Playtime. Downtime. Family time.

According to Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, these three factors — or PDF as she calls them — protect kids against a host of negative outcomes, strengthen resilience, and bolster students’ mental wellness and academic engagement. 

Pope is co-founder of Challenge Success, a Stanford-based organization that works with families and schools to redefine and embrace a broader definition of success and promote student well-being. In a recent interview with KQED’s Forum, Pope shared her suggestions for raising resilient, ethical and motivated learners. 

Make Time for Downtime

Pope says the research is clear, “Every kid needs PDF every day.” It is critical for the mental health of children, but it often gets lost in all the pressures and hustle and bustle of schools. Even extracurriculars such as sports, which adults perceive as downtime, can generate a lot of pressure.

Pope understands the trend toward overscheduling children as a way to keep kids supervised while families are juggling work schedules. However, she says, keeping kids busy with supervised activities is “to the detriment of what we know kids need for healthy development, which is free, unstructured playtime.”

“Years and years ago people used to say, go outside and don’t come home until it’s dark,” says Pope, and while that’s not feasible for most families, she encourages parents to explore activities that maximize playtime and downtime, such as sending kids to a park with one adult to keep an eye on things, utilizing free open gym times at recreation centers, or choosing after-school care that allows for kid-directed play. 

According to research, extracurricular activities that “used to be a stress-buster” have now become key sources of stress, particularly if a child is engaged in an extracurricular activity because parents “are making them or because they want to please you.”  For some teenagers, extracurricular obligations almost become a full-time job on top of school and homework and she says that’s just not healthy. 

One way to give children more agency over their lives is by asking them what they want to explore before signing them up for classes and activities, says Pope. If you allow them to pursue their interests, it will increase their motivation. Remember, 10-year-olds “don’t need to specialize.“

Each fall Pope teams up with the Stanford Dean of Students to share this message with parents of incoming freshman: “Let your child major in what they want to major in. It’s much more important for them to be excited and interested in what they are going to be studying — they are going to do better and learn more — than to slog through a major that you think is going to lead them to a better job. It turns out that interest and motivation, what we call engagement with learning, is going to lead them to do much better in that field and prepare them for a wide variety of professions.”

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