Are parents trying to stave off boredom, or stave off loneliness? The days of a gang of neighborhood kids are over. And if the only time they can socialize in person is at school or during an activity, then it should be okay to be in activities.
Of course it’s important to be able to spend time with others. But it’s also important to be able to spend some time on one’s own.
Time on one’s own is more likely a given these days. In the absence of built-in playmates – stairstep siblings and a neighborhood full of kids – it’s a good idea to load a kid up with educational toys and other creative outlets that don’t require a gang of other kids.
Here are some advantages I’ve seen with my pre-reading grandkids. First, lots of books for that age are bigger than screens, and the colors are better. Especially bigger than tablets. Second, they can read anywhere. Third, the leaf forwards and backwards in a way you can’t do very well on a computer.Fourth, no distractions from games and stuff. My oldest, now 6, always took books to bed with him after turning 3 or so. Wouldn’t want to let him sleep with any kind of electronics. Plus, it is great for them to grow up with a bookcase full of books in their bedroom. More fun selecting something to read.
To each their own, but when they are young physical books are much better.
Kids are extremely adaptable, and humans in general will create their own level if what is stimulation based on their situation and environment. As such we are all adaptable to a degree.
If there always is stimulation available, the mind will set the bar high as to what qualifies, and there will be some times of boredom. Likewise if there is nothing, like living in a cave, the mind will still find something to occupy itself and not feel board at times. This is not to say that they are the same, but the kid who has everything will still experience some times of boredom.
There are cruel and extreme forms of punishment to deprive someone of any stimulation, fortunately for children that is often applied against adults, not children, but even so it appears that there is even adaptation there where there are rare times when such a victim can achieve enough stimulation not to be board as they define their new reality and environment within their confinement.
So boredom is an effect of living in and having to deal with living in an environment, and trying to define the environment one is in. As such it’s probably correct but inaccurate to say it’s important. It is important with respect to creating structure so the child can actually understand the environment they are in and be a functioning child, able to make sense of what is around them and be able to grow and increase their capacity to adapt to their surroundings.
Regarding loneliness, Vaderling’s absolutely bestest friend lives in Indiana(its quite the romance, she’s cute)
He likes to read (sigh) true crime the most, but he does have some interest in other topics(I tried, I really did my best to get him interested in Tolkien and LeGuin and the like). He has google books and the library of congress bookmarked.
I’ve seen him lambast his second best friend, who lives two houses down, for bothering him and then turn around and complain about bring bored. I’m not an entertainment center.
He’s gotten into small trouble allieviating boredom, sure, but he’s also learning what he can get away with, what I actually permit, and how to expand those limits, both legitimately and clandestinely.
So far, he seems to be turning out to be a well rounded mafia thug😉
Probably depends on the situation; but a lot more kids than used to be years ago spend pretty much all day in group situations, because they’re in daycare before and/or after school.
Creativity is generally understood to be the ability to make spontaneous, unique connections between disparate ideas. In order to do this, the brain needs to spend time in the default mode network - the place your brain goes when it has nothing else to do. It’s self-evident to me that constant stimulation decreases the amount of time one can spend in the default mode network, thus stifling creativity. Then, as some researchers have found, the Internet decreases people’s ability to make connections between learned ideas. Thus if you read something online, you are less likely to fully integrate it into your complete body of knowledge than if you read it in a book. This is because we are not even reading as such, so much as scanning text to pick up data we’re already looking for.
This tracks with my own experience. I am a writer, and find I can’t work creatively when I’m stuck doomscrolling the Internet. I try to plan activities specifically for activating the default mode network, such as putting together a puzzle, running, or doing chores with no media input.
That’s not even getting into kids, social media, and mental health.
Yes, but I would also add that consumption of other art is probably critical to creating new art. You need both active consumption alternating with periods of “boredom.” I hesitate to call it boredom, because I’ve never felt bored when I have nothing to do, but I have felt myself retreat inward to what I feel is a very interesting place.
I’d wager not everyone feels this way, after all, most people will give themselves random electric shocks when sitting in a locked room rather than wait around with no stimulation.
I can’t really relate to this. But then, as a child, I spent most of my time either outdoors, or writing, or both outdoors and writing. Perhaps it trained me to make good use of my mental down time.
That said - even with somewhat liking boredom, I struggle more than anyone else I know with excessive Internet use.
This. My generation’s parents would not tolerate what is considered common today.
Back in the olden days when we could only get 3 channels on our black and white TV, and even then only if we put aluminum foil on the rabbit ears… 
Seriously, we learned as kids never to tell Mom that we were bored, because she’d hand us a dust rag or a rake and end our boredom.
Having nothing to do or maybe not wanting to do what the other kids were doing certainly didn’t stunt our development. Dare I suggest that a little time of introspection was vital to our development? We’d eventually find something to do - ride bikes, go to the playground, take a walk, build a tent, dig in dirt, play stickball.
Yeah, I’d say dealing with boredom is an essential part of growing up.
Yeah, but conversely, as a parent, I raised my daughter in ways that would not be tolerated in the past. And she is better for it. Her words, not mine.
I sometimes think church was really good boredom for me. I am a totally secular person, and have no desire to join a church, but I do sometimes think it would be good for my son to have to spend an hour a week sitting there listening to someone talk about ideas–both because the ideas are sometimes interesting and important, and other times because having to sit and think for an hour without acting out was good for my mental development. But it’s hard to replicate at home in a way that doesn’t seem tyrannical.
I think yes. The alternative is constant dopamine hits from fluff - addictive but non-nutritive. I recently read how some children cannot be persuaded to go downhill skiing since it involves putting down their devices. I hardly ever got to do this as a kid; amazes me if it is true. If you are never bored, you don’t appreciate stimulation. And surely this includes stimulating creativity. Surely much learning comes from less prescription.
My mother had learned that trick too, at least by the time I (3rd kid) came along. If I told her I was bored, she’d just start listing possible chores I could do, mostly involving housecleaning. So I learned to shut up about it.
But I was, in any case, bored a lot more often at school than at home. At school I had to sit still in the classroom and not read anything except when and what I was instructed to. At home, I could go outside, or read anything I felt like, or (when we had one) watch TV, or go look for a cat or dog who was willing to be cuddled or played with, or one year go ride a horse, or swim in a pond/sled down a hill, or build something from Legos and/or improvised cardboard etc., or, or . . .
I have vivid memories of sitting in church listening to a sermon and thinking it might just be possible to die of boredom. That did lead directly to me reading large chunks of the weirder parts of the Bible and memorizing the second and third verses of several hymns (the hymnal and Bible being the only reading material available), but I’m not sure those hours wouldn’t have been better spent with a Gameboy, had it been invented by then. Not that my mom would have allowed us to bring them into church.