Activities that enrich youth may harm mental health, study says

In a new study from the University of Georgia, researchers found that the amount of time high school students spend on so-called enrichment activities, such as tutoring, sports, school clubs, and even homework, is having a negative impact on their mental health. The study also found that additional enrichment activities were unlikely to benefit students’ academic performance.

While the ideal number of study hours varies by student, researchers found that adding enrichment activities is unlikely to benefit students. While many believe that additional study time and tutoring will lead to improved test scores and grades, this research shows that students have already reached their limit. Further “enrichment” will bring negative profits.

“We found that the effect of extra activity in the last hour on cognitive performance was essentially zero,” said study co-author Carolina Cayetano, assistant professor of economics in the UGA Terry College of Business. ” he said. “And what’s even more surprising is that the last hour of these activities negatively impacts children’s non-cognitive skills.”

Non-cognitive skills include emotional regulation and well-being, and are associated with resilience and communication skills. When looking at how teens spend their time and how that impacts their cognitive and academic skills as well as their non-cognitive and social-emotional skills, Caetano found that most of high school students said that while they were maximizing the academic benefits of these activities, they were actively losing out on social-emotional skills.

Caetano said it’s best to think of the relationship between reinforcement activities and these skills as a curve. For a while, an additional hour of study, tutoring, or formal activities can help students acquire more skills and climb the academic curve. However, there are only a limited number of hours in a day, and the more time students spend on enriching activities, the more time they can spend on non-fulfilling activities such as relaxing, socializing freely, and sleeping. Time will be reduced.

These less enriching activities are also valuable for the retention of life skills and knowledge. If children don’t get enough rest, they may lose some of their academic skills because they won’t be able to retain what they’ve learned. They can also lose social-emotional gains because they don’t get enough social training or are stressed out. Eventually, losses and gains will be equal, and the gains from enrichment will be maximized.

At this point, most students have reached the top of the achievement curve, and any further enrichment will result in a decline in achievement. Additionally, that time took away activities that promote social-emotional skills. This is harmful and can cause anxiety, depression, and outbursts if overextended. Essentially, students would have done better in non-cognitive skills if they had scaled back on reinforcement activities, Caetano said.

“You’re maximizing what you can get out of the job academically,” she said. “But on the non-cognitive skills curve, we’ve crossed the maximum and entered the downward part of the curve. At that point, we’re losing social-emotional skills.”

Psychologists and educators have been highlighting the potential harms of overscheduling for years, Caetano said, and this paper provides solid causal evidence to back up their claims. It is said that they are doing so.

Opportunity to reduce children’s schedules

The study used detailed data from 4,300 children from kindergarten through high school. Data were collected in the Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study on Income Dynamics.

Researchers studied three age groups: elementary school students, middle school students, and high school students. High school students are facing the worst of the situation, but that doesn’t mean younger students are okay, Caetano said. They are at the top of the curve, meaning they will face negative returns if they get any richer, she said.

“When you look at middle school and elementary school students, the return on cognitive and non-cognitive skills is zero,” she says. “They’re not in negative territory yet, but further work could negatively impact them.”

If anything, Cayetano said young students should view their status as an opportunity to develop more social and non-academic skills. Freeing up children’s schedules and allowing them to enjoy more free time could lead to emotional regulation skills that will later help them cope with the hectic college preparation schedules that high school students face.

“Non-cognitive skills are very important, but people don’t always think about them because they’re difficult to measure,” she said. “They are important not only for future well-being but also for professional success.”

open up a conversation

Caetano acknowledges that finding solutions to overscheduling is a complex process. Free time with other children is important for children to develop non-cognitive skills, but some parents may worry about depriving their children of more measurably enriching activities.

But the benefits of developing lifelong skills may prove to be more important.

“Reducing children’s activities may lead to a small setback in children’s cognitive skills, but the loss in non-cognitive skills is already so great that that possibility may be worth it.” Caetano said.

Furthermore, this point becomes meaningless unless a significant number of parents agree to the change. If it is not widely adopted, children who move away from enriching activities will have no one to play with to help them acquire non-cognitive skills.

“There’s something very unideal about thinking about this as an individual problem. What we have here is a social problem,” Caetano said. “Parents can only do so much.”

Although the study doesn’t give a perfect number of quality time, Caetano says parents need to continually assess not only their child’s mental health, but also their own.

“It varies from family to family, so my advice would be that if there are signs that you’re overextending yourself as a family, you’re probably on the negative side of the curve and you should scale back,” she said. Said. “If you’re always scheduled every time someone calls you for a playdate, you’re obviously overscheduled.”

The paper will be published in a magazine Educational Economics Review.