Is Unstructured Play A Waste Of Time? What I Learned As A Mom And Elementary Teacher
The lukewarm teacher’s lounge coffee in my hand was starting to sweat through the paper cup last Tuesday, when I was covering drop-in conferences for our second grade teacher, and Jax’s dad pulled me off to the side by the block shelf. He nodded toward his son, who was hunched over a pile of cardboard tubes and masking tape, rearranging the same stack for the third straight afternoon that week. “Is this just a waste of time?” he asked, quiet enough that Jax couldn’t hear. “We know he’s a little behind on his reading fluency benchmarks. Every time I turn around, he’s messing around with stuff like this instead of doing worksheets or flashcards. Am I wrong for thinking this time could be better spent?”
I nodded, because I’ve been that parent. Just last year, my own 8-year-old son Leo spent every single afternoon after school digging a hole in the far corner of our backyard. It rained one week, he’d bail the water out. He’d bring home old shovels from the garage sale down the street, dig a little deeper. I’d stand on the back porch, staring at the clock, ticking off all the things he should be doing: practicing multiplication facts, finishing his reading log, cleaning his room. I kept telling him the hole was a waste of time, that he was just getting dirty and falling behind. I almost filled it in while he was at school one day.
Then I went out there one evening to yell at him for dinner, and he grabbed my hand and pulled me down to his level, pointing at the different layers of dirt under the grass. He showed me the clay he’d found, explained that he was digging down to the hard packed soil so he could build a dam that would hold water for the tadpoles he’d caught from the creek down the road. He’d gotten the idea from a book he’d checked out of the library on his own, just because he was curious about holes. I stood there in the mud for 10 minutes, covered in dirt, and realized I hadn’t asked him what he was doing once. I’d just decided it was a waste before I even knew.
I led Jax’s dad over to the block shelf, and we stood quiet a few feet back so we didn’t interrupt. Jax had a scab on his knee and a dinosaur band-aid on his thumb from the playground that morning, and he’d prop one tube up against the bin, step back, squint, adjust it, and drop a marble from the top to test. I counted 12 tries in the 5 minutes we watched. Every time the marble fell off halfway, he didn’t throw a fit or walk away. He just pulled the tape off, shifted the tube half an inch closer to the one next to it, and tried again. He was building a roller coaster for the pet gecko he brings to show-and-tell every month—he wanted to set it up inside the gecko’s tank so the gecko could crawl through it.
When he finally got the marble all the way to the bottom, he turned around and noticed his dad, and lit up. He walked him through every adjustment he’d made, explained that if the top was too steep, the marble went too fast and jumped off, and if the bottom was too flat, it stopped before the end. His dad asked him how he figured that out, and Jax said he’d watched a short video about roller coasters over the weekend, then tried it his own way.
We walked back to the conference table, and his dad said he had no idea Jax had put that much thought into it. I told him what I tell most parents who ask me that question: when we see our kids doing something that doesn’t look like schoolwork, our first question is usually “is this a waste of time?” But nine times out of ten, if you just stop and watch for two minutes, you’ll see they’re practicing the exact skills we say we want them to have. Jax’s 12 tries? That’s persistence, the same persistence he needs to sound out a 3-syllable word he’s never seen before when he’s reading. Figuring out the angle of the tubes? That’s math and problem solving, no worksheet required. Explaining it to his dad? That’s language and communication, that’s way more practice than filling in blanks on a reading sheet.
I don’t tell parents to throw out all their worksheets or skip extra practice for kids who are struggling. I just give them three small things to try, that take almost no extra effort. First, before you decide something is a waste, stop and watch for two full minutes, don’t interrupt. Second, if you need to redirect, ask “what are you working on?” first, before you say it’s time to stop. Third, carve out 15 minutes of non-negotiable self-directed time every day, no matter what. Even if they have homework to finish, even if they’re behind on a goal. It doesn’t sound like much, but that 15 minutes lets their brain rest, and they actually focus better when it’s time to do academic work.
After the conference, I thought about Leo’s hole again. It ended up getting filled in a few months later when we put a new fence in, and he complained for two days, then moved on to collecting rocks. I still catch myself some days, when he’s rearranging his rock collection instead of starting homework, or building a Lego set when he’s supposed to be practicing piano, and my first thought is still “is this a waste of time?”
Last week, Jax’s dad sent me a quick text. He said he skipped the extra 30 minutes of reading practice he’d scheduled that Tuesday, and let Jax work on his roller coaster after school. After dinner, Jax pulled out his library book about lizards and read three chapters out loud to him, because he wanted to figure out what kind of branches geckos like to climb. He said Jax never reads that much voluntarily.
Yesterday, Leo spent an hour sorting his rocks by how much they sparkle instead of starting his social studies worksheet. I almost walked over and told him to put them away. Instead, I leaned against the doorway and watched him explain to his little sister why amethyst is his favorite. When he was done, he put the rocks away and finished his worksheet in 20 minutes, no arguing, no dragging his feet. I still don’t always get it right. Some days I’m still rushed, still worried about benchmarks and deadlines and checklists. But I’m trying to stop asking if it’s a waste of time first, and just look a little closer.
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