By Megan Orton
We’re in the home stretch of summer, and August is often when summer vacation starts to feel really long for parents. Trying to get things done while keeping the kids entertained all day can be really frustrating. It’s so easy for screens to become the default solution because they zap summer boredom better than any invention we’ve ever had.
There’s been a huge cultural shift around kids’ boredom in the last 40 years. Anyone who grew up in the 80’s will remember that Boomer parents trusted that their kids had the skills to deal with boredom. They didn’t see it as a “problem” to be solved. 80’s kids had hours and hours to develop boredom skills—boring car rides, a sibling’s boring T-ball game, boring adult conversations—there were dozens of boring things that were part of every day because Silicon Valley hadn’t yet invented the Instant Boredom Zapper.
Today the culture around boredom has changed. Now, we often perceive kids’ boredom as a parenting failure and a sign we’re not providing enough entertainment, excitement or enrichment. This puts a lot of pressure on busy parents and creates parental guilt. When boredom becomes a parent’s problem to solve, we are much more likely to hand over a screen.
Here’s an interesting statistic: the number of hours American parents spend with their kids has doubled since 1995. Today we’re putting in twice as much effort as our parents but still feeling like we’re not doing enough. What if the reason it’s so hard to keep our kids entertained isn’t because we’re doing too little, but because we’re doing too much? This is what one Portland teacher and mother of three discovered. “Boredom!” she says, when asked about her secret for helping kids and teens develop motivation, creativity and imagination. “Kids do the most incredible things when they get truly, truly bored. But you have to be willing to let them get REALLY bored. If they’re not doing something amazing, they’re not bored enough yet.”
Understanding that boredom is the secret sauce to a childhood full of creativity, imagination and motivation can help parents move away from the feelings of guilt. Boredom is uncomfortable for kids and as parents, we can have a hard time watching them go through it because we’ve forgotten that boredom has a purpose. Just as hunger is the feeling that motivates us to find something to eat, boredom is brain hunger. It’s a feeling that motivates us to come up with something imaginative to do, but it has to become pretty strong before we’re actually motivated to solve it.
Kids in the 80’s had a ready list of things they loved to do when bored, and it was always front of mind because they had to use it all the time. That mental list rarely gets made by kids today. When parents fix a child’s boredom, particularly with screens, it keeps the child from developing the skills to solve it themselves. Boredom in kids and teens isn’t a miserable state we should avoid at all costs—it’s an incredibly powerful motivator we’ve culturally forgotten about.
It’s undeniable that technology has added amazing things to our lives. But if boredom is actually the catalyst for motivation, what are we taking away from our kids when they have constant access to Instant Boredom Zappers?
Every single one of our kids has the imaginative and creative capacity to entertain themselves without a screen. There were no children sitting around in 1980, 1920 or 1530 saying, “I’m so bored! No one has invented an iPad yet so there’s nothing to do.” Developing the boredom skills kids had in the 80’s just takes practice. It won’t happen in a single day, or a week, but it will happen in less than a month. We just have to trust it, like our parents and grandparents did.
Summer vacation is a great time to experiment with changing how you think about and talk about boredom in your family. It can be challenging in the beginning, especially if kids are in the habit of being entertained by a screen.
One way to make it easier is to plan ahead. Sit down with your kids and challenge them to think of at least 10 screen-free things they enjoy doing. Write these down on a Boredom List and hang it on the fridge. This list helps kids move more quickly through boredom and helps parents feel more comfortable letting their kids go through the discomfort of it. It also gives parents an easy answer whenever someone complains of boredom and asks for a screen. Instead of resorting to a screen, tell them, “Boredom is what helps your brain find its creativity and imagination. If you need some help, go check your Boredom List—it has all kinds of great ideas for you!” Then, sit back and trust the process. And every time your child discovers something new they love to do, make sure to add it to the list.
The Printouts section of mindful-media.net, under Resources, offers a few handouts that will make it easier for your family to create their ready Boredom Lists. Look for Your Bag Of Tricks for Boredom and 50 Things For Kids To Do.
Let’s make August the month we remember that boredom is a motivator, not a misery!