Word: hofferth
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...American Academy of Pediatrics protests the ebb of recess, arguing that "undirected play allows children to learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts ..." But most schools--at least 70%--haven't cut recess. And according to the University of Maryland's Sandra Hofferth, who has studied children's time use, while noncomputer playtime has shrunk, kids now spend more hours studying, reading and participating in youth groups, art and other hobbies. Kids also take more time to shop and groom but not to watch TV: Hofferth and her colleagues have found that...
...that we echo the rest of America: a recent University of Michigan study determined that kids' free time had decreased 16% in a single generation. After asking 1,900 kids, ages 3 to 13, to keep a 24-hour diary (the little ones got help from parents), researcher Sandra Hofferth found that free time decreased dramatically from 1981 to 1997, from 63 hours a week to a mere...
When I expected researcher Hofferth to commiserate, however, I was wrong. "There's no evidence that the decline in free time is bad," she said gently. In fact, she added, taking part in sports improves kids' academic test scores and reduces behavior problems. This view bucked conventional wisdom (i.e., mine), so I sought a second opinion. But Marion O'Brien, who teaches human development at the University of Kansas, concurred with Hofferth, saying, "If children enjoy lessons and activities, they gain skills and confidence...
...Children are affected by the same time crunch that affects their parents," says Sandra Hofferth, the sociologist who headed the study. A chief reason, she says, is that more mothers are working outside the home. (Nevertheless, children in both dual-income and "male breadwinner" households spent comparable amounts of time interacting with their parents, 19 hours and 22 hours respectively. In contrast, children spent only 9 hours with their single mothers...