If you’ve been reading along with our AHK Summer Book Club this season, you already know where we’re going with this. But I’m Bored! by Lizzie Assa makes a convincing case that boredom isn’t something to fix but rather something to protect.
As we head into fall and start filling up the calendar again with sports and activities and lessons and clubs and homework and should we continue…? There are so many things and that’s why we should sit with that message for a minute. Research backs up how important it is for our kids to have unstructured time to play.
The Study That Changed How We Think About “Free Time”
In 2014, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder published a landmark study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology that asked a simple but important question: does the amount of structured versus unstructured time in a child’s day actually affect how their brain develops?
They tracked the daily schedules of 70 six-year-olds for a week, carefully categorizing activities as either structured (think soccer practice, piano lessons, homework) or unstructured (free outdoor play, reading, creative time, visits to the zoo). Then they measured each child’s “self-directed executive function” or the ability to set a goal and take independent action to reach it without an adult prompting them.
The results were striking: the more time children spent in less structured activities, the better their self-directed executive function. The reverse was also true: the more structured their days, the poorer their ability to independently set and pursue their own goals.
“Executive function is extremely important for children,” said Professor Yuko Munakata, the study’s senior author. “It helps them in all kinds of ways throughout their daily lives, from flexibly switching between different activities rather than getting stuck on one thing, to stopping themselves from yelling when angry, to delaying gratification. Executive function during childhood also predicts important outcomes, like academic performance, health, wealth and criminality, years and even decades later.”
Read that again: the ability to set goals and pursue them independently is predicted not by how many enrichment activities a child does, but by how much unscheduled time they have.
Why This Happens in the Brain
There’s actually a neurological reason why unstructured time produces these outcomes.
When a child is left without a task, a screen, or an adult directing what comes next, the brain’s default mode network activates. This is the system associated with imagination, self-reflection, empathy, future planning, and creative problem-solving — the kind of thinking that doesn’t happen on command, but emerges when the brain is given room to wander. We’ve written about this in depth before on our blog, and the science is consistent: the moments that look like “nothing” are often some of the most productive developing brain experiences.
There’s also a separate body of research connecting free play specifically to creativity. A 2026 meta-analysis published in Thinking Skills and Creativity which pulled together decades of studies, found robust evidence that play is a meaningful driver of creative development in children. A 2025 study in Scientific Reports found that even short playful interactions improved executive function performance in children aged 6 to 10. And a longitudinal study tracking toddlers and preschoolers over several years found that free play predicted better self-regulation not just immediately, but years down the line.
The picture that emerges from all of this research is consistent: unstructured play isn’t a break from development. It is development.
What Gets Lost When the Schedule Gets Too Full
The 2014 CU Boulder study is notable partly because it was one of the first to tackle the question scientifically but the concern it raised has only grown more urgent in the decade since.
Children’s schedules have gotten more packed, not less. The default in many households is that every free block gets filled with another structured program. The cultural message to parents is that a full calendar is an attentive one. That if you’re not optimizing your child’s time, you’re leaving something on the table.
Here’s what gets left on the table when unstructured time disappears:
- Self-direction. A child who is always told what to do next never has to figure it out for themselves. That muscle deteriorates so the kid who spends their whole childhood in structured activities can struggle profoundly when structure disappears.
- Conflict resolution. Unsupervised free play is where kids negotiate, argue and compromise without an adult referee. Those skills are built kid-to-kid on the playground, not in a classroom.
- Intrinsic motivation. When learning is always organized by adults, children can lose touch with what they actually find interesting. Free time is where passions get discovered. The kid who spends a whole afternoon building something elaborate because they decided to is building a relationship with their own curiosity that structured activities rarely produce.
- Tolerance for discomfort. Boredom can get uncomfortable. Learning to sit with that discomfort, and move through it toward something self-generated, is a skill. Children who are never bored never build it and that has lasting consequences.
“But I’m Bored!” Is the Beginning, Not the Problem
The central insight in Lizzie Assa’s book is that being bored is not a crisis to be solved but a signal that something good is about to happen IF parents let it. That’s a good reminder heading back into the school year.
The instinct to fix boredom immediately is understandable. But you have to let that 20-minute window of restlessness before a child finds their footing happen. Short-circuiting it with a screen or a structured activity gives your kids an easy out before they are forced to work out the problem.
One of the most developmentally useful responses a parent can give to “I’m bored” is a calm, un-panicked: “I hear you. What do you think you could do about that?” It redirects ownership back where it belongs (to the child) while also communicating something important: I trust you to figure this out.
That trust, extended consistently over time, is how kids build confidence in their own ability to generate, create, and self-direct.
So What Does This Actually Look Like?
Protecting unstructured time doesn’t mean clearing the entire calendar. It means being intentional about leaving space with no obligations. A few practical anchors:
- Guard at least one unscheduled afternoon per week. No plan, no screentime as the default. Let it be boring at first. Something will emerge.
- Say no to the next activity. If your child is already in three things, think hard before adding a fourth. The marginal benefit of one more structured program is almost always lower than the benefit of free time.
- Let the mess happen. Unstructured play often looks chaotic — couch cushion forts, elaborate games with made-up rules, art projects that take over the kitchen table. That chaos is an engaged brain at work so resist the urge to tidy it too fast.
- Go outside with no agenda. Nature + unstructured time = one of the most powerful combinations for creative, restorative play. It doesn’t have to be a hike. The backyard with a stick and a bucket counts.
As we wrap up the summer and start thinking about September, it’s worth asking not just what your child’s fall schedule looks like, but what it doesn’t look like. Where is the white space? Where does your kid have permission to just be a kid and be bored, to figure it out, to surprise themselves with what they come up with?
It’s the important conclusion Lizzie Assa builds toward throughout But I’m Bored! – boredom, handled right, can be one of the things that makes childhood great.