Education Week speaker stresses importance of making time for family fun, recreation

PROVO — While Latter-day Saints emphasize the importance of the traditional family as a central tenet of their faith, many spend little actual time together and struggle to make having family fun a meaningful part of their lives.

Brian Hill, professor of recreation management and youth leadership at Brigham Young University, told participants during the annual Campus Education Week that a pilot study of LDS families he accessed through students in his classes on campus found those families spent an average of only 20 minutes per day together.

"That included Saturdays and Sundays as well, and they spent that time eating, most likely. Then dad is off to church meetings, the kids are off to play sports or homework or music lessons. It's not unusual for us not to have a lot of time together."

He said the study showed family members spend an average of two hours per day with at least one other family member, but he thinks it is mostly "moms helping kids with homework or driving them somewhere."

In a workshop that explored overscheduled families, Hill and his wife, Karen, said that since the 1980s, children from 3 to 12 have lost about 12 hours of free time per week, and experienced a 25 percent drop in unstructured play and a 50 percent drop in outdoor activity.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has a move afoot, Hill said, urging college admissions officers to realize "there is a place for kids who are not at the top of the academic heap and aren't in every sport and organization."

"Children's structured sports time has doubled since the 1980s, and time spent on the sidelines watching siblings has increased five-fold," Karen Hill said. Yet one-third of kids participating in organized sports want to quit. "Which are your kids? ... There's no consensus within the medical field that organized sports is valuable for kids 12 and under. They should complement child-driven play, not overwhelm it."

Unorganized, child-driven play develops creativity and imagination, dexterity, physical, cognitive and emotional strength, and healthy brain development. Children who participate in it regularly get experience in conquering fears, cooperation, sharing, negotiating, conflict resolution, self-advocacy skills and self-discovery of interests and passions.

Randal Wright has a doctorate in family studies and works for the LDS Church Education System, particularly with summer programs geared toward teens called Especially for Youth (EFY). He said one of the keys to raising successful children in a worldly environment is making sure they have fun at home.