Speaking for myself (not a kid), I only start to gravitate toward those sorts of activities when I'm low grade burnt out. Especially if I'm burnt out from havin

Speaking for myself (not a kid), I only start to gravitate toward those sorts of activities when I'm low grade burnt out. Especially if I'm burnt out from having to do something that feels difficult and pointless, but is also on a deadline and subject to performance assessment. Nothing wears your ability to concentrate down faster than having to to actually force yourself to concentrate for hours at a time. I see the same thing in both my kids. They're both mentally engaged, skilled, perseverant problem solvers. . . except in the evenings after school. Then, they simply can't emotionally handle much beyond games/tv/youtube. What worries me right now is that this situation may be setting up a bad psychological pattern that may stick with them for life: anything that takes work is, in some Pavlovian sense, associated with frustration and exhaustion, while pleasure is associated with brain candy. I don't think that that's their natural experience of life; it's something they're being taught by a regime that's dominated by report cards and standardized tests. I'm personally not too keen on homeschooling. I did it for some time as a child, and I honestly think that the reduced social contact with my peers had consequences that also need to be considered. But I'd love to see schools become less bureaucratic. Teachers, in my experience, usually want to keep things fluid and engaging, and they know how to do it. What seems to get in their way are policies that the suits in office buildings develop, most of which are primarily designed to placate the anxieties of parents who are worried about their kids "falling behind" or whatever and want to see hard numbers proving that the school is doing a good job of producing kids that are all STEM and no roots, leaves or flowers.