Why can't Korean children play more?

Korea Herald

3 days ago

With academic pressure high, mothers fear falling behind as children turn to screens in free time
Kim Min-jae, 11, starts every day — including weekends — by studying English.
After school, he heads to piano and taekwondo academies, returns home, and eats dinner around 6 p.m. Then he spends about two hours reviewing the subjects he learned that day before going to bed.
One Saturday, Kim skipped his English study session. As a result, he was banned from joining an online game he had planned to play with his friends.
'Learning English is only basic now. Because it's a language, the flow shouldn't cease,' said his mother, surnamed Kwon. She said, unlike many of his peers, the boy doesn't attend English or math academies, so his study time at home is meant to compensate for that.
'When can I play?' her son often asks.
'I think he plays during piano and taekwondo lessons,' Kwon said, puzzled.
If you think this is just an extreme case of a parent obsessed with her child's education, then you don't really know South Korea.
A survey released in May by the Korean Teachers & Educational Workers' Union found that 62 percent of fourth to sixth-grade elementary students have less than two hours of free time a day. Notably, 15.8 percent responded that they have less than an hour a day to themselves.
The Korea Herald spoke with children, mothers, teachers and child psychiatry experts. Mothers acknowledge that their children lack playtime. Teachers and doctors say this negatively impacts children's mental health and social development.
Then, what's standing in the way of more playtime for children?
Anxious parents
Kim Hye-min (not her real name) has taught high school students in Seoul for over a decade. Over the years, she has watched many of her students struggle with depression and exhaustion from academic pressure. In her classroom alone, more than five students receive psychiatric counseling for depression.
Whenever Kim sees news about young adults who withdraw from society, staying at home without working or studying, she can't help but think of her students — how the helplessness they feel now may carry into adulthood. In her view, part of the problem lies in how many parents push their children into endless academies, leaving them no time to unwind. She once promised herself that she would never do that to her own child.
But when her daughter reached second grade, reality complicated her ideals. Because Kim had to work, she enrolled her daughter in five academies, mostly focused on physical education rather than academics. Even so, she made sure to give her daughter one to two hours every day to play outside. She took pride in the fact that her daughter played longer than any other child in their neighborhood.
Many people around her said things like, 'You are the only person who does not care about a child's education,' 'What you do is negligence,' or 'What would you do if your child loses the right timing to study?' But she tried to stay grounded and hold onto her belief in the value of unstructured play.
But one day, that resolve began to crumble. During a parent-teacher meeting, her daughter's teacher gently pointed out that the child had scored 50 out of 100 in math and cautiously suggested that she might need private tutoring.
'If I add math lessons to her schedule, her playground time will shrink to less than an hour,' Kim said. 'But now, I can't help feeling anxious about her falling further behind.'
Park Eun-hye, a mother of a fifth-grade elementary school son living in Seoul's Mokdong, said, 'Teachers always point out the weakest areas. Even if a child excels in everything except math, they'll still tell parents to help the child improve that one lower subject."
She understands, however, that in Korea's education system, a strong student is expected to have consistently high scores across all subjects. That's how elite college admissions are assessed. She fears this approach could make her children mediocre at everything.
'There will be hundreds of thousands of people like my child, easily replaceable by AI,' she said.
'What we need in the coming age are individuals who are exceptionally good at something, not just average at everything. But the current education system doesn't allow for that kind of growth.'
'Children don't know how to play, they even feel guilty'
Not just in terms of the quantity of playtime, Korean children also lack quality playtime.
According to multiple studies, Korean children spend most of their free time on media-related activities, such as social network services, computers, smartphones, games, television and movies. According to the Welfare Ministry, 37.3 percent of elementary students are in risk groups that excessively rely on smartphones.
Even during break time at school, many do not go outside to play.
In a survey of 2,450 elementary schools by the teachers' union, 90.4 percent of children said they spent their break time in the classroom doing things related to 'private academies, study worksheets or online classes.'
Lee Joon-gi, an elementary school teacher in Gwangju and a member of the education creator group Gummongle, said the trend of students not heading out to playgrounds during lunch break has become more noticeable since the COVID-19 pandemic. Many schools closed playgrounds during the pandemic.
When they reopened it, complaints from parents surged, Lee said.
'Even minor incidents on the playground led to an outpouring of parental complaints, so schools began keeping students indoors during breaks,' Lee said. Additionally, new government policies requiring various safety and extracurricular education further reduced the time available for free play.
Staying in the classroom often means many would end up playing alone or with a small group of close friends.
'Many kids today have little or no experience playing with friends. Even when given the chance to play, they don't know how to play. Screen time has replaced social time. The quality of their play has deteriorated,' the teacher said.
Doo Eu-gene, another elementary school teacher in Seoul, said that the root of children's lack of playtime lies in Korea's 'anachronistic college entrance system,' which places academic pressure on students from a very young age.
'Because the pursuit of college entrance as the ultimate goal casts a long shadow over learning from as early as kindergarten. Children feel guilty when they play and think it is a waste of time,' Doo said.
As children advance to higher grades, they go to more academies focusing on English and mathematics, and they come to school tired, the teacher said.
'As they are tired, they tend to do things that are easy, and play with their smartphones, which instantly and easily give them dopamine,' Doo said. 'They don't tend to do something actively. They are passively doing only what is given.'
Unhappy children
South Korea's heavy focus on academics may have lifted its academic performance to one of the highest among OECD nations, but it has come at a cost. In international surveys, Korean children rank lowest in overall happiness: 22nd out of 22 OECD member countries surveyed.
Korea has ranked No. 1 in suicide rate among OECD members since 2004. Suicide has remained the leading cause of death among Korean youth for 13 consecutive years since 2011. The survey also found that 92.2 percent of youth reported having concerns, with the top sources of worry being academic pressure (32.7 percent), career-related anxiety (26.1 percent) and appearance (12.0 percent).
'Play is inevitable for children's emotional and social development,' said Kim Jae-won, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Seoul National University Hospital. 'When they lack play, it causes problems in social skills development.'
'Through play, children learn how to adjust their opinions, show consideration, read and empathize with others, and emotionally communicate with others. They sometimes feel discouraged, but learn how to endure it,' he said.
'When they lack this emotional adjustment or capacity to endure discouragement, it could lead to depression or anxiety disorders.'