I'm totally just guessing, and I don't have any kids on whom to test my theory at this time, but I bet if a kid grows up with a healthy does of unstructured time, there's a good chance they will be better prepared to actually know what direction they want to go with their lives later on.  They will know what they really want to strive after, becuase they excelled at figuring out what they wanted to do during their childhood.  I dunno.  I sure would like some of that unstructured time as well...