Is Unstructured, Repetitive Kid Activity A Waste Of Time? A Teacher and Parent’s Perspective
Last Tuesday, I leaned against the brick wall outside my 7-year-old son Leo’s elementary school, picking goldfish crumbs out of my jacket pocket and waiting for dismissal. His art teacher spotted me and waved me over, brushing clay dust off her apron. “Leo’s such a sweet kid,” she started, and I braced for the same update I get once a semester—too much talking during instruction, can’t remember to put his name on his paper. Instead she said, “Every free choice period, he just sits at the back table and folds paper cranes. Ten, fifteen of them, week after week. He won’t join the murals, won’t mess with clay. I don’t want to shut it down, but I had to ask: do you think this is a waste of his time?”
Right then, Leo came barrelling out of the line, clutching a crumpled handful of origami. One was for me, he said, one was for Mabel our cat, one was for the crossing guard who always gave him extra lollipops. I stuffed mine in my purse and thanked the teacher, told her I’d think about it. On the drive home, I thought about the conversation I’d had two weeks earlier with a parent of one of my fourth grade students. Her daughter spent every free reading period drawing doodles in the margins of her graphic novels instead of “actually reading,” she told me, voice tight with worry. Is this just a waste of time, she asked me. Should I make her stop and focus on the book?
I’ve been teaching fourth grade for 12 years, and I’ve had this question in my own head more times than I can count. When Leo finished his homework last month and spent an hour sorting his rock collection by shade instead of practicing his piano like we’d agreed, I stood in the hallway outside his room biting my tongue, thinking the same thing. We’re all told over and over that every minute of a kid’s day should be productive: building literacy, honing a skill, working toward some milestone. It’s easy to see any activity that doesn’t come with a clear end product or visible progress as waste.
A few years back, I started changing how I used my classroom’s free period. I used to fill every gap with extra math problems or silent reading, anything to avoid “wasted time.” What I noticed over time was that the kids who gravitated to these so-called pointless activities weren’t just being lazy. They were resetting. Leo started folding cranes right after we moved last fall, when he was waking up with stomach aches every night from stress. I almost made him stop after he went through a whole pack of my good printer paper in one weekend, until I noticed how quiet his hands got when he folded. After 15 minutes of folding, he’d be able to talk about how scared he was to make new friends, how much he missed his old house. He couldn’t do that before. His brain was too busy.
I asked Leo on that drive home last Tuesday what he liked about folding cranes in art class. He picked at a sticker on his sneakers and said, “Art comes after math, remember? Math makes my brain feel all squished and big. Folding is just… easy. I don’t have to think about anything. By the time recess comes, my brain is not squished anymore.” That’s it, that’s the whole reason. No grand plan, no hidden skill he’s working on, just a little reset for his overloaded brain.
I don’t tell parents to just let their kids do anything no matter what, of course. If the “pointless” activity is cutting into sleep, or they’re skipping assignments to fold cranes, or it’s hurting other people, that’s a different story. But when it’s downtime, free choice, the gaps between scheduled activities? There are three small things I’ve started doing, that other parents and teachers can try too, instead of jumping to shut it down.
First, I just watch for a week, and jot one quick note a day about when the activity happens. Is it after a hard test? After a long day of school? Is your kid calm and ready for the next thing after they do it, or frustrated and stuck? For the mom who was worried about the margin doodles, we checked: her daughter finished every reading assignment, and drew only after she was done. After drawing, she could answer every question about the book easier than when she went straight to talking about it. She was processing what she read, not wasting time.
Second, ask the kid a simple, curious question: “What do you like about doing that?” Don’t frame it as criticism, just genuine interest. Most kids, even young ones, can tell you exactly what it does for them. They don’t call it emotional regulation, they call it “my brain feels squishy,” but it’s the same thing.
Third, try leaving it be for a month. A lot of times, when kids don’t have to fight you to keep doing their little activity, they move on when they don’t need it anymore. Leo didn’t need anyone to push him to try something new. Last week, he folded one crane after art, then made a clay nest to set it in, and added it to the class mural. That was his call, not anyone else’s.
Last week was the school’s open house, and I walked through the art room to see Leo’s work. His flock of cranes is taped to the front window, strung into a little mobile three other kids started making after they saw him folding. The art teacher laughed and said she was wrong to worry. I still catch myself thinking the question, though. When my niece spends three hours editing her Roblox avatar instead of working on her summer reading journal, when I see a kid staring out the classroom window instead of doing their extra credit, I still have to pause.
I don’t have a perfect answer for every situation. Sometimes, it really is just distraction. But more often than not, the “waste of time” we’re worried about is just work we can’t see. It’s the quiet work of growing, of resetting, of figuring out how to take care of your own brain when everything else feels loud and overwhelming. I still have that first crumpled crane Leo folded for me after we moved, sitting on my desk. It didn’t teach him any grand life skill. But it got him through a hard month. I can’t call that a waste.
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