Are children overscheduled? Tom Smith

This essay in Time argues no; overscheduling is a myth it says.

I’m not so sure.  Homework in high school seem awfully heavy.  I had time to do sports and read a lot on my own.  How my 15 year old would do this, I have no idea.  He has 3 hours of homework a night and often more.  You can’t do 4 hours of homework and have time for anything else.  Many kids in his school apparently deal with this by not doing all the work and taking lower grades.  But that will affect their future prospects, of course.  Others do the work and spend as much time as my son does.

More generally, it’s bad social science to simply assert that generalized increases in child welfare show that overscheduling is a myth.  Maybe children would be doing even better with somewhat less stress.  You need to compare relevant groups and control for other possible causes of better welfare.