Wexler, E. (2014, July 02). Study: Too Many Structured Activities May Hinder Children’s Executive Functioning. Retrieved March 13, 2019.

When children spend more time in structured activities, they get worse at working toward goals, making decisions, and regulating their behavior, according to a study. Instead, kids might learn more when they have the responsibility to decide for themselves what they’re going to do with their time. Psychologists at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver studied the schedules of 70 six-year olds, and they found that the kids who spent more time in less-structured activities had more highly-developed self-directed executive function.