Bringing common sense with a grain of salt back to parenting!
Mistake: Believing kids must always be “productive” instead of just… being kids.
Why: “Because clearly the neighbor’s 8-year-old is ahead in the Global Lego Olympics.”
Reality Check: Play is not wasted time — it’s the original classroom.
We’ve somehow convinced ourselves that every minute of a child’s life needs purpose, structure, and achievement. Soccer practice, Mandarin tutoring, coding camp, piano lessons — all before dinner. The humble act of “just playing” has been rebranded as lazy, unproductive, or even dangerous. In reality, things are very simple, and play has an essential role in a child's development. Free play is how kids learn creativity, resilience, and joy. When we cut it out, we’re not protecting them. We’re robbing them of the most natural form of growth they’ll ever have.
THE ISSUE
Remember when kids used to knock on the door and ask, “Can you come out and play?” Now, if they said that, half of us would check our calendars, ask for a two-week lead time, and confirm whether it counted toward extracurricular credit.
In today’s world, childhood looks like this:
Weekday afternoons: Math enrichment, violin, soccer, homework, dance class.
Weekends: Language tutoring, robotics club, Girl Scouts, basketball.
Play: If there’s a spare 27 minutes between carpool and bedtime, maybe.
Free play — the aimless, creative, sometimes chaotic kind where kids make up rules, break them, and start over — has been downgraded to filler. Even when children engage in it, parents are not entirely sure that their child is not missing out on important developmental and learning opportunities, and they mutter, “Shouldn’t they be doing something more… useful?”
We fear wasted time. And so they pack the schedule until “fun” is just one of many bullet points on it.
WHY PARENTS DO THIS
Not so long ago “free play” meant playing all day, every day. Creativity bloomed out of boredom. Summers equalled bikes, sprinklers, tree climbing, garage bands. Parents didn’t hover: if kids came home at dusk with all their limbs attached, it was considered OK.
Now ... boredom is treated like a contagious disease. Kids are enrolled in “creativity workshops” that come with PowerPoints and snack breaks. Summers are spent in enrichment camps with “learning outcomes.”
Why so many parents turn childhood into a resume, forgetting that the “skills” thay brag about often grow best in unstructured dirt piles? Of course, nobody does this because they want to deny their child important developmental opportunities. On the contrary, parents do it because they want the best for their children. And because of:
Productivity Obsession. We live in a world where even adults feel guilty for sitting still. If we can’t watch Netflix without folding laundry, no wonder we expect our kids to multitask joy.
Competition Culture. Every other parent seems to be raising the next Olympic athlete / chess prodigy / violin virtuoso. If your kid is just… riding a bike in circles? Panic.
Safety Anxiety. Free play often means unsupervised play, which triggers modern-parent alarms: What if they fall? What if they fight? What if they eat dirt? What if they encounter a bloodthirsty rabid hedgehog in the grass?
Guilt Substitution. Busy parents rationalize: If I can’t spend a ton of time with them, at least I’ll make the time they have “productive.”
Tech Temptation. We fear that left alone, kids will just sit on tablets for hours. So instead of teaching balance, we overschedule structure.
HOW THIS HARMS CHILDREN (AND US)
The vanishing of unstructured free play has a wide range of consequences:
Creativity Gets Crushed. Free play is the birthplace of imagination. Over-schedule kids, and they learn to follow instructions, not invent new ones.
Independence Stalls. Play without adults teaches decision-making, negotiation, and leadership. When every game has a referee (you), kids never practice those muscles.
Resilience Weakens. Free play includes falls, fights, and failures. Those are not bugs — they’re features. Without them, kids miss low-stakes practice for real-life resilience.
Fun Feels Conditional. If every activity has a goal (fitness, skill-building, resume-padding), kids learn joy only counts if it’s productive.
Connection Suffers. Some of the best parent-child bonds form in spontaneous silliness — not scheduled “bonding activities.”
Anxiety when there's lack of structure. Kids raised without free play often grow into adults who feel anxiety or/and panic without constant structure, and can’t enjoy a lazy Saturday without wondering if they should be “achieving something.”
AVOIDING THE TRAP
What can we do to ensure free play maintains its role in the life and development of children?
Rebrand “Boredom” as Opportunity. Instead of panicking when your kid says, “I’m bored,”treat it as the starter pistol for creativity. (Being bored might be a great opportunity for a child to transform a laundry basket into a spaceship, complete with duct-tape controls ... not to mention that such afternoon of “nothing” beat any enrichment camp.)
Schedule Unscheduled Time. Ironically, sometimes you need to calendar play. Block one or two afternoons a week where nothing is planned. Tell them: “This is your time. No classes. No chores. Just be.”
Set the Stage, Then Step Back. Create safe spaces for exploration: a backyard, a basement fort, a pile of art supplies. Provide the ingredients, then resist the urge to direct the recipe.
Resist the Productivity Creep. Not everything needs a measurable outcome. If your child spends an hour building a Lego tower that collapses? That’s still success. Don’t turn every hobby into a future college essay.
Let Conflict Happen. Free play often devolves into arguments: “You’re not playing fair!” That’s okay. Learning to resolve disputes among themselves is half the point. Stay nearby, but don’t referee every squabble.
Model Play Yourself. Adults who never play raise kids who don’t value it. Show them silly, aimless fun: dance in the kitchen, build your own pillow fort, doodle with no plan. It gives them permission to value fun for fun’s sake.
Embrace “Good Enough” Safety. Yes, helmets for bikes. Yes, sunscreen. But you don’t need a five-point safety briefing for hide-and-seek. Scraped knees heal. Missing out on play leaves bigger scars.
Celebrate Playful Memories. At bedtime, instead of asking “What did you learn today?”try “What made you laugh today?” It reinforces that joy is just as worthy as achievement.
MISTAKES TO AVOID
Over-structuring every minute.
Treating boredom like a problem to solve.
Hijacking play into productivity (“Your Lego tower is great! This will help with engineering someday!”).
Refereeing every sibling squabble.
Equating scraped knees with parental failure.
THE PAYOFF
When you loosen your grip on productivity and let kids play:
They can flourish. Creativity, resilience, independence — all born in unstructured moments.
You can relax. Fewer frantic carpools, more time to breathe.
The bond deepens. Shared laughter and silly memories stick far longer than trophies.
The thing is the “unproductive” afternoons of free play often yield the most “productive” outcomes of all — problem-solving, teamwork, joy. Years from now, when our children will be looking back, they won’t remember the perfectly scheduled calendar. They’ll remember the fort, the muddy adventures, the times we let them just be.
So free play is not wasted time. It's the essence of childhood and treasure trove of the best learning moments.
© Kristijan Musek Lešnik, 2025
