These days it seems that kids are signed up for so many activities both during the school year and for summer vacation. Kids don’t seem to have time to be kids. They are constantly being told what activity they are going to be doing. When I was ten years old, I got my first watch because I was never home on time for dinner. I would wake up, get ready for the day and come home when it was too dark outside to play. If I was bored I don’t remember it but I must have been at some point. I do remember playing outside, making up games and narrowly missing trouble at times.
What I do remember was boring was house cleaning, laundry, ironing, reading, homework, and school. But I will get back to why this is important in a moment.
Even before this explosion of keeping our kids scheduled every minute of the day, experts have been talking about the importance of being bored. Really for decades, this has been the opinion of psychologists and child development experts.
Over-scheduling children during the summer (or school year) could actually not be good for your child. Children need to be bored.
Boredom allows them to:
- Discover their own interests
- Be internally stimulated or develop their own self-motivation
- Be creative and develop their imagination
- Become self-reliant
- Have opportunities to problem solve
- Be quiet enough to hear themselves and figure out who they are
- Be quiet, feel mildly uncomfortable and be okay with that feeling
- Daydream (some is good for you!)
- Learn to enjoy thinking for the sake of thinking
There needs to be times when there are no pre-determined activities are planned and there are no screens are not allowed unless they are doing something creative or learning something new during the day. Essentially you need to purposely schedule boredom.
How to help them during boredom:
- Before they have a chance to get bored, have them make a list of everything they want to do or learn (depending on the age you may need to assist them). This list change range from playing games, to going to new places, to create a Youtube video. When they complain of boredom tell them to look at their list.
- Provide an environment with plenty of activities to choose from. For example, have craft supplies on hand, allow them to cook with or without you depending on age and without recipes if desired, have sport equipment around, loads of books to read or magazines, allow them to explore the area around where they live (again within age limits and your location), give them a daily challenge that has no consequence if they don’t choose it.
- Do nothing – free yourself of the responsibility of entertaining your child all the time.
Remember what I found was boring; chores and schoolwork. Your children should have chores. See my past blogs on chores for specific ages. When your child is doing his chores he will be bored too I am sure of it. As an organizer coach, who works mostly with students the reason I love boredom is because of the development of an important executive function skill of sustained attention. The ability to complete an activity even though it is not enjoyable. This skill is vital for getting through life; examples include homework, reading assigned books, cleaning, writing reports for work, etc.
Enjoy your boredom!