Pediatrics group issues new guidance on recess for the first time in 13 years

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN Health/AP

PUBLISHED May 11, 2026, 5:25 PM ET


Recess isn’t just a fun break for grade schoolers. It’s crucial to good health and good grades for kids of all ages.

That’s the message from a leading pediatricians group, which just released the first new guidance in 13 years about this unstructured time at school and how it needs to be protected.The updated policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics comes after years of shrinking recesses and worsening children’s health.

The group “has always supported play – free play for kids – but it’s been increasingly threatened over time,” partly by the drive for higher test scores, said Dr. Robert Murray, a lead author. “It has a very powerful benefit if it’s used to the fullest.”

The new guidance, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, is similar to the previous policy statement but cites the latest research on why these breaks are essential for kids’ academic success and mental, physical, social and emotional growth.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/11/health/recess-pediatrician-recommendation-wellness

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Link to American Academy of Pediatrics PUBLICATION - The Crucial Role of Recess in School: Policy Statement

[no_hypocrisy]

1. It's more than a break from academics.

It's play and socialization among children. As a teacher, I go out of my way to watch how students interact with each other as it often explains what's going on in my classroom.

[mwmisses4289]

2. Yes.

Back in the dark ages of the 1960s and 1970s when I was in elementary school, we got three recess breaks: 2 15 minute ones (a.m. and p.m.) and a 30 minute one after lunch. By the time I was in high school, the afternoon one had been eliminated. Thanks to the Testing Industrial Complex, for a brief while many schools eliminated recess altogether, claiming P.E. classes were adequate substitutes (they weren't, but they do have their own benefits). Now schools are bringing back recess, which they should have never gotten rid of in the first place.

[rampartd]

3. this is nuts

of course the kids need recess

It’s crucial to good health and good grades for kids of all ages.

and they need p e and music classes as well.

didn't these people go to school?

[BumRushDaShow]

4. A lot of schools got rid of recess

to use that time for additional classwork, as there was the annual drumbeat of "falling math and reading scores" on standardized tests.

[markpkessinger]

5. As for PE classes . . .

. . . unless they are VERY different from the way they were conducted in the '60s and '70s, I would have to question their value.

I was a classical music nerd, and was not particularly athletically inclined, nor did I have any interest whatsoever in team sports. In high school, PE classes in my rural Pennsylvania school district were divided into several units each consisting of maybe 4-6 weeks focusing on a particular sport or activity. In the fall, there was a touch football unit, followed by a soccer unit, followed by a wrestling unit. In the Winter and into Spring, it was gymnastics, basketball and baseball. Oh, and the weirdest one, in junior high, was a unit hwen the boys and girls PE classes joined together for a square dancing unit!

I hated every minute of it. For those of us, like me, who had fathers who were not sports obsessed, there was never any effort to help us improve our athletic skills. The gym teachers focused all their attention on those who were already athletic; for the rest of us, it was just something to be endured and gotten through, as our classmates and even sometimes the teachers mocked our lack of athleticism. Now, had it been focused on personal fitness, then I might have taken some interest!

[Bayard]

6. OMG, I remember the nightmare of square dancing in PE!

I never could get the hang of dribbling a basket ball either. But recess ended after about 5th grade.