People, please, think about what you want your children to become. Do you want easily employed drones that just as easily can get outsourced or replaced by AI, or do you want independent and creative thinkers? Creativity needs space and time. Extend both increasingly, with age. It's sad to me that American life requires you to manage their time - elsewhere they can just independently go to school, first on foot then on bycicle. Stop living in these hellscapes that makes that impossible, I consider it essential.
Kids need boredom - the best ideas are born of being bored and needing to figure out what to do for yourself.
We did this with our kid, no smart devices in the back seat. We didn't make sure she had something to do at all times. Most of her toys were (and still are) stuff that need some creativity and imagination (just wooden blocks, Legos etc.)
Now she can sit in the back seat for an hour, just staring out the window thinking about stuff. She seems to be able to play with just about anything, any object can be a source of play and games for her.
I think parents want their children to be able to have a career that will allow their children to have the economic resources to navigate modern society (pay for university, home, provide for family).
Creativity and independence in thinking comes second.
> Just give em space and see what happens, don't create a damn curriculum from school out to sleep.
It's typically parents who nominally want their children to become " independent and creative thinkers" who setup a curriculum with music school, dance lessons and foreign language courses.
