I have been thinking a lot about boredom lately, as I work on my book The Starting Gate. Recently I had a reading of an early draft of a chapter called “The Devil’s Workshop” in which I recount some of my childhood encounters with the dangers of being too bored for too long. My good friend and colleague, Pam Carter, mentioned afterwards that she had written an article about this subject with her fellow early childhood educator, Barbara Belknap, and suggested that I might find some of its points useful as I revised. Boy, did I ever. I liked the article so much that I asked Pam and Ms. Belknap if I might publish it here at Just Wrought. Happily, they said yes. I hope you find it as enjoyable and insightful as I did.
Why a little Boredom is a Good Thing
By Pamela Hobart Carter and Barbara Belknap
“I’m bored,” says your child.
At these words a silent alarm goes off: Bad Parent! Fix this! Devise an activity for this deprived child now! And many of us, in guilt, jump, instead of giving our children the grand opportunity of boredom.
Or perhaps your child never comes to you in boredom because she never experiences it; her days are so packed with scheduled action. She is denied the grand opportunity of boredom too.
Or perhaps, you perceive your child as bored if she doesn’t display adult-styled interests and direction but prefers, for example, to play with a box. So you curtail her opportunity for boredom and trot her off to an adult-organized event instead.
But a little boredom is a good thing.
This is a pitch for a little boredom: for leaving some days of the calendar blank, for breathing room, and for childhood remaining childhood—not merely training ground for adulthood.
This is not a call to leaving our children entirely to their own devices, but to us parents to back off a few paces to allow our children experiences about which we (adults) don’t know every single detail.
Before our children are left to their independence, the environment must have a literate and scientific richness or else even a little boredom may bring destructiveness. Children, unloved, unprotected, and unpracticed, can turn vandal. However, children practiced at hanging out and considering their options can turn artist.
So what happens in boredom that is so terrific? From boredom comes the question, “What can I do now?” and learning to answer this question by oneself. In that self-deterministic time, a child must discover what it is that he wants to do, what interests him, and how to fulfill his own needs. This does not mean sitting in front of a screen!
Initially, a bored child is likely to feel uncertain—What can I do? Next the child often consults an ally. Much depends on the response of the adult in charge. If she is guilt-ridden, she may perceive the problem as hers, and may rescue the complainer. If she returns the problem to its owner, the complainer must proceed alone.
The revered Vinnie Duffy, Seattle preschool founder and teacher, calmly responds with a question, “Oh, what do you do when you’re bored?” Boredom has no heat for Vinnie. He reacts with confidence because he knows he has created a rich environment, he is available to supervise or assist, and, most important, he knows that the child is better off wrestling with his boredom.
The lucky bored child, now left to her own devices and probably uncomfortable, must make a choice. She might choose to sit and watch others in action. She might hear her own heartbeat. She might hear the wind. Perhaps begin to listen to the wind. She might think or allow her mind to wander. Boredom allows children time for relaxation, for breath, for simply being an animal on this planet. Boredom also makes way for thought and gives children a chance to decide for themselves what they will do next. Odd that so many are denied this chance to develop the experience of deciding what interests them, especially because this ability is essential to the growth of the individual.
About thirty years ago, David Elkind wrote a startling book, The Hurried Child, with the premise that children were growing up too quickly. He felt that adults pushed children into too many scheduled activities. He saw childhood constricted by adult pressures. Since then, he has written new editions because the state of American childhood has grown more anxiety-laden rather than less so.
We are in a harried hurry much of the time despite all the cautions against the type-A lifestyle. We worry about our children getting into the right college—when they are five and going to Kindergarten. We worry about them making enough money. We worry they won’t be able to compete. And so we plunk them into classes and programs and competitions.
As Emily McMackin puts it, “Sports, the arts and other extracurricular activities help children develop socially and emotionally and teach them concepts they aren't exposed to during the academic day, but too much of a good thing can be counterproductive.” (“Stressing Involvement, Extracurricular activities benefit children, until they take over”, emcmackin@decaturdaily.com.) Rather than improving children’s chances of success, she goes on, this pushing and heavy scheduling may be responsible for decreased performance in school and out, and may lead to depression, anxiety disorders, and stress-related illnesses.
This is not to say that there aren’t children who thrive on classes and sports and music coaching, but the key is to limit these and engage in them largely by choice. Also, not to say that the child is in charge of these choices. He is not, but if you or he is stressed by the running around, then it is too much. Go home. Read a book together. Chill. No rushing allowed. Nor is this a pitch for ridding our lives of the passionate pursuit of excellence or of the deep exposure to masters and mentors, but only for the opening of a chunk of time for the unknown.
Richard Louv adds further contemporary tangles to the premise set out by Elkind. He sees that children don’t idle as they used to. They seldom hang out in yards and alleys and streets for spontaneous play—or hustling for play, looking to scrounge together enough kids—for a game of freeze tag or hide-and-seek or red light-green light. In his The Last Child in the Woods, he describes how the loss of unmarked space in which to play and explore, the loss for children of time in the presence of nature, and the heavy and relentless supervision and scheduling of children may lead not only to an inauthentic life, but also to a distressed life, one of malnutrition, disease, obesity, and lack of stewardship.
When asked to name a favorite childhood memory, most of us recall a moment in nature, often away from adults. A moment we owned. (The kind of moment Louv says our children are missing.) Few of us pull up memories of soccer practices or school events and yet, these are just the sorts of memories we are handing our children now.
In Katherine Ozment’s essay on parental over-supervision, she recalls building an enormous igloo in the yard on a snow day and bemoans that her own children, under-experienced at outdoor play sans adults, lasted only 45 minutes on their snow day and constructed meager forts. It was this recognition of how little her children knew what to do with their time that told Ozment that she needed to step back.
Similarly, when asked to name where you were when you had your last epiphany (or good and creative idea), most of us recall when we were single-tasking with our tortoise minds: in the shower, walking to the store, or planting daffodils for spring, for example. Few name being on their computers or watching a movie or other hare-brained activity. But we adults are handing our children relentlessly hare-brained days and weeks and years with little room for spontaneity, invention, or relaxation.
According to Kelly Moates, a marriage and family therapist at The Enrichment Center in Decatur, children need unstructured time to be creative, to play and to develop relationships. What she, Elkind, Louv, Ozment, and the authors hope for our children is a childhood complete with opportunities to self-determine, play, and learn how to be empathetic humans.
Rather than considering children only as future adults, we have the power to allow children discovery—in their own present time—by giving them boredom. We can give them chances to discover what they mean, what they are after, and how to go there. We bear the responsibility for making the space and time in which the happily memorable and creative childhood can unfold. One of the best ways we can fulfill these responsibilities is by stepping back and allowing our children to become bored.
Honoring boredom allows us all to be and only to be. This must be defended because our society so highly values immediate product and tangible evidence, which boredom may not yield. Boredom is about the long-term and intangible.
Also our super-busy selves delight in activity—from which we learn great skills and form terrific friendships—but which may also leave us with a giant hole in the formation of our souls. Busyness can leave us with an ignorance of ourselves; an inability to be by ourselves, to understand how to pass time, use time, enjoy time, and allow time to pass.
Recall that you are the guardian of your child’s childhood. Recall those favorite experiences from childhood. Remember the good and grand that burgeoned from your own boredom. Check your family calendar. At random, cross out an item. Clear a day. Give your child unstructured time to wander the woods or to daydream on a park bench. Allow your child to discover. Allow your child risk and failure. Allow your child to choose and choose again. Allow your child his own experiences. Allow your child to be a child. Guard childhood for children. Give your child a little boredom.
Without boredom and coming to the question, “What can I do?” there is not much thought given to what is possible, to learning what our own interests are.
Resources/References
David Elkind, The Hurried Child--Growing up too fast, too soon, 2001.
Richard Louv, The Last Child in the Woods, 2005.
Emily McMackin, “Stressing involvement: Extracurricular activities benefit children, until they take over,” Current Page Editor, emcmackin@decaturdaily.com, 2011.
Katherine Ozment, Boston Magazine / Welcome to the Age of Overparenting: How I learned to let my kids be kids, December 2011.
Association of Psychological Science, “Rest is not idleness: Reflection is critical for development and well-being,” from Psychology & Psychiatry, reported at http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-rest-idleness-critical-well-being.html, 2012.
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