Fellow parent Quek Jia Ling, 37, has created a similar regimen. Her two children, aged four and seven, split their afternoons between enrichment classes such as dance, swimming and abacus, and supervised play.
They are allowed half an hour of TV time after school each day but no internet at all.
Whenever possible on the weekends, Ms Quek takes her children out to explore playgrounds or to museum programmes designed for kids, where they can learn in air-conditioned and safe spaces.
“Like others, my kids spend a lot of time in school and enrichment classes, making it hard to meet up with friends. The hot weather makes it even harder to take them outside,” she said, adding that while she values unstructured play, safety around strangers remains a concern.
These three children live out daily routines familiar in many Singaporean households today, where long school days and packed enrichment schedules leave little time for free play.
According to a 2024 study by non-profit Suncare SG of more than 1,000 parents with children aged three to six, almost one in five reported that their child spends less than an hour outdoors each day on weekends. The survey did not ask respondents about weekday playtimes.
CNA TODAY found that even when children are outdoors, much of their play time is structured, usually in the form of sports training or supervised play dates.
