Is unstructured free time and play for kids a waste of time? What I learned as a teacher and mom
Last month, I sat across from a mom named Sarah at my fall 2nd grade parent-teacher conference. She leaned forward, tapped my printed weekly schedule taped to the desk, and got straight to the point. “This 45 minutes of daily choice time,” she said. “Is this a waste of time? My son Jax says he just builds Lego or draws every afternoon. Wouldn’t that time be better spent on extra reading or math practice?”
I didn’t give her an answer right away, because I’d asked myself the exact same question only a year earlier, about my own 4th grade son. Back then, I was stressed about his upcoming state math test. He’d come home every day after school, drop his backpack, and pull out a stack of scrap paper to fold origami. For six weeks, he folded the same crane over and over, leaving crumpled missteps scattered all over the kitchen table. Every time I walked by, I’d bite my tongue to keep from saying what I was thinking: This is a waste of time. Why aren’t you doing your multiplication flashcards instead?
Then one night I was clearing the table before dinner, and almost tossed a crumpled half-folded sheet covered in pencil marks. It wasn’t a mistake. It was all measurements. He’d figured out that his sister’s favorite stuffed rabbit was too big for the origami cranes he was making, so he was working out how big the starting square of paper needed to be. He’d calculated half-inches, adjusted for the fold allowance, even did quick fraction work to figure out how much extra paper he’d need for the wings to hold the rabbit’s weight. I stood there staring at that messy sheet of paper, and realized I’d been completely wrong about what he was doing. I was so focused on checking my box of “learning” that I missed the actual learning happening right in front of me.
That’s the thing about the question “is this a waste of time?” We almost always ask it when something doesn’t fit our narrow idea of what productive activity looks like. If it’s not assigned, if it doesn’t have a grade, if it doesn’t lead to a clear skill we can name, we write it off. But over 12 years of teaching elementary school and raising two kids, I’ve learned that most of the things we write off as wasted time are actually where the most durable learning happens.
After the conference, I told Sarah to try one small thing that week instead of pulling Jax away from Lego to do extra worksheets. The next time he was building at the kitchen table after homework, instead of nagging him to get to “real work,” just ask one question: “What are you working on here?” That’s it, no need to turn it into a lesson or join in if he doesn’t want you to, just ask.
Three days later, she sent me a text. She’d asked the question, and Jax had pulled out his entire Lego city to show her. He’d spent two weeks building it: a hospital, a fire station, a grocery store, and a park for his dog figurine. He’d already called his grandma, a retired nurse, to ask what rooms a hospital needed, and written out all the signs for the building himself. He was stuck on how wide to make the main street, because he wanted two fire trucks to be able to pass each other without crashing. He’d spent 40 minutes that afternoon measuring and remeasuring the base, testing different widths with his actual toy trucks. That’s reading, writing, math, problem solving, and asking experts for help—all things we try to teach in school, but he was doing it for his own reason, so it never felt like work.
I still catch myself defaulting to the “waste of time” judgment all the time. Last month, my 12 year old spent a whole rainy Saturday lying on the couch watching TikTok videos of people rearranging their closets and shelves. I stood in the living room doorway, ready to tell him to get off his phone and do something productive, when I remembered the origami cranes. Instead, I just asked what he was watching for. He told me he’d saved up for a new headset and extra controller for his birthday, and his gaming shelf was too crowded. He was looking for ideas for cheap storage bins that would fit in the space he had, and figuring out how to arrange everything so he could reach his most used games without moving half the shelf. That afternoon, he measured the shelf himself, counted out his own allowance money, walked to the dollar store down the street, and came home with exactly what he needed. I never would have taught him how to plan a project, budget his money, and solve a problem he cared about with a 10 question worksheet.
That doesn’t mean every activity that looks unproductive gets a pass. There are still days when my son scrolls mindless 15-second reels for two hours straight after he’s already finished all his projects and chores, and I set a timer and tell him it’s time to do something else. But I’ve stopped leading with the assumption that if it doesn’t look like learning to me, it’s a waste of time.
If you find yourself asking that question a lot, try those small, low-effort shifts I’ve started using. First, pause 10 seconds before you speak. Watch what your kid or student is actually doing, instead of jumping to a conclusion. Second, ask that one simple question: “What are you working on?” It doesn’t require any extra time or planning, just curiosity. Third, if you’re worried about squeezing in too much “productive” time, start small by adding 15 minutes of no-agenda time to your day, no learning outcomes required.
Last week, Jax brought his finished Lego city into class to show me. It’s sitting on the back shelf right now, with handwritten signs and the perfect width main street. I still have that lopsided origami crane my son made, the one that holds his sister’s stuffed rabbit, on my desk. It’s crinkled, the wings don’t line up right, and it took three weeks of what I once thought was wasted time to make. I still catch myself wanting to pack every minute, to make sure every activity has a clear point. But that crane reminds me that the things that look like a waste of time are often the things that stick with them the longest. We just have to stop long enough to see them.
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