You’ve seen it. The child who can’t sit still long enough to hear even two instructions. The kindergartner who melts down when the schedule shifts. The first grader who grips a crayon like it’s the first time she’s ever held one.

You’ve probably said it to a colleague, quietly, in the hallway: Something is different with kids these days.

You were right. And now there’s national data to back you up.

What the Research Says

In January 2026, the EdWeek Research Center surveyed more than 1,100 educators and administrators — preschool teachers, elementary teachers, principals, and program directors — all working with children in pre-K through 3rd grade.

The findings were striking, but probably not surprising to anyone who works in a classroom every day.

  • 72% of respondents reported that following instructions is more challenging for their current students than it was for same-age students just two years ago.
  • 59% said student behavior has worsened over the past two years.
  • More than half reported a decline in age-appropriate fine motor skills. Four in ten said the same about gross motor skills.
  • And 54% said something that stops you in your tracks: tying their own shoes is harder for today’s students than it was for kids the same age two years ago.

These aren’t anecdotes. This is a nationally representative survey painting a picture of a generation of young children who are arriving at school without the foundational physical and self-regulation skills they need to learn.

This Isn’t Just a “Pandemic Problem”

It’s easy to chalk everything up to COVID and move on. But the researchers themselves push back on that framing. The children being surveyed now weren’t even in school during the pandemic — many weren’t born yet. What they’re feeling are the downstream effects: changes to how children spend their time, how they’re parented, and what their earliest years looked like.

Screen time is part of the picture. Nearly 40% of 2-year-olds now have their own tablets, and 75% of parents who allow screen media impose no limits on use, according to 2025 data from Common Sense Media. When a toddler’s hands are on a screen instead of stacking blocks, cutting with scissors, or pumping legs on a swing, the body isn’t getting the input it needs to build the neurological foundation for learning.

The body builds the brain. Movement is not a break from learning — it is learning, at the most fundamental level.

What This Means for Classrooms

Here’s the hard truth: when children arrive without these foundational skills, teachers absorb the gap. Every transition that takes twice as long. Every meltdown that derails a lesson. Every child who can’t hold a pencil or follow a two-step direction — that’s a teacher doing invisible labor before the academic work even begins.

And most teachers didn’t sign up to be occupational therapists, behavior interventionists, and curriculum specialists all at once.

What they need are practical, research-backed tools that address the root cause — not just manage the symptoms.

The EdWeek data points directly at three areas where movement-based intervention makes an immediate difference:

Motor development — both fine and gross motor skills improve when children get structured, purposeful movement built into the school day. Not just recess. Intentional, body-based activity that targets the sensory systems underlying coordination and control.

Emotional regulation — a dysregulated nervous system cannot learn. Children who are overwhelmed, under-stimulated, or stuck in fight-or-flight are not available for instruction. Movement — particularly vestibular, proprioceptive, and bilateral activities — helps the body find its regulatory baseline before learning begins.

Following instructions and staying on task — these aren’t behavioral problems in isolation. They’re signals from a body that hasn’t been prepared to receive and process information. Priming the nervous system before instruction isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s the difference between a lesson that lands and one that doesn’t.

This Is Why Pivot to Play Exists

For 25 years, I’ve been in classrooms watching what happens when teachers are given tools that meet children where their bodies actually are — not where we wish they were. When teachers understand the why behind the wiggling, the crying, and the checking out, everything changes. The classroom changes. The children change.

The data from EdWeek confirms what neuroscience has told us for decades: you cannot separate the body from the brain, and you cannot skip the foundational work and expect children to thrive academically.

Movement is not supplemental. It’s structural.

Ready to Do Something About It?

If you’re a teacher or administrator who recognizes your students in this data, I’d love to introduce you to the Play Powered Launch Kit — a classroom-ready system built around these gaps.

The Launch Kit gives you a structured, neuroscience-informed way to bring intentional movement into your school day — with implementation tools that make it sustainable, not another thing on your plate.

The Preschool and Elementary editions are launching soon, with presale pricing available for early access.

Learn more and get on the early access list → here.