Child psychologist, David Elkind, author of The Hurried Child , notes that children who are constantly structured and directed by achievement oriented parents are likely to show symptoms of severe stress. It is increasingly common, in fact, to find children resisting new structured activities. I just want to relax. Similar reports from other parents of normally active children lead to the question of whether children are feeling some of the same stresses and time pressures their parents are. Pelligrini also finds that extended recess time, beyond some optimum, is likely to be counterproductive for subsequent classroom attention.
Any parent recognizes that tendency of children to take any activity to excess.
But to deny children choice in the matter altogether would seem to be inconsistent with teaching them to shape their own lives. For children with too little structure in their free time the problem is considerably different. These children may have the time and freedom for play and work, but with few resources and opportunities available, an adaptive repertoire of skills and interests is not likely to develop. According to a study by Elliott Medrich and his associates at the University of California Berkeley, children from lower socioeconomic conditions, especially urban children, rarely have the availability of recreational options, in terms of people, places and physical resources, that middle and upper SES children do. Opportunities to develop leisure skills that facilitate self-directed activities remain inequitably distributed in the population.