This article critically reviews the outcome of the study of leisure practices by a research team from HSE, and determines methodological and methodical problems in studying leisure practices of young generation. Value of the analyzed article of the research consists in fixation of a new trend of parental behavior: high degree of involvement in the organization out-of-school activities by modern parental generation. Main disadvantages of the analyzed work relate to the limitating study of leisure practices just to sphere organized with the help of parents, visiting officers of additional education and producing conclusions about the space of life of children on the basis of adult opinion. In the interpretation of the concept leisure of children are invited to take into account totality of the activities children are carrying out in free-of-study time of their choice, additional educational programs, domestic responsibilities, health treatment and other actions organized for them by parents or institutions. These activities should bring to child sense of fun, entertainment, self-perfection or achieving gpals important for him. The article presents data on the complex structure of free time of modern Russian children. The study of the problem is proposed to carry out in line with the developing sociology of childhood through a variety of models: instrumental, humanistic, legal etc., a special place is assigned to studying real leisure of teenagers of their choice. The use of public parental opinion to evaluate children free time requires a “correction factor” taking into account the role and position of socializators and female (mother’s) vision of the world. An important methodological problem is to measure reflection in the new modern leisure practices of social differentiation and specific sociocultural environment of families with different economic levels.