Leisure engagement has been found to enhance various aspects of children’s well-being (e.g., Kuykendall et al., 2015; Savahl et al., 2020; Thornton t al., 2024). However, the mechanisms linking these constructs to children’s school outcomes remain underexplored. Specifically, little attention has been paid to how changes in children’s leisure engagement affect the development of well-being, and in turn, influence their school performance. Very often educational research relies on cross-sectional data and repeated measures are seldom available. Longitudinal data from the Evaluation through Follow-up (UGU) database, which includes of 11 different cohorts of children with repeated measurement across three time points and integrates sociodemographic information from register data, provides a unique opportunity to address this gap. The present study examines the following research questions based on data from the 2004 cohort: 1. How do leisure engagement, well-being, and school outcomes change over time, from grade 6 to grade 9? 2. What are the within-time relationships among leisure engagement, well-being, and school outcomes? 3. What are the cross-time mechanisms linking leisure engagement, well-being, and school outcomes? 4. How do sociodemographic characteristics such as gender, social background, migration status, and cognitive ability influence these mechanisms? The study sampled a total of 9,775 students. Key covariates included parental educational level and migration background. Students' cognitive abilities also served as time-invariant covariates in the model. To indicate engagement in leisure activities students reported the average time they spent per week on various activities, with responses captured using a six-point scale ranging from 0 hours per week to more than 41 hours per week. Well-being was assessed through student responses about the frequency of specific physical experiences over the past six months, recorded on a five-point scale ranging from "Always" to "Never" . Both Leisure engagement and well-being variables were administered in grades 6 and 9. School outcomes were measured by students' grade point averages in Grades 6 and 9. Factor scores were estimated for leisure engagement and well-being to provide composite measures for analysis. An autoregressive cross-lagged longitudinal model was applied to examine the longitudinal relationships among leisure engagement, well-being, and school outcomes. Findings from this study provide valuable insights into the role of leisure activities in shaping children’s well-being and school performance. These insights have significant potential for informing interventions in both family and school practices, ultimately contributing to improved educational and developmental outcomes for children.

Kuykendall, L., Tay, L., & Ng, V. (2015). Leisure engagement and subjective well-being: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 141(2), 364-403. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038508 Savahl, S., Adams, S., Florence, M. et al. (2020). The Relation Between Children’s Participation in Daily Activities, Their Engagement with Family and Friends, and Subjective Well-Being. Child Ind Res 13, 1283–1312. https://doi-org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/10.1007/s12187-019-09699-3 Thornton, E., Petersen, K., Marquez, J. et al. (2024). Do Patterns of Adolescent Participation in Arts, Culture and Entertainment Activities Predict Later Wellbeing? A Latent Class Analysis. J. Youth Adolescence 53, 1396–1414. https://doi-org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/10.1007/s10964-024-01950-7