Let Your Kids be Bored
By: Aaron Barrette
Let your kids be bored
“I’m so bored.”
It’s a common refrain you hear as a parent, when your child tells you that there is “nothing to do” and they are “SO bored.”
My forty-something dad comeback?
I’ll tell them to stop being boring and then follow it up by telling them that they don’t know real boredom. Trying growing up in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. You don’t know boredom until you find yourself on a cold January morning in rural Wisconsin with three tv stations (my childhood).
Our kids have the requisite video game consoles, books to read, traditional board games to play and, oh yeah, Pacific Ocean is a mile away. Yet, we still hear the refrain of how they are SO bored.
You know what? It’s a good thing. You want them to be bored. According to Manoush Zamorodi, author of the book Bored and Brilliant, you want your kids to be bored and it’s good to be bored yourself.
“With so many big questions stemming from my central quandary, I dived into trying to understand what happens when we constantly keep our brains busy and never give ourselves time to mentally meander. I spoke with neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists about ‘mind-wandering’—what our brains do when we’re doing nothing at all, or not fully focused on a task. We may feel like we are doing very little when we endlessly fold laundry, but our brains are actually hard at work. When our minds wander, we activate something called ‘default mode,’ the mental space where we solve problems and generate our best ideas and engage in what’s known as ‘autobiographical’ planning,’ which is how we make sense of the world and set future goals. The default mode is also involved in how we try to understand and empathize with other people and make moral judgements.”
Boredom can help us:
Solve problems.
Generate our best ideas.
Make sense of the world
Set future goals
Form empathy.
All great things and things that happen when we are bored. It’s interesting byproduct of the age of the smartphone that the devices designed to make us more productive actually have the effect of making us less creative. I’m as guilty as anyone. I get so wrapped up in the podcasts or audio books that I’m listening to that I’ll often continue listening while I fold laundry or do other tasks around the house. I try to tell myself that I’m learning new things while doing these tasks but brain science tells me it’s a negative for my creativity.
It really does make sense. You often hear about how people come up with their best ideas while lying in bed or taking a shower or going on long walks. According Zomorodi they’re activating the default mode in their brain with the resulting freedom from distraction enhancing their creativity.
It’s almost as if you slow down to speed up you’re thinking.
What is the bigger lesson here? Once again it’s about managing our relationship with the devices we carry around. Technology that was designed to make us more efficient, more connected and more productive has a negative outcome unless used in moderation. It’s about being mindful of your smartphone patterns. When you have a free second between meetings don’t reach for your phone. When there is a break in your son or daughter’s soccer game, don’t reach for your phone. Think about quitting social media entirely or find a way to manage your use of social media. For me it’s an ongoing personal struggle. I’ve largely quite social media but still find myself reaching for my phone too often.
As parents, it’s really up to us. Our kids haven’t developed the maturity and mindfulness required to put the smartphone away. They will look at it all day long unless we find a way to manage it. There are apps out there that can help, tools like OurPact.
So let your kids be bored, and let yourself be bored while you’re at it.