A new study from the University of Georgia finds that the amount of time high schools spend on enrichment activities such as tutoring, sports, school clubs and homework is having a negative impact on students' mental health. The study found that additional enrichment activities were unlikely to benefit students' academic performance, according to a UGA press release.
While it is commonly believed that additional study time and tutoring will improve test scores and grades, this study shows that students have already reached their limits, the release said. Additional reinforcement activities have a negative impact on students.
“We found that extra activity during the last hour had zero effect on cognitive performance,” said study co-author Carolina Cayetano, assistant professor of economics in UGA's Terry College of Business. “, he said in a statement. “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 related to resilience and communication skills. Caetano said that while most high school students reap the most academic benefits from these activities, they are also losing out on social-emotional skills.
An extra hour of study, tutoring, or formal activities is said to help students acquire more skills and climb the academic curve. However, there are only so many hours in a day, and the more time students spend on enrichment activities, the less time they can spend on non-enrichment activities such as relaxing, socializing, and sleeping. It will decrease.
These non-enriching activities are important life skills. If children don't get enough rest, they won't be able to retain what they've learned, which can hurt their academic progress. They can also lose out on social-emotional benefits due to lack of social habits or being stressed out. Research shows that eventually losses and gains equalize, maximizing the profits from these enrichment activities.
At this point in most students' careers, they are at the top of the academic curve, and any more enrichment activities will cause their academic performance to decline. This can be harmful as overextension can cause anxiety, depression, and outbursts. In other words, students would have been better off cutting back on enrichment activities. Psychologists and educators have been highlighting even the potential harm of overscheduling for years, according to the release.
Opportunity to reduce children's schedules
The study used detailed data from 4,300 children, kindergarten through high school, 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 in the worst situation, but younger students should be more satisfied. They are at the top of the curve, meaning that getting richer any further means facing negative returns.
“When you look at kids in middle school and elementary school, the gains in cognitive and non-cognitive skills are zero,” Caetano said in a statement.
Young student status should be seen as an opportunity to further develop social and non-academic skills. Freeing up your children's schedules and giving them more free time can help them develop emotional control skills that may come in handy when they're busy preparing for college.
open up a conversation
Finding solutions to overscheduling is a complex process. Children need to spend time with other children to develop non-cognitive skills, but parents may worry about taking their children away from more measurably enriching activities.
“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 the possibility may be worth it. No,” Cayetano said in the release.
But if this ideology were widely adopted, children transitioning away from enrichment activities would have someone to play with to build non-cognitive skills.
Although the study doesn't give a perfect number of quality time, Caetano advises parents to continually assess their own and their children's mental health.
“It varies from family to family, so my advice would be if there are signs that you're overextending yourself as a family, you're probably on the negative side of the curve,” Caetano said in the release. “If you're always scheduling every time someone calls you for a playdate, you're clearly overscheduled.”
Avoiding over-scheduling from an early age will help your child cope with a busy schedule as they grow and move on in life.
