Am I Teaching or Babysitting?

I can think of three reasons for not actually teaching i.e. conducting a lesson by talking, demonstrating, interacting pedagogically with the students. One, the students are engaged in a follow-up activity stemming from a lesson already given. Two, I am unprepared or unwilling to teach, so I assign seat work. I am either tired, stressed, or making a political statement that demands being made on me are unreasonable. Three, I believe in the philosophy that students' learning should be self-directed. 

I can accept the first reason, as long as the activity continues to be a meaningful extension of the lesson taught. I can understand the second reason too as there are days that I experience fatigue or discouragement. Not as the modus operandus of my classroom, though. I hope this decision not to teach is incidental, not recurrent. I also understand the third reason, but only when it is done with careful intention and includes lots of interaction and processing checkpoints along the way. The problem is when the second reason is used as an excuse for the third. Busy work is a form of babysitting, so is unengaging seatwork. It takes MORE preparation to carry out student directed learning well, not less.