Boredom: Why It’s Good for Your Child

“Mom, Dad….I’m bored.”

Makes you feel put on the spot, right? You might even feel like you’re a bad parent. Most of us pressured to solve this “problem” right away. We usually respond to our kids’ boredom by providing technological entertainment or structured activities. But that’s actually counter-productive. Children need to encounter and engage with the raw stuff that life is made of: unstructured time.

Being bored has become this frightening and dreaded experience to which we parents must respond immediately.  Boredom is not up to a kid to figure out anymore, it’s a parent’s issue and a parent’s problem.  Boredom is a state that our children shouldn’t have to endure, and allowing our kids to experience it, not taking it seriously, might even be a sign of parental neglect. As we mistakenly imagine it, boredom is a case of a moment not fully lived, a moment deprived of interest.

In addition, we relate to boredom as an absence, something missing.  We experience it as a state of nothingness: nothing to do, nothing to think about, nothing to learn, nothing to be with, nothing to play with, nothing to experience.  Boredom, as we see it, is emptiness, a void.

As a result of our fear of boredom, we’re encouraging our children to be hyper-focused (not unfocused as we hear), with their attention perpetually focused down on some object of attention. At the same time, technology has created a new normal, namely, constant engagement. With tech has come the expectation that our kids (and even us adults) should be able to live in a state of uninterrupted entertainment and pleasurable busyness, 24/7. Tech makes it possible to meet this expectation by offering a forever-stocked refrigerator of free and interesting food for our attention.  We even get to congratulate ourselves for eating around the clock from this fridge, under the guise of learning more, doing more, communicating more, and what we’ve convinced ourselves is the definition of living more.

Boredom improves creativity

The mind doesn’t always go where we want. It likes to wander, especially when we’re trying to get it to keep still. And it’s never more active than when it has nothing to do.

Countless studies have shown that people are more creative when they’re bored – and that’s true for our kids, too. It’s just how the human mind works. When our minds are bored, they start to daydream, and that daydreaming sparks creative thought.

When our kids have nothing to do, they exercise their imaginations and that just might be the most important skill they can develop. The workplace our children are going to enter is changing rapidly, and we don’t have the ability to prepare them for that world. It’s going to take a lot of creativity to adapt.

Boredom is good for parents too

Letting your kids have a little time on their own gives you time with your spouse.  You don’t have to wait around for your child to fall unconscious before you acknowledge one another.

Getting some mommy and daddy time is vital to keeping your relationship alive and to being a good parent. Focusing on parenting 24/7 does the opposite. It cranks up your stress and anxiety, which can actually hurt your kids. Children pick up their parents’ anxiety, which can hurt their performance in school and can create behavioral problems down the road.

You don’t need to kill yourself trying to keep your kids happy. In fact, it may make things worse. If you’re not happy, your kids aren’t either, and if you’re not mentally well, your kids aren’t either.

So put down the juggling balls and let your kids be bored for a while. Take a little time for yourself.Not only is it good for you, but it just might be the best thing you can do for them.

Credit: ahaParenting.com, Nancy Colier, LCSW, Rev, Mark Oliver