Running our children ragged

At age 2 or 3, kids compete for admission to elite nursery schools. By age 10, they’re doing up to three hours of homework a night, and by 16, they’re in a frantic competition to get into a top college. Are American kids under too much pressure?

How busy are today’s children?

They’re busier than children have been since child labor was outlawed. Many high school juniors, for example, often rise before the sun and settle back in bed somewhere around midnight. In between, they spend seven hours at school; afternoons at extracurricular clubs, SAT tutoring, soccer practice, ballet and piano lessons; and finish off the day with as much as six hours of homework, including college-level chemistry, calculus, and other Advanced Placement courses. “To do well enough to get into a top college—it’s become like a job,” Anne Foster-Keddie, the student-body president at El Segundo High School, tells the Los Angeles Times. “Except the hours are longer than most jobs.”

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