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Hoagies' Blog Hop: The Gift of Free Time

The Gift of Free Time. Do our gifted kids get enough free time? What do they spend their free time doing? Are our lives too organized and regimented these days? How can we give our kids more of the gift of free time?

Our lives, and our kids' lives, are more scheduled today than ever.  School, after-school activities, organized sports, even daycare hours are regimented into subjects, with little time for play.  Whatever happened to summers full of free time?  Read and find out!

Don't miss our previous Blog Hops, including Gifted @Play and Summer Reading.  If you'd like to join our next Blog Hop, visit Blog Hops for our upcoming topics.  Special thanks to Pamela S. Ryan for our striking Blog Hop graphics!

For more on gifted kids free time, particularly time spent in nature, visit Nature and the Gifted Child!
 

The Value of Free Time by Homeschooling Hatters

Quite honestly, I miss our free time. More often than not we hear about how homeschooled children need more social opportunities. However, this is ridiculous. I'd be okay if I weren't coaching. But honestly, this is just too much. There are far too many activities, and I can't keep up with them all. We're running out the door half-prepared for things because we're not sure where we're going. But what's really been missing is the downtime...
 

The gift of free time by Jo on Sprite's Site

“I am getting SO BORED!” she told Paula.

"We will talk about the whole topic of boredom another time" Paula told her. "But at the moment you need to find some ways of keeping yourself amused. What have you been doing?"...
 

Free Time: When Kids Take the Wheel by Lisa on Pocketfuls

My idea of "healthy balance", then, has shifted necessarily over the years. However, one thing has not changed as our day-to-day life has grown busier: I still place great value on the gift of free time...
 

The gift of free time: Reclaiming the preschool years by Gail Post in Gifted Challenges

It is hard to recall an era when children spent their free time exploring the outdoors and relying on their imagination, when scheduled activities, electronics, and structured learning didn't compete for their attention. Fort-building, tea parties and swashbuckling battles with sticks filled their time...
 

Free Time: Critical for Gifted Children to Engage in Philosophical Thinking? by Gift-Ed Connections

There is a chapter by Deirdre V. Lovecky in the book Off the Charts: Asynchrony and the Gifted Child edited by Neville, Piechowski and Tolan that speaks to young gifted children being natural philosophers. It is full of examples of some of the complex questions that you might hear from a young gifted child regarding things like time, the nature and origins of the universe, and why we only see one image through two eyes. They are questions that may surprise us considering the age of the child but also signal the amazing process by which these young minds formulate an understanding of the world. This is where the gift of free time is so important...
 

Signing Up For Sports by Alessa Giampaolo Keener in Everyday Learning

There’s a lot you can learn from organized sports, beyond developing healthy habits to keep your body fit. Teamwork is an important life skill people need, but that’s not always the goal of signing up for a sport. Stepping outside your comfort zone and pushing your body to a limit can help a person develop a work ethic and stamina for striving towards goals that will help them long after they’ve cooled down and showered...
 

The Space Between: The Luxury of Discovering Your Own Happiness by Catie, My Little Poppies

What is the space between? The space between is free, unstructured time. You know those thirty blessed, quiet minutes during which you enjoy your coffee before the kids wake up? That's the space between. Those forty-five minutes after your daughter gets off the bus, before she needs to head to her afternoon practice? That's the space between. And who can forget those lazy Sunday afternoons? That's some glorious space between right there, folks...
 

Free Time? What Free Time? by Aurora Remember

Schedule your free time. In order to be more present in the moment, I've had to get better at setting time aside for work and time aside for play. Some of it I need to mark in my calendar to make sure I take it. Other things I try to work into my daily or weekly routine. I've been trying to get in a 10 minute walk around my work regularly in the mornings and when I manage to do it consistently, I'm always more productive when I get back. It's also a way for me to work in mindfulness as I pay attention to my surroundings instead of the chatter of my mind...
 

Summer of Gamification: The Power of Pokémon by Gifted Unschooling

Lately, my son and I have been playing a lot of games. The old fashioned kind without the need for WiFi. Sutton and I are amateur card sharks and enjoy hours of non-stop gameplay. The newest addition to our consumer packaged goods gamification is Pokemon. Turns out, I am really enjoying playing it as well despite my initial lack of interest. I started investing in the game for the kids to play with each other; however, Sutton and I are the ones are choosing to play this game over most other activities. It has become an all day affair...
 

4 Ideas For Children In Their Free Time by Elgarmummy

After being confronted with the reality that my children spend far too much of their free time on iPad either playing Minecraft, Tap Zoo and Surfer Run, or watching YouTube videos, I decided there must be better things for them to do, because they become quite irritable after playing online games for too long. There are four big ideas I would encourage them to do during their free time...
 

Free Time, What’s That? by Adventures of Hahn Academy

I know I have never heard anyone complain about having too much free time. Instead, I want more!

Sadly, free time is not appreciated or valued as highly as it should be because so many people don’t get very much of it. Other countries do a better job. Keynes predictions never came true (15-hour work week, everyone would have lots of free time, etc.)...
 

Sabbatical of Sorts by Braver than you believe

Beyond the obvious reasons every gifted person swims neck-deep in emotional drama from time to time (to time to time), I think those feelings were mostly woven around the "F" word -- Failure. I failed. I didn't overcome. I didn't do it right...

Updated December 01, 2020