After years of being over-scheduled, with a daily routine of attending school and then moving on to one or two sports practices followed by homework, kids suddenly found themselves with nothing, literally nothing, to do during COVID. Schools were canceled at first, and then only structured for a few hours a day. And there were no after-school activities. Playgrounds were closed. Most sitters and nannies couldn’t work. There were no prescheduled playdates with friends to be overseen by parents. People were worried about any sort of indoor interaction. But as the weather warmed up, parents encouraged their kids to get outside.

Read about what happened when kids had more unstructured free time in the Digital Edition of the Summer 2022 Issue of WellesleyWeston Magazine.