{
 "title": "Why is reading important? US adults living with a young child spend about 4 minutes a day reading with them",
 "description": "Why is reading important for young kids, and how much do US parents do it? Federal data: about 4 minutes a day of reading as a main activity, 34 of play.",
 "url": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/data/why-is-reading-important-time-with-kids",
 "question": null,
 "measure": "Minutes per day",
 "unit": "minutes per day",
 "source": {
  "short": "BLS · American Time Use Survey 2025",
  "name": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey, Table 9: Time adults spent caring for household children as a primary activity, 2025 annual averages",
  "url": "https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t09.htm",
  "license": "Public domain (U.S. Government work)",
  "licenseUrl": "https://www.bls.gov/opub/copyright-information.htm"
 },
 "license": "Public domain (U.S. Government work)",
 "method": "Values are from BLS American Time Use Survey Table 9, 2025 annual averages, for the group \"Child under age 6\": the average hours per day spent on each childcare activity as a primary activity, for all persons 18 and over living in households with children under 18, whether or not they provided childcare that day. We converted hours to minutes (hours × 60, rounded). Earlier years are from the archived 2022, 2023, and 2024 releases; 2020 is excluded because data collection was disrupted. Home-activity percentages are from NCES, Early Childhood Program Participation: 2023 (NCES 2024-112), Table A-9, children ages 3 through 5 not yet in kindergarten.",
 "takeaways": [
  "In 2025, adults 18 and over living with a child under 6 spent on average 2.3 hours a day on childcare as a main activity. Of that, about 58 minutes went to physical care, 34 minutes to playing, and about 4 minutes to reading to or with children.",
  "The reading figure is roughly constant: between 0.06 and 0.08 hours a day, about 4 to 5 minutes, in each year from 2022 to 2025.",
  "These are averages over all adults in such households and all days, including people who did no childcare that day, and they count reading only when it was the main thing the person was doing.",
  "Another federal survey asks a different question: in 2023, 84% of children ages 3–5 not yet in kindergarten had been read to three or more times in the past week, while 42% had been told a story that often."
 ],
 "items": [
  {
   "label": "Physical care",
   "value": 58,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Playing and hobbies with children",
   "value": 34,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Travel for childcare",
   "value": 13,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Other childcare",
   "value": 9,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Looking after children",
   "value": 8,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Education-related activities",
   "value": 7,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Reading to or with children",
   "value": 4,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Attending children's events",
   "value": 4,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Talking with or listening to children",
   "value": 2,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  }
 ],
 "csv": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/data/why-is-reading-important-time-with-kids.csv",
 "chart_embed": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/embed/why-is-reading-important-time-with-kids",
 "image": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/og/why-is-reading-important-time-with-kids.png",
 "credit": "Raising Stoics (raisingstoics.com)"
}