So much for the "play based childhood", then. (And no, of course assigned sports don't count)

In another thread I mentioned the need for organized (in the sense of same place, same time) unstructured activity. Gather at the basketball court, if practice or a game break out that's good, if not that's OK.

It seems like everyone wins in that scenario, it's healthy but playful and low stress while accommodating parents' need for scheduling.

Is such a thing common? I don't hear about it much.

Agree, its unfortunate that most of the after school sports program start getting to be like prepping for professional/collegiate level sports once they reach high school.

Middle school and junior varsity high school sports coupled with math tutoring is probably enough to keep them busy enough and out of trouble/off social media.

This seems like a solid option. A fair bit of my childhood was like this, actually, and it was great for us. I don't hear about similar things much, but I bet we will eventually.

How different is this from most out of school care? When we've had our kids in what here is called OSHC (out of school hours care or similar), it's been pretty free-form and vaguely supervised. Some kids do art, some muck around on the oval, some roam in nature play (with a supervisor in the general area), some watch a movie.

I guess you're talking about a little bit more organisation - today, muck around with racquets and shuttlecocks, tomorrow muck around with calligraphy brushes and ink.

I always remember once in unstructured art time (1980s, substitute teacher...) around the age of 11-12, we were all nailing together strips of masonite, making cross-shaped projectiles about 500mm across, and then flinging them around the oval. They would've been absolutely deadly if that wasn't shut down!

I think the challenge is that these programs phase out by middle school even though they should really continue to mid-high school. Really people just need a nice space to study, learn, grow, etc.

That's true. By that age, kids can be disruptive and unmanageable. You'd need a far more engaging and hands-on program, that would be a lot more expensive to administer.

I think free range parenting is great in theory and/or if you are writing a book on free range parenting and have dedicated your life to understanding how to do it properly.

For the rest of us - particularly for dual income parents with teenagers who no longer really "play" - there are organized after school activities.

Its really about odds. You won't get outlier results like Bill Gates or <insert other famous person> but on the flip side you won't get a teenager you have to bail out of jail or a teenager pranking people for Tiktok views. You'll get a decent young adult that can earn a decent living and live independently and confidently.

Is he wrong though? If the other kids aren't really playing, what's the point?

Play for the sake of playing toxic social media social games?

this is satire, surely?

Maybe you can ask their teachers to give them more homework? Then they will be too busy with homework to be depressed about being isolated from their peers.