others, social outings, sightseeing, reading and media time.
Activities that did not count in either category include sleeping, eating
meals, going to school and commuting.
The children also were
evaluated for self-directed executive function with a commonly used verbal fluency
test.
The results showed that
the more time children spent in less structured activities, the better their
self-directed executive function. Conversely, the more time children spent in
more structured activities the poorer their self-directed executive function.
Because some of the
existing time-use categories might not reflect the real amount of structure
involved in an activity, the researchers also did several rounds of
recalculation after removing categories that were questionable. In each case
the findings still held.
For example, the time-use categories classify media
screen time as unstructured, but the degree of structure depends on whether a
child is watching a movie or playing a video game. However, when media time was
removed from the data, the results were the same.
"This isn't
perfect, but it's a first step," said Munakata. "Our results are
really suggestive and intriguing. Now we'll see if it holds up as we push
forward and try to get more information."
The researchers
emphasize that their results show a correlation between time use and
self-directed executive function, but they don't prove that the change in
self-directed executive function was caused by the amount of structured or
unstructured time. The team is already considering a longitudinal study, which
would follow participants over time, to begin to answer the question of cause.
Story Source:
The above story is
based on materials provided
by University of Colorado at
Boulder. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal
Reference:
1.
Jane E. Barker, Andrei D. Semenov, Laura Michaelson, Lindsay S.
Provan, Hannah R. Snyder, Yuko Munakata. Less-structured
time in children's daily lives predicts self-directed executive functioning. Frontiers in Psychology,
2014; 5 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00593
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University of Colorado at
Boulder. "Kids whose time is less structured are better able to meet their
own goals, study shows." Science Daily, 18 June 2014.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140618122307.htm>.
