1KHO 541: Recess Is Not Optional, Why Our Kids Need More Than 22 Minutes to Be Human | Say Yes to Recess!

The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast

Ginny Yurich

Parenting, Kids & Family

4.9 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if the decline in childhood mental health, self-regulation, and academic engagement could be traced back to a missing piece of the school day? In this powerful and passionate episode of The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast, Ginny Yurich sits down with the founding team of Say Yes to Recess, a grassroots movement turned national nonprofit fighting for more play, more time outside, and more humanity in our schools. With just 22 minutes of average daily recess—and many kids getting even less—this conversation peels back the layers of how educational priorities have shifted dangerously away from the needs of the whole child. The team shares how they went from frustrated parents to successful policy changemakers and how you can start a chapter in your own state. This is the rallying cry. Recess is not a break from learning—it is learning. Movement builds brains. Free play teaches the life skills that Fortune 500 CEOs are begging for. And the best part? Kids want to do it. Say Yes to Recess is leading the charge, and this episode shows you why the time to act is now. Visit sayyestorecess.com to learn more, donate, or launch a chapter in your state. You can also follow their movement on Instagram and Facebook @sayyestorecess. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Mickey could try to sell his car privately.
0:03.0	Or get it sold today with weed by any car.
0:07.0	He could spend days on end trying to sell to a bunch of time wasters.
0:13.0	Or selling a flash and head to the fun fair with the kids.
0:17.0	Proper gutted.
0:20.0	Or proper impressed. To get a quote in 30 seconds, kids. Proper gutted.
0:22.5	Or proper impressed.
0:27.5	To get a quote in 30 seconds, enter your reg number now at we buy any car.com.
0:32.5	Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside Podcast.
0:40.2	My name is Ginny Urich, and there are some fantastic guests today, three of them actually, from this incredible,
0:47.6	incredible and incredibly important grassroots movement. It is called say yes to Michigan.
0:57.5	Oh, no. That would be nice. It is called say yes. You should say yes to Michigan, but also say yes to recess.
1:02.1	Say yes to recess. There's a Michigan chapter of it. And so that's why I was thinking about that and we're in Michigan. But say yes to recess. Welcome to the team. Thank you. Yeah.
1:06.8	Thank you. Thank you. And has said yes. Yes. Okay, this is a huge deal because recess is a
1:15.3	huge deal for kids' health and well-being and it is getting cut. It has gotten cut so much in the
1:20.7	last several decades. Let's take a minute for everybody to introduce themselves. Tell us where
1:24.6	you're from and how you got involved with say yes to recess uh well
1:29.1	my name is morgan garner uh i've been a part of this movement since the beginning rachel and i
1:36.0	met early on what it's been three years now probably yeah and it's very much a grassroots movement.
1:44.7	I got involved because my daughter was in kindergarten at the time when I, well, before
1:51.3	Rachel and I met and I just noticed a massive behavioral shift from kindergarten or from
1:56.1	preschool to kindergarten.
	...

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