As a Millennial non-parent (hopeful future parent) I find all these "let them stay outside all day by themselves" comments to be wholly disingenuous when surely the same people would see children out on their own nowadays and would call CPS instantly! You fantasize about the past, and actually the world isn't as dangerous for kids as people think it is now, but still, none of those older commenters would go by kids playing alone outside with no supervision and leave them be. You're all just not admitting it. Remember that news story about 2 Maryland children about 8 and 10 years old going home by themselves? Some wonderful kindly older lady called the police on their parents. Why? They were perfectly fine and in no danger. They knew how to get home. How about the 1000s of stories of parents being investigated or arrested for leaving their kids in the car unsupervised for 5 minutes? Windows cracked, not hot outside, perfectly safely locked in. Someone calls the police every time. When and where is it that you all think kids currently have the ability, or legal right even, to be alone to play?
4
I grew up the oldest of 5 kids in the 40s & 50s and with a mother who believed that unless there were tornado warnings or a super cold blizzard, kids should live outside. We lived in a neighborhood with lots of other kids. Rode our bikes everywhere, played all kinds of ball, skated in the street, made snowmen & women, shoveled snow, mowed the lawn, and I remember sitting in a tree petting the pussy willows and pretending they were my tiny little pets! We went to recreational reading, art, and outdoor games at the local school for 6 weeks of the summer. When we went in to tattle to mom, she told us to get back outside and solve our problems by ourselves. On bad weather days, we had books, board games, chores, and no TV until I was 11, but there wasn't much on in the daytime. It was a good way to learn independence, gave us opportunities to make decisions w/o adults around, and it taught us to stand up for ourselves when need be. We had many opportunities to learn from our mistakes! I'm doubtful today's kids are learning these lessons, and I'm pretty sure many of them are not having as much fun as we did.
224
Education has many side-effects. Once a young person becomes accustomed to the stimulation and challenge of education, they also begin to suffer the emptiness of the hours not filled by educational stimulation. This phenomenon applies to A, B, C, D, even F students... The easiest remedies to the "boredom" are substitute stimulations, self-destructive or mind-numbing activities such as internet browsing, television channel surfing, and chemical intoxications.
19
When I complained I was bored, my mother said, "Go read a book!" It was the best advice ever. I learned to love to read and will never be bored if I have a book. (Of course, my father sometimes said, "Go fly a kite" or "Go knock your head against a wall" - so I tried not to complain to him.)
96
Being truly bored is crucial to developing creativity!
49
Boredom is a door to who you really are. If you never pass through the door, you will never know what's beyond it.
57
Whenever I told my mother I was bored she would say in Yiddish, ‘Go bang your head against a wall’. End of conversation. She had no patience for this complaint and I learned to entertain myself and I am to this day, never bored.
52
This is so exciting. Finally the words boredom and children are being explored in the same space. At last there seems to be a chink in the armor encasing regimental education of children in America. Perhaps if folks actually read and remembered history, they would recall that our schooling is a byproduct of Prussian and of course the British empire builders. They needed large forces to execute their biddings and brilliantly conceived 'one education' for all.....exceptions being the very rich and royalty. They succeeded and there was born a giant mother education computer churning out identical clones who could be transposed to any far flung region of the empire and be able to work seamlessly. We need to realize that we do not have these empires anymore, but we still are churning out these clones. A linear, rigid system from the teachers mouth to the child's ear. All these extracurricular activities, art, music, tutors, to circumvent a vague sense of boredom, is the absence of clarity over what one seeks. The education system is not relevant today. Boredom defines the dystopian disconnect between today's world and how we educate our children. It is time to wake up.
12
Too bored? Read a book. It is amazing what escapes there are out there.
42
I know I probably classify as antediluvian, but this article makes me want to make readers aware that Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) covered most of the ground about the gifts of boredom for youngsters. His philosophical writings and opinions make very good reading especially, in this context, about education.
Thank you for reminding me of him.
46
By using the phrases "stultifying boredom" and "endure boredom," the author confuses the point of the article. Boredom will not be stultifying for long, if kids have routinely experienced boredom - because they will have the freedom and independent time to see where their thoughts, their initiative, their imaginations lead them. Boredom will serve it's purpose and they'll move on to wherever their ideas/daydreams lead them. They'll be allowed to 'exercise' and so strengthen their 'autonomy muscles.' They'll have a stronger sense of self; their integrity will be further developed; they'll have a healthier sense of where they stop and other people (including their parents) begin. They can have the satisfying and empowering experience of replacing their state of boredom with something engaging to them.
'Enduring boredom' will be a tool to condition kids to discover their own ideas, their own preferences, their own sources of joy.
17
I appreciate your thinking about ‘boredom’ from a parent’s perspective of raising typical kids. However, I believe your perspective to be one-dimensional at best, especially when considering raising a child with ADHD or on the Autism Spectrum who may need a completely structured and visually planned day from sunrise to bedtime. I’m not at all calling you out, but rather, I’d like to widen your lens to address a whole swath of parents who may be at their wits end and frankly, are craving a daily hour of boredom. I totally understand that there’s an undercurrent theme to your topic that may not include this kind of stretching of the subject. But a lot of parents and educators who do their best to scaffold the needs of atypical children are challenged beyond any playbook or tool-belt they could ever imaging grabbing from. In a lot of cases, and I’m speaking from personal experience, a tried and true wheel of ‘strategies to circumvent children’s boredom’ needs to be totally reinvented into a thing which is sometimes unrecognizable, but it works. I count myself as one of these parents (my wife included) who has turned to the guidance of multiple therapists, social workers, and special needs educators to give our family a semblance of normalcy. It’s hard to explain, and in fact, it can be a downright surreal experience, when boredom is not allowed to factor into a family’s daily routine. I’d just like to pipe up and submit this extended point of view to your work. Thanks.
32
Family size now is a factor. When I was growing up, few families had less than three kids. There were five children in my family, and seven in my husband's. My mother had so much work to do keeping us fed, doing laundry, and other chores, having her stop to spend time with us was a luxury.
I'm so grateful for the extra time I had for my two kids. But what time I spent is nothing compared to the experience our grandkids get! Watching my son and daughter's whirlwind lives exhausts me!
If they could let the kids be bored a little more, the children might find more satisfaction and enjoyment for the entertainment that does enter their lives. Boredom puts excitement in relief. Instead of a barrage of minor thrills every day or week, kids could have something they don't get anymore: deeper experiences that inspire feelings they'll carry forever.
Maybe the parents would get a little sanity back in the process and have time to imagine more for themselves.
52
I recall the bored young man working at the patent office in Switzerland....
61
When I was dumb enough to tell my parents I was bored, they always had a ready list of chores for me to do. So I wasn't ever truly bored...enough to seek my parents aid in easing it. Caught, yes.
I could always find something to "entertain" my time. Way back in the old days when there was but one phone line and only 2 TV's in the house. Neither of which I had control over.
They yard provided me things to do, the basement, my own room. My friends yards, the playgrounds, the street, the school yards...the woods along the parkways...
But of course that was when children were allowed to roam their neighborhoods at will, freely, like grazing herds. What are today called free-range kids. Who Ive read can bring suspicions down upon their parents fitness as their guardians in some locales. Where a free, unattended kid is seen as breaking some arcane laws of public safety.
I could roam for blocks, all within a 5+ mile radius from my home, and find adequate stimulus, and even more boredom. I could kill a lot of time being bored while trudging (or riding a bike) thru the scant woods, across school fields, ducking thru barrier fences taking "short cuts" known only to us kids - all in the hunt for "entertainment".
I might come home, pockets full of found artifacts. I might come home sweating and dirty. Even a little flush with fear because some other kids, usually older, ran me off...
As an old man, I love that I can be myself and alone, all without a device pumping in content.
53
Maybe that sudden feeling of "I'm bored" is your soul's way of announcing that a burst of creativity is coming. So don't run away from the boredom. Feel it, welcome it, and be ready for that burst of creativity that is coming.
The most boring day of a job I had, it was a cold rainy day in February at a garden center. No customers all day, no tasks left to finish. The cashiers, stock people and even the managers were bored out of our minds. So I made a mask out of a brown paper shopping bag, put it on my head and jumped around like a crazed animal. We all laughed then, even my boss who thought I had finally gone off my rocker.
9
@Ronald Giteck Thanks so much. you made me laugh on an otherwise very boring afternoon! Cheers!
4
Very "interesting" ideas about being bored! Thank you.
But often boredom for kids and adults is a serious problem.
And it depends upon what we mean by being BORED.
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We may be totally burned out, or just temporarily spaced out.
(Trump may have gotten elected, because he realized that he had to be interesting, on a daily basis, to feed the media.)
I am working on ideas for a book on "Bored of Education."
It student are too bored with school, they may fail to study, at all.
I think this is what happens to many kids, who lack interest.
Boredom can feed on itself. We get bored and want to give up.
I think one way to cope with boredom in school, is by sharing.
Students can constantly share helpful ideas with other students.
Another way to cope is by debating about some class questions.
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www.SavingSchools.org
3
When I was a kid, (late40s, early 50s) I was constantly complaining to my mother that I was bored. My mother would frequently make suggestions, which I rejected. At some point, my mother would tell me I needed fresh air & breath deeply & ecstatically. I would think, -what is this woman's obsession with fresh air?. Finally, 65 years later & 10 years after my mother's death, I finally got it! What she really meant was ' get out of here & stop pestering me' - but she was too polite to say that, & I was too dense to get the hint.
24
Brilliant. Brilliant. This column was nothing but brilliant.
23
It is my belief that "I'm bored" is a product of our visual culture. Where do children learn the phrase? If you or your offspring is bored you need something... a hug, a puzzle, a dictionary, or a sink full of dirty dishes. Pick one.
6
This article completely ignores the feelings of transgender students or other adolescents who may have gender identity issues which greatly impact concentration and academic performance. We need to accommodate all of our children, including the undocumented and those who may be disabled and require service dogs for therapy and personal growth.
Sorry, but what you call "staring at trees" I would call restoring myself in nature. I did that as a child and I do it still.
33
Parents also have to model boredom. People are shocked that I walk to work each day without listening to any podcasts or music. They literally ask, "but HOW do you do it?" !! At home, my husband and I are not glued to devices all day and I'm happy to say that on this crazy winter 65 degree day, both our 12-year-old and 16-year-old just headed to the park with friends.
26
I recommend that anyone interested in this topic read Boredom and the Religious Imagination by Michael Raposa. He makes the case that in many instances boredom matters and can be the midwife of creativity and insight. Often times children (and adults) are bored or uninspired because they fail to realize the importance of an experience that is a part of their life at a particular moment in time. This book has had a profound impact on the way I spend my down time and quiet moments.
6
Great article. Even for seemingly interesting and exciting jobs, such as a musician or professional athlete, consistent practice is tedious. Getting over the boredom is important for success in that line of work.
15
I recall many Saturdays during the 80s, my younger brother and I were bored out of our minds. We didn't have cable and cartoons on network tv ended by noon. Hating sports, we instead delved into our encyclopedias and explore. Our favorite game was to guess the dates of critical times of a US president like birth or death dates. Hours of fun and learning were had and I think my brother and I are smarter adults today.
14
I once took a group of 3rd and 4th grade boys to see the tall ships sail into Boston Harbor. The tall ships took a long time to arrive, but the children with nothing to do but sit on the rocky shore of one of the harbor islands, did not get bored. They quickly organized themselves into teams, two armies actually, pelting each other's troops , medium sized rocks, with small pebbles.
The kids not engaged in that conducted elaborate relay races (who knew rocks could run?), with one stone competing against another. There were no toys available and no adult making suggestions. All they needed was each other and a dirty beach, which proved much more interesting than the tall ships anyway.
15
My most boring times as a child frequently became my most stimulating times, as I indulged in things that kids don't do today, such as looking up something in our encyclopedia and then reading adjoining entries. I also set up my chemistry set and experimented to my heart's delight. Even more recently, I wandered around the house when my sons still had bedrooms there and found a great book on my elder son's shelves. I sat right down on the floor and read several stories by Isaac Singer.
If I told my mother I was bored, she'd say "read" or "go outdoors" and play. Parents today structure too much of their children's time. They need to allow for boredom and creativity.
13
I am so glad that I grew up in the 50's. The memories are incredible -- bicycling everywhere, ice and roller skating, building forts, playing all sorts of games with the neighborhood kids, being gone all day on adventures, some dangerous, enjoying nature, freedom, freedom, freedom! I feel sorry for children today staring at their cellphones and leading such programmed lives. So sad.
34
@Carol
Me too! What freedom! The Bronx was an amazing place to grow up in the 60s! "Nature" was an empty lot, Pelham Bay Park, fishing at Orchard beach, The Bronx Zoo, Botanical Gardens and candy stores on the corner, the playground down the street, box ball, stick ball, jump rope and a zillion games to play with a "spaldeen".
15
Adults should take the same advice. When you are waiting in line someplace, how often do you see people just standing still rather not on their phones? Not too often. It’s easy to moralizing and tell parents they are raising kids wrong, but this is just a part of a much bigger epidemic.
29
Back when I was a first line audit supervisor at a (then) Big Eight accounting firm I had the odd first year working for me who was assigned boring tasks, e.g. photocopying client documents, who complained of that. My stock response was that if the work were all fun we would just get volunteers to do it.
5
Its not just the kids that need the get bored again. I'm 55 and plenty bored despite the digital devices and endless video to stream. Thanks for the reminder that this is life.
I'm going to relish staring at the wall today and once the stupor overwhelms me Ill rouse myself and read a book or find something interesting to do.
7
Time is the ultimate luxury. Carpe Diem.
14
I disagree. Children's boredom has nothing to do with a lack of entertainment on the part of parents. It has everything to do with their lack of love. Boredom is a symptom of depression which is caused by parents who don't engage with their kids in a loving manner, with hugs, with humor, with caring conversations, with questions asked and answered by both parties. Whether a child is uberparented or unterparented doesn't matter. It's the relationship that counts.
2
I enjoy your articles; they are well thought out and articulated. Keep up the good work!
7
Your kids are bored? Send them my way. Gardens full of vegetables, flowers, butterflies, worms - and rocks and weeds. Horses, donkeys, goats, chickens to feed, water, pet - and groom and muck out. Fences to mend. Bread to bake. Lawns to mow. They’ll go home with you asleep in the back seat.
23
Boredom leads kids to find something not boring, like drugs and unsafe sex and other reckless choices they learn from their peers who have already begun doing these things and often their peers want to share these irresponsible choices with others so much they pressure them into doing them.
6
I’m the chairman of the “bored”!
There are few things more terrifying to me than being around people who claim they are bored. After this proclamation, they nearly always look at me as if to say, "Entertain me!" Yoiks. I grew up having tons of things to do, to think, to read. My son has grown up with that same mindset - there just are not enough hours in the day to do all the things we could do. People who are bored on their own time (this does not include those with mind-numbing jobs) are not yet acquainted with themselves.
10
One immediate consequence of not having a cell phone in front of you every minute numbing your brain, is you have to start looking outward- to the natural world, with it’s endless detail and beauty, and it’s posing of value questions. I remember stepping into a Texas bull nettle when I was about 5, and asking my mom, why in the world did God make this awful thing?
The substitution of immersion in the natural world for the cyber world sadly is not available to all. Perhaps this is an argument for universal preschool, to take advantage of that still malleable time of a child’s development.
4
@Phaedrus
SAdly many preschools are structured places and full of "academic" work these days...
5
As a "Leave it to Beaver" and "Gilligan's Island" aficionado, and with apologies to Big, absoeffinlutely brilliant.
2
I know this is the Opinion page and opinions are opinions, but this article kept making me ask myself, “How does she know what she thinks she knows?”.
3
when "bored" read a book!
3
Hurray for this article!
5
The best piece of parenting advice I ever had was learned from my brother. “Dad,” his four year old daughter whined, “I’m bored.” “. . .,” he replied, “that says more about what’s going on between your ears than what’s going on around you.” I was blown away by the accuracy of his response, and used it more than once when my son, who was born four years later, made the same complaint. Being bored forces, no, allows, you to take charge of your brain!
14
I love doing nothing.
5
My mother would say, “If you’re bored bang your head against the wall.”
2
I have always thought that boredom was directly correlated to narcissism. If you're bored, get out of your own head and go engage with the world!
3
I don't know if one size fits all. Maybe it does; maybe we do have a form-fitting human nature to which we should conform. Specifically, we should all be creative, intellectual, spiritual, educated, hard-working, wise, outgoing, and compassionate.
But who or what decides that? Scripture? Science? Common sense? Culture? A New York Times editorialist? Some, or all, of these?
I was very anxious throughout life, and I found constant distraction necessary for my sanity; grade school was nerve-wracking torture. To sit and do nothing was to invite a panic attack, which brings terror, misery, and fear of the next one.
I finally escaped the hell of mandatory schooling to adulthood, where I had more freedom and power to get what I needed: near-constant stimulation, often in fantasy, which may or may not be socially productive, despite my teachers insisting that nose-to-the-boring-grindstone is one's proper activity.
So boredom, for me, is harmful. My cellphone and desktop provide the constant stimulation I crave, perhaps neurotically, if you insist, but I may be the wrong size in a hypothesized perfect world of rational balance where boredom is esteemed by self-appointed realists.
So no thanks on the well-intentioned offer of boredom; I'll pass. Doing fine without it. Your heart is in the right place.
6
it's great to engage students during lessons - hardly a surprise here. not every lesson lends itself to engagement. the problem develops later when students-turned-employees have to complete a "boring" task that their job requires and they have little motivation - or worse - skill to complete it successfully.
3
Wow! I remember a few of those days of childhood -- being and saying I was bored. The answer is short and sweet: Then find something you're interested in and do it. If takes doing with someone else, go find the someone else and ask and them do it with you. If you're not interested in anything -- anything at all -- you must already know and have done everything. Do you and have you? No? Then don't be a dope. Think harder!
1
It’s when you are bored that stories set in. Checking out groceries at the supermarket, I invented narratives around people’s purchases.
But best keep them to yourself. Only the other day in the supermarket an elderly man at the checkout with a carton of adult diapers overheard the middle aged man directly behind him remark for the amusement of his partner, "Well, they do say everything old is new again, don't they?"
"Can't come soon enough," said the elderly man having turned around to see who'd spoken.
"Excuse me?" said the middle aged man, as if in all innocence.
"The day when people will remember how to mind their own business, I mean," answered the elderly man.
"Excuse me?" repeated the middle aged man, sensing an insult.
"You're excused," said the elderly man shakily placing his purchase in the carry all compartment of his walker, "Forgiven? That's another story."
2
Yes, indeed, boredom has its benefits if we embrace it. But Joseph Brodsky said it better than I could in his 1995 commencement address: https://relembramentos.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/in-praise-of-boredom/
1
The problem with constant entertainment is habituation. Like any addiction, amusement requires stronger hits, Pong becomes Pac Man, then Mario, then Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto. Pokemon Go turns into Pokemon Showdown. The next inevitability for the dopamine tsunami is playing for real, you know, like Stand Your Ground.
2
Raise your hand if you remember wiling away a rainy Saturday afternoon thumbing through the pages of a World Book Encyclopedia.
14
'I'm bored ...'
What's the riposte ? 'If you're bored you must be boring'
Find something to do or I'll give you chores ...
3
I am glad to know that my aversion to dragging kids from one activity to another was, in fact, great parenting.
And for anyone who does not know, the universal answer to "I'm bored" is "Oh, I have a few things you can do" as you hand the kid a toilet brush.
9
So the big media is force to so called "infotainment," since people can't handle in depth reading, or lengthy conversation.
All this goes to "poorly educated crowd" and the inevitable outcome of ignorant electorate.
Sweet dreams for climate deniers!!!
The "Dumbing Down" of America: Real or Not?
Yes, REAL!
2
I totally agree with you Pamela. It is important for children to get bored. I'm going to have them read your column. That ought to do the trick.
3
Americans cannot detach themselves from that British psychology of behaviorism that has made them unable to understand the difference between nevrosis and psychosis.
1
If boredom spawns creativity and self-sufficiency why limit the benefits of boredom to children? We should all get bored! In fact, that could be a campaign slogan for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nominee: Get rid of the entertaining fool in the White House and Make America Bored Again.
6
The relentlessness of modern parenting. The relentlessness of modern everything. Living by app. Even pieces of fruit have cameras in them.
What makes me want to scream sometimes is when i watch middle class parents at the play structure in the park in the little area for little kids, NARRATING their kids experience for them. Watching them like hawks.
Sure, I in fact, child of the fugged up fifties, wish my mom had paid some attention to me when very little, then when i said, "mommy look at me!" she had actually looked, but i think had she done a play -by-play, "oh, that looks so fun...oooh, you fell down, whee... do you wanna try this other thingie, do you want to go on the swing now {that's while mikey was enjoying himself already on the gorilla}...isnt that fun..." i would have run away from home with the neighbor's cat.
And while i agree that there has to be an element of boring in school since you have to study subjects you dont always like, on the other hand, the utter lack of respect for and low pay teachers get means its hardly the best and the brightest doing the instruction 3/4 of the time. And i you are above average in IQ its mind numbing to the point of immorality.
3
Right on Ms. Paul.
“Somebody's boring me. I think it's me.”
― Dylan Thomas
7
BTW, I read this piece from Medium last year, it tells you everything you need to know about our children dangerous digital addiction, no wonder the platforms inventors, our geniuses don't allow their own kids near the screens.
https://medium.com/@richardnfreed/the-tech-industrys-psychological-war-on-kids-c452870464ce
The Tech Industry’s War on Kids
How psychology is being used as a weapon against children
1
I know children don't read or wright comments on this board, but I find myself never bored when I can read all this great comments, it's almost like talking to very smart and insightful group of people that you might lack outside of your place when you live alone...
Hurrah for NYTimes readers and commentators.
11
I’m a college student who has taken a 90 challenge to give up all social media, TV, movies, video games, YouTube videos, and random google searches. I only use my phone for reading the news and essential texts and calls. It has forced me to embrace boredom in all its glory. As a kid that grew up in the technological age of low attention spans, this is the greatest thing I have ever done. I am forced to face thoughts and emotions, find new and exciting ways to spend my time, and make new friends who I otherwise would have never met because I would’ve been in my pajamas watching Netflix. As a young person, I love this article. Kids need to be bored again: make up their own games, run around the neighborhood and meet new friends, express their emotions and creativity in ways that don’t include a video game that fries their brain. The next time your child says I’m bored, please say “alright go out and play, and don’t come back till dinners ready.” It will change their life for the better.
10
One learns to never say "I'm bored" to a parent who replies "I'll find something for you to do". That something was usually housework.
2
This is literally the worst advice about raising children that I've seen in a very long time.
Do *not* deliberately try to cause your children to be bored!!! There is surely almost *anything* they would rather be doing than sitting around with nothing to write with or read or anyone to play with or talk to. Give your child a chance to be creative — by no means always instruct them how to proceed. But boredom is a highly unnatural state. If you want to stunt your child's mental growth, make sure they're bored a lot.
2
Those of us who grew up playing the first generation of video games
My father, of Blessed Memory, knew how to respond to these complaints. Whenever I would say "I'm bored" his response would be "You're bored? Take your head in your hands and bang it against the wall".
3
Whenever I read about some child-raising practice in the US, I can rarely relate to it. Do American parents really think they have to stimulate their kids ALL THE TIME? That sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration. Unless you hire someone to take care of them full time, but it is impossible if you want to have your own life.
7
It is true that vast quantities of worthwhile information are dull and two-dimensional. However, I ask you to consider yourself as a middle schooler. How much content do you truly remember from that age? Even in high school, much of the content taught will be forgotten if it is not reinforced later in life through college courses, use at work, or daily life. As such is it not a teacher’s job first and foremost to show students that learning can be fun? That it can be stimulating? The push towards increasing student engagement is partly in response to student expectations that material to which they devote their attention be attention grabbing itself. However, the science behind increasing student engagement is very different. Research shows that through increasing real world relevancy and connecting content to students’ individual lives, recall and content understanding increase as well. (National Research Council, 2012; Tsui, 2007)
As we've now reached the attention span comment character limit, please see part 2 above.
1
NYT, the economy, and "Progress" all conspire to make stimulation as addictive as possible. Its the unregulated American way. As much Facebook, as Much tV, as Much RPG's, As much Sugar, as much bliss point food. The market raises our children, including the transfer of any public wealth left, like public schools being Charter "internet" schools. The largest in my state has 5,000 kids. No building, focused on test taking, no autistic kids, no counselors required, no in person attention-- a $ paradise that the Koch brothers are pushing. Children? Bored? What are you gonna tell me next, that we don't need the new designer drug that costs thousands when the generic costs $3? Get real. Business is business, and our kids are gold mines for companies. More more more
When my kids used to tell me they were bored, I would say, “Sounds like a personal problem to me - I guess you need to think of something quick, because I have lots of things you can do to help me! How about laundry and tidying up your rooms? Are they clean? Hmmm... Is your homework done? Hmmm...”.
It was always amazing how suddenly they were no longer bored!
7
The Buddha would advise us if bored, to look more closely.
8
And the government would love it. A new generation without critical thinking, an inability to focus on a topic for more than 30 seconds, and dependency on adults to keep them distracted, will make population control much easier. This was the communist Holy Grail.
AMEN. Anyone who quotes The Gashleycrumb Tinies is worth listening to, although my personal favorite is The Beastly Baby.
2
Does anything really need to be added to what Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” says about this?
3
Kind of clueless. Really doesn't connect to the trouble that most adults are on their screens so their kids are too.
3
I can still remember the phrase “It’s not your parents job to entertain you!”, oh the 60’s were great! We entertained ourselves all right. We turned on, tuned in and dropped out, barely passing english class as you can see.
Some would chant, “idle hands are the devils workshop”, but not us. We were lighting Jefferson Airplanes and listening to the Doors. The rest of the bored folks, a.k.a poor people, Vietnam.
Boredom truly is an acquired taste that abhors a vacuum. I would say today’s boredom is filled with the internet’s destructive broadcasts of tune in, hate, and act out. Not to mention the prevalence of “Grand Theft Auto” and Combat games.
With the war on terrorism a steady drumbeat and the dystopian climate Of nationalism obfuscated by religion and popularism, we must protect our children.
We simply can’t literally leave them to their own devices when they are bored. Frankly, most middle class kids aren’t the same bored like the 60’s through the 90’s, but burned out, with all the ways available to escape it.
Yes, as parents we need to let our kids be bored, but only by teaching them what the range of manageable healthy options for dealing with it are.
Jihad is not one of them or machine gunning a crowd.
3
Children need more time for free play, less time having their lives and learning organized by adults. Even their 'play' nowadays is a school-like activity organized by adults. It's true (as others commented) that many are bored at school, and I would argue that it is because they are not allowed any freedom to learn what they choose or pursue their interests. Kids need time to try out new things, get bored, try something else,etc. They are natural born learners and doers, and the freedom to get bored and change directions is an important part of finding their passions. The boredom and the coercive learning methods used in traditional schools are just really sad and unnecessary.
Kudos to Ms. Paul! My 3 children are now in their late twenties with graduate degrees. And for Pre-k and K, I sent them to a local co-operative school. While computers were becoming the "big thing "at more progressive pre-schools, one could not be found at this school. Using hand held tools and discarded small appliances (toasters, hairdryers,etc.) provided by parents, they enhanced their small motor skills and inquisitive nature as to what made these appliances operate. The children were responsible for incubating and caring for their hatched eggs, they scavenged mulberry trees for leaves to feed the silk worms they watched spin, no child was forced to read or write but always was eager to contributed to story circle time. Building experiences used treated lumber as they wished not directed construction by an adult. They were never bored because there was always something to engage them of their own ....non-directed adult choice. They found their own creativity. This is how children should learn.
best experience of their early educational lives and remain friends with many of those classmates.
This author sounds a lot like my mom who is so judgmental about how I parent. As a parent to young kids, its a bit annoying to see the barrage of advice that tells you what a terrible parent you are because you let your kids use an iPad or because you take them for soccer practice. We are doing the best we can - juggling work, kids, laundry, while also making the time for political activism in the age of trump.
Sure the 70s were lovely if you raising a white heterosexual kid but can we accept the fact that in 2019 the world is very different .
Looking back nostalgically at ones own childhood happens in every generation. I am sure when my kids become parents I will be super judgy as well but here’s the thing - changing norms around parenting and everything else is inevitable and natural. We are by no means perfect parents but the kids are alright . So please stop being so judgmental.
3
When in the early 60’s I was bored, in downtown Brooklyn, I’d find some friend, and then a few of us would be bored together. Then we’d decide on some mischief for entertainment. One of our favorites was to get some balloons, fill ‘em up with water, go to the roof and chuck ’em at the people below.
Oh yea !!
Many good points made. My favorite retort to my teen daughters is, “I’m so happy you’re bored! Now you’re about to do something amazing!”
One point I’d like to make about education and children, being a teacher myself: you have to know the developmental age and ability of your charges. For example, most 12 year olds can take about 10 12 minutes of lecture...then that’s it: time for them to do something with the information.
Holding them their attention accountable for anything longer is a waste of their time and your breath.
That’s not a symptom of a overly digital age. That’s the eternal reality of a 12 year old brain.
5
Yup. The child who can't learn and find interest in the world without others' interventions could turn out to be the next Donald Trump.
2
I’m told by neuroscientists that boredom is a form of pain. Most pain requires a response, so boredom can lead to constructive action. But, like physical pain, it can also reduce you to a quivering mass.
Maybe it’s good for you if you’re a masochist?
2
I was never bored as a kid. Product of the times but also a product of my nature. I’m glad our grandkids aren’t allowed to engage with digital trappings in the same way other kids are. Their parents are showing them the world through nature, parks, museums, books, stimulating toys, and not through dumb devices. The girls are better off for it.
Apparently some Yiddish-speaking parents would answer "I bored" with "go bank your head against the wall". Maybe it was more sarcastic than violent in Yiddish. Downtime does get easier as you grow older but handling the stress does need to be learned. Some relief is okay but shouldn't be constant. I wonder if all the ADHD diagnoses relate to people never allowing any bored time with constant electronics available since the 1980s. I saw a toddler in a stroller with a smartphone which terrified me.
'“I’m bored.” It’s a puny little phrase, yet it has the power to fill parents with a cascade of dread, annoyance and guilt.'
Really? LOL. Not my dad. I said this once to him as a child. He replied: "Meditate." End of discussion. He had no sympathy for kids with plenty of options unable to amuse themselves. Lesson learned.
6
Love this. Thank you.
The ideas set forth here seem to, if I remember well, echo the thoughts of Neil Postman's wonderful book Entertaining Ourselves to Death---I think its at last somewhat parallel.
I totally agree that our exposing of youth but nothing but a firestream of action and planned activities to avoid them 'being bored' actually robs the next generation of precisely what we want in them--creativity, ability to think on their own,not to become trapped in the herd mentality that IS modern media, focusing on short attention spans--on the dessert if you will rather than on the main course of life---making the mundane and quotidian well.....interesting or at least bearable. Buck it up kids and millenials and start living!
3
Exactly. Boredom is the gateway to undiscovered parts of your imagination. This article’s thesis has been an important tenant in my own child rearing philosophy. My first ten years spanned the 1970’s, and I was never bored as a child because no one offered up that definition to me. My parents would sometimes suggest new activities if we asked, us kids would inevitably reject them all, and then we’d emerge hours later with a new adventure, with siblings or solo, or in a corner of the house or yard with a newly uncovered book. I remember thinking of those moments where I didn’t have a planned activity as a needed lull in between inspiration or as an entree into a new activity because that’s how my parents framed it. I still do, though I rarely have that luxury as an adult now. Seeing what might be called “boredom” as a breath in and space for inspiration has been the foundation for my own happiness, whatever I have on the day’s agenda (or not). I do not need to be entertained. Life is enough of a blockbuster for me.
2
Whether by intent or not, the result is still the same, so how we got here matters not: children are attached (addicted, co-dependent) to their screens and it stifles their imagination and inspiration.
There is no going back to nature any more than we can go back to the time when a $20 bill was worth what $100 is today. There is no going back to when we related directly with the earth because there is a plastic film between us and the dirt, and being dirty is not good at all.
No one has dirt pride anymore, they have screen pride, and it's unseemly. This change, fast as it has been, has not been fully understood yet, and the results are still just coming in. Our biological minds and bodies have not changed at all since these technologies usurped all of our time, and when we figure out the consequences, it will be too late to do anything about them.
Can you imagine a bunch of creative people standing about with nothing much to do in the coming age of automation? Perhaps it's best to have just had them all addicted to their screens at a young age so they won't be so uppity when their grown lives are about as fulfilling as an indoor cat.
3
Adults also need to learn to be bored and just be.
The vast universe of Twitter et al as adult remedies to boredom are just as unhealthy as a child's escape into the same black mirror. Seductive and addictive, and mostly mind-numbingly boring.
With so many years of life and experiences, just being still is a full novel of reflection and time well spent
2
Reading this article and the comments, including my own from yesterday, I have to wonder, whatever happened to the concept of interesting? It seems everything is divided between boring and fun these days. I can't agree more that teachers aren't there to make everything fun, but the notion that they should make everything as boring as possible seems equally absurd. It might make for adults who will be able to handle boredom better than others. But I've met a lot of people in their adult years who say flat out that they hate anything remotely intellectual because they were so bored in school. They never want to hear about history again because they barely survived it in school. They never read non-fiction because all the books they read in school were so boring. I remember some pretty boring history classes in school, but then I had a teacher who often said, "You're not here to be entertained." Her classes weren't fun, but she could sure make them interesting. I don't have space to go into how or why, but they weren't just a list of names and dates. The other 15-year olds in the Michael Jackson/Madonna era were just as interested in her history classes.
In a world without interesting, only boring and fun, who is going to find out why a piece of orange mold kills bacteria? Who is going to uncover King Tut's tomb? No, teachers shouldn't have to make their classes entertaining. But the idea that they shouldn't have to make them interesting either worries me as well.
5
Boredom is a great gift to yourself. The human mind, left to its own devices, makes endless forays into the physical, emotional, and spiritual. I have understood many things while sitting alone outside (with no distractions) - experiencing the peaceful passing of time.
3
Part of the reason why kids say they're bored to their parents is because they're dependent upon their parents for everything, including play. In spite of the fact that crime rates are substantially down almost everywhere (NYC had 2245 murders in 1990 and just 290 in 2017, fewer than the 404 recorded in 1928), we've become so paranoid that we don't let our kids out by themselves. In some locales, if young kids are out by themselves, the parents can be arrested. I've read of an instance of parents putting a badge on their kids indicating that these were "free range kids" and permitted to be out between their home, school and the local park.
I grew up in the 1950's and 60's in the Bronx. It felt relatively safe, but statistically, I'm not sure that it was safer than now. And yet, I'd leave the apartment on a Saturday or Sunday and not return for hours. Once I was out, if I were bored it was my problem. And my parents actually had no idea where I was. Aside from finding our own things to do, it made us streetwise and smarter. I could go to the local luncheonette/newsstand at 6 or 7 years old and buy candy, a comic book, a burger, or a chocolate egg cream, pay for it and make sure I got back the correct change. My grandkids are incapable of that (although they are brilliant and accomplished in other ways).
Combine that with screens and electronic games and we've trained our kids to have ADD.
4
I take a more nuanced view. It begins like this:
We are a bunch of old-fogeys looking at the 20th century as it recedes in the back view mirror. With it, so go our now golden tinted memories of childhoods which are devoid of realities like latchkeys and the sort of bewilderment only the child of boomers can understand.
I know. I am guilty of such.
Here is the truth. It's 2019. We live in a world where being bored requires effort. There are so many ways to entertain the mind. Case in point. I am reading this article. It sparks a question about ADHD and you know what I can do? I can pause mid-article, and look up my question. Whohooo!
Along with our inability to be still, we are noticeably more knowledgable about the world. I have learned more in the past year than I did four years of college. So let's first get grounded in the fact that THIS is the world of today and the world of tomorrow will be noticeably more complicated.
So where does that leave the modern parent?
Doing what they can. No more, no less.
I don't entertain my children any more than I solve all their problems but I don't begrudge them the ways they entertain themselves. They don't read like I did; but they know more than me because their insatiable curiosity is nearly always rewarded by the little device in their hands.
If anything, what we talk a lot in this family is about balance.....and creativity.....and purpose....and connection.
Those seem like better skills for the world that is coming.
7
I too have observed that life in the West is understood in terms of joy and happiness over anything else. That is why students feel bored easily when they encounter difficult reading materials. Teachers are forced to fancify things so that students do not feel bored. Although not literally, symbolically ears are banned in the public or are taken as a sign of weakness. Everything in the West should be fun, joyous or should be about strength, bravery but not weakness and boredom. This is a fragmented view of human existence. I wish the West would view life as a totality of boredom and fun, weakness and strength, tears and joy and many others.
4
When my 7 yr. old granddaughter tells me she's bored, my response is something like " If you're bored, it's because you are not paying attention. Life is full of interesting things, you just have to look for them." Boredom is an invitation to be creative, to engage with life, to use your mind.
7
I have a vivid memory of something that happened to me at home when I was about 8 years old. I was bored and I remember that I said to my mother, "what can I do?" Mom looked at me and said, "well then why don't you mildew?" What?? Mildew?? That sent me to the dictionary to find out what mildew meant. Suddenly, I was no long
er bored and I had something to do! I am 87 now, but that memory is still with me. Now that I am retired, I find that there are not enough hours in the day to do what I like: read, cook, watch movies, go out to dinner with friends etc. I am never bored.
6
Yes, for some people life is just too easy. The parents who can afford to worry about and alleviate their children's boredom belong to a small portion of the population. These people can also afford therapists to undo the damage caused by over-entertainment. In real life most of us, both parents, or the single parent, are working hard, living paycheck to paycheck, dreading any sort of small set back like an illness, accident or automotive malfunction. For the affluent minority this article is full of great advice and simple wisdom. For the rest of us, it reads like science fiction. One sure way not to be bored is to be scared. (Maslow's hierarchy of needs).
4
As someone who does a lot of work with children, I heartily agree with this piece and not just because I'm someone who is peculiarly immune to boredom. In fact, as a kid I was so invested in my inner fantasy life that rather than feeling bored, I often felt I was being interrupted by the noisy business of engaging with .. people.
That is not a boast; I have a whole roster of negative issues to deal with, and I do understand that most people do experience boredom more often than they want. But beyond the fact that I suspect "boredom" can be a catch all phrase to encompass frustration or loneliness, I have observed that today's young people appear to be so inundated by an excess of information, activity and attention that they seem at a loss when faced with silence.
Perhaps the best descriptor for what they experience might be fear that is reinforced by parental anxiety at the thought of letting their children face "boredom" and blame them for the void. I agree with the author that encouraging kids to fill in the empty spaces using their own ingenuity is a grand idea. As an adult, it is difficult not to intervene, but the productivity of people we admire who put their energy into conquering emptiness should be instructive. Few of us will come up with the kind of art, innovations or success our heroes experience, but their example should inspire us and more particularly children, to try.
2
Boredom does not simply mean under-stimulated because there is nothing to do. Boredom can also indicate an inability to engage.
I worry less about kids wanting entertainment than about kids surrounded by so much and yet unable to attach.
We fill our lives with motion devoid of meaning, and the result is boredom, no matter how much there is to do.
7
I agree! Boredom is a necessary component of an enhanced childhood. Children who are continuously engaged, whose every waking moment is programmed, and who cannot explore, learn, create, or enjoy downtime grow up to be adults who don't know what to do with themselves on their own, who have little interest in the world around them, and who are incurious, non-critical thinkers.
When I was in the third grade, I told my father a lie - not a HUGE lie, rather an unimportant one - but it was so bold, and shocking that my dad over-reacted by grounding me for the entire summer. While other kids in my neighborhood walked to the pool, played football in their backyards, built tree forts and rode their bikes all summer, I faced a summer of utter boredom.
The only outings I was allowed were to the library, where I checked out seven books each week - and I read them all sitting in our weeping willow tree, swaying in the breeze. I practiced archery. I built things out of spare lumber I found in the garage. I organized a "carnival" in our yard, with games I created, enhanced rides on our swing set, and puppet shows for little kids. I made "stadium seats" out of thick newspaper, woven and painted, and sold them to people headed to the ball park down the street from my house.
It turned out to be a great summer, one I'll never forget as much for what I did on my own as for the reason for my confinement. Boredom overcome.
9
Great piece, Ms. Paul.....should be required-reading for educators and parents.
I was raised in rural NJ by inattentive but smart parents who let me do whatever I wanted to do...this produced an avid reader and library user (I ultimately became a librarian after a Wall Street career), who loved exploring the woods, playing on the neighborhood farms, riding my bike everywhere, and returning home to eat and read. Wonderful memories.
As a 70+ retiree, people might say: What do you do with your time? My answer remains the answer when I was 9: “whatever I want, whenever I want.” This means a lot of reading, some hanging out with friends, and more reading. I have long felt that I’m a perennial 9 year old, never bored.
My educated parents were probably right but maybe for the wrong reason, yet I benefitted my entire life from their laissez-faire. Appreciating that, my 3 grown kids are all avid readers, Humanities-people, never bored, and great fun to be with.
I feel badly for many of today’s kids who don’t have those experiences from which to gain elemental and long-lasting insights.
I hope parents can be inspired by your piece, and thank you...Catherine
3
My creative juices flow when I wash the dishes. I love standing there, staring at the light bouncing off of the stainless steel faucet, the steam rising from the hot water, scrubbing a plate I let my mind fly away....
4
I experienced a boring childhood of digging holes in the ground, walking in the woods, staring at the clouds and stacking blocks of scrap wood into imaginary architecture. I was so bored at times I eventuality dropped out of high school in the 10th grade and learned to cook as third tier line cook in a Mexican restaurant.
When I got saturated with my inner reflection (deeply boring) went to university, graduate school and became a post doctoral teaching fellow at a very good university. My parents were stunned. Today I am a professional artist, have taught generations of aspiring artists and use the expression “boredom is the mother of invention “. Thanks to everyone who allowed me to be bored.
3
I completely agree with the article. However, the author suggest that boredom is good because it brings creativity and therefore productivity. I'd argue that there is nothing wrong with pure boredom and being in fact unproductive. Unfortunately, this is the disease of our modern society, the tremendous pressure of being productive at all time.
5
I started writing a kind of memoir of my play time as a child as a device to show my kids what their parents did for fun.
Sometimes when bored we kids would just hang out under a tree imagining what we would do as adults.
I remember putting the picnic table, the wheelbarrow, and a couple of lawn chairs together. The structure became a steamboat on the Mississippi and off we went.
The times we turned dad's tool shed into the Dodge City jail, or the HQ of some commando mission we took up, or the casino where we played with our toy roulette wheel.
There were some moments of boredom as we sat watching the test pattern on the TV waiting for cartoons to come on.
This is a great article and a great wake up call to parents. Give your kids some time to just be.
2
Boredom is a gift for the privileged. Boredom requires the most precious commodity on earth: time. Poverty is hard, grinding work with no room left over for idle contemplation.
Boredom should be seen as an opportunity to think, dream, plan, recharge. I have a friend who plans her child’s every waking moment, afraid he might “waste time” if left to his own devices. She befriends the parents of potential buddies for her anxiety riddled son. He can’t even make a phone call without her standing over and encouraging him at this point. She is applying to his colleges, checking deadlines, and still driving him everywhere despite that he is old enough for a license. The idea of driving scares him...
Lots of kids are turning out like him. They prefer to be driven rather than taking initiative to get behind the wheel. What happened? My generation couldn’t wait to drive, because it meant getting AWAY from our parents.
They expect the red carpet rolled out for their every step because mom convinced them they’re amazingly brilliant. They hang around their parents way too long, probably because the rest of the world doesn’t see their brilliance quite the same way.
Let kids get bored, let them fall down, let them fail once in a while. Encourage the failure because it’s a badge of honor to have even tried. For many of these kids it’s too late but let’s course correct sooner rather than later.
5
"It’s especially important that kids get bored — and be allowed to stay bored — when they’re young."
Apparently, my parents failed miserably in the raising of their five children.
Alternately, it's hard for children to be bored when they have four siblings, are taking to the library frequently, in addition to living in a house that has floor to ceiling books, have swings in the backyard, a ping pong table and pool table, in the basement, a badminton net in the backyard, have bicycles that they ride around the neighborhood with other neighborhood children, board games, launch the first chameleon to the moon,. transfer guppies from one fish tank to another before the mother eats the babies.build tinker-toy and lego structures, play board games, checkers, and chess from early childhood because their father taught them how to place chess.
Then there was the New York Times, Newsday , The N.Y. Post ( bought by my father to read on the train on the way hoe from work ), & the National Geographics going back to 1953,
Did parents fail us by reading to use from the time we were babies, taking us to library story time, taking us to puppet shows, museums, the theatre, concerts, bowling, the beach, on trips ,etc. Was it wrong of them to buy me all those Nancy Drew books?
It's too late, at any rate. We are 64, 62, 60, 56 & 51. It's too late for us now.
3
Fishes biting, so exciting, what a day to go kite flying,
Angler Bill, He gets a thrill
Sitting, watching bobbing quill
Time seems to stand quite still
In a child's world it always will..
ahh, the good ol days, before the family phone plan.
2
I came from a third world country and among other thing has to be fun in America , like work, chores and so on....the one that surprised me the most was school also was “fun”? Hun? Wow, lucky students I thought . Kids expect this and especially parents, their children should have fun at all time: guarantied! Now this article makes me confused, boredom is most parents avoid not to happen to their children. I feel sorry for kids have to do all activities rain or shine.
1
I can honestly say at age 63; I cannot ever remember being bored.
3
Wow this article is really fascinating. It's an entirely different point of view toward the matter. Now that I think back to times when I am bored, I really express a lot of creativity. When I'm bored, I have the time to depict small details to express out of my mind.
Ever wonder why it is we've migrated, over a long span of time, from tree to cave to our current hi-tech state of life (and mind)? I have. I think this opinion piece actually touches on a prime motivating factor.
Yes curiosity and intelligence, plus a desire to wander, are innate factors contributing to the advancement of our species. But sitting around the cave fire in the dead of winter must have been stultifyingly dull, dull, dull. Especially for an animal so curious and intelligent. We got bored. So we got creative to deal with it.
But boredom has proven to be the spark lighting the fuse of all the advancements we have made to date hasn't it? All of it may be considered as having been roused from that state. So let's give a good hearty cheer for the boring day!??
And just think...if we truly go out into space with all its vastness many things may, and will, occur. But I guarantee the long spans of time necessary to get between points A and B will insure boredom.
We will once again be sitting around a fire, this time an electronic one. Just hi-tech primitives, primates on a sojourn, in stasis and entertaining each other thru boredom while waiting on the light of a new day.
Where it goes from there is anyone's guess, but you can use that path from tree to cave to hi-tech as a guide.
John~
American Net'Zen
1
I dislike the word boredom, it’s negative connotation. I prefer the idea of doing nothing and being fine with it. When our sons were young, we’d sit on our porch swing and they’d ask: what will we do now? I’d say, we’re going to do nothing, just swing and enjoy the moment. Be here now! They became used to this and stayed in the moment.
I’ve been a practicing meditator for over 40 years and the biggest “something’s” are found within moments of nothing, losing yourself in attention to the moment, your breath, what’s inside you or right before your eyes. This is where we find wonder not boredom.
3
You want boring in the 21st century?
Try attending classes at your child's school (not with your kid, though) for an entire day. Sit in the back of the room and watch students' responses to tasks too easy, too hard, or just mind-numbingly boring because they are repetitious and require useless skills, or because kids have little context for understanding what they are supposed to be learning, e.g., high school civics.
Seriously.
For the really good teachers out there who are doing their jobs and see this as an insult, I suggest following an "average" student's schedule for an ENTIRE SCHOOL DAY, and do the exact work that they are asked to do, and see what you think.
My point is only that "boring" is alive and well.
136
@Sharon Well, sometimes things in life are boring I guess to some---please tell me how to make all learning of anything 'fun' all the time--learning ANYthing often requires a little backbone, and yes repetition to master--the trick is not to depend on others (teachers who in your case get all the blame) but to figure things out on your own. Also, remember the old Bell Curve? Not all teachers will 96th percentile--get over it--not all parents nor preachers or pitchers are 98th percentile either.
45
Some kids need repetitionto learn. I would love to move faster in class
32
@Sharon
I suggest following an "average" TEACHER’S schedule for an ENTIRE SCHOOL DAY, and do the exact work that they are asked to do, and see what you think.
But, then again, just one day is like running a 100 meter dash for a job which requires the endurance of a marathon runner. Better to try it for at least six months. And make sure to live on a teacher’s paycheck during that time.
Perhaps then you’ll realize that most teachers have little control over decisions about such important matters as curriculum and class size, which would enable teachers to provide more individualized instruction. Those decisions start which politicians who think they are pedagogical experts and stewards of responsible government by slashing school funding.
116
Ouch, this is harsh. Do we really have to throw all of the modern parenting impulses under the bus? I think seatbelts are a good thing. And where’s the harm in making learning fun? And aren’t you the beneficiary of boring jobs, plural? Some folks are locked into their mind numbing jobs for a lifetime. Yet the survivors find ways to make them, yes, fun! Yes, I agree, more boredom/downtime whatever you want to call it is a good thing - especially for our creative juices. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water.
1
I hardly know how to express how happy reading the column has made me today! The next time a well intentioned person on the school yard pressures me to sign my 8 year old daughter up for another “enrichment” activity organized by an adult, I’ll just slip them a copy of this column. In the meantime, we will go home and keep doing what we do....all sorts of fiddling around. We read,study, look up words in the dictionary, play scrabble, grow vegetables, chit chat, knit, bake, watch earthworms in the dirt, examine the colors of the sunset, and about a thousand other things. Every once in awhile, we feel a little bored, which gives us a few moments to figure out a few more things we are interested in. My resolve to give my child the time and freedom to enrich her own life and her own mind, in her own way , has been strengthened. Pamela, Thank you so much for these words of encouragement.
3
Boredom is a failure to exercise the mind. No matter what I do whether weeding the garden, cutting the grass or cleaning the house I view those times as clear. They require little thought as to how to get them done and thus I have space and time to think of bigger and better things. Those things come inspired from my other pursuits such as reading the newspaper. Sometimes they're just flights of fancy to occupy the mind.
You're responsible for your boredom.
1
Alas, we're reaching a time when daydreaming is a lost art.
6
Ah, this commentary makes me wish my kids, now 13 and 11, had just one summer like the ones I experienced in the 80s -- riding our bikes to the convenience store to buy a grape soda, playing hide and seek in the woods, wiffle ball in the backyard, skipping rocks across the brook. Now, they'll have to settle for something close to this... at camp.
1
I think this article is important and timely. I have watched at various times these helicopter parents who seem fixated that every waking moment of every day their children must be either entertained or enrolled in some stimulating activity; or they are bad parents. Actually; I feel these parents are actually crazy. My own opinion has always been; when do these kids get to be kids?! As a child growing up in the early 1960`s; my mother`s idea of having my sister and I filling free time was basically GO PLAY! We were not subjected to some strict timeline where we had to adhere to doing one activity only for several hours; with every day planned out to the ultimate degree...THANK GOD. We invented games; we let our imaginations run wild; our time was our own; we decided what we wanted to do; with a bare minimum of adult supervision. And I Loved It. There was a sense of timeless freedom that kids to me are craving for these days. Instead of glued to their omni-present stupid computer games where one is programmed; we had the limitless possibilities to explore the wonders of our imagination. It was a wonderful childhood; that I would not have traded for the world. I pity these kids today.
3
I strongly disagree. I hated being bored as a kid. It was not fun or inspiring. It was a waste of time. My kid has lots of great activities and a much more interesting, fun, and stimulating childhood than I had.
4
When a mind is bored, it is in repair mode. This is especially important for children. They can then re-focus their thinking and allow those creative juices to flow. “That’s Entertaiment” is a movie not a program for life and living.
1
My teenage stepsons have a dedicated mother and stepfather who have always spent a tremendous amount of time and money making sure their lives are overfull with non-stop activities. My husband and I (both Gen Xers) certainly love doing activities with our children but honestly, nurturing our marriage is the main focus of our lives. We see the marriage as the container for the family so our happiness is a priority. Our children are secondary in that way.
Recently during a painful fit of teenage angst, my 16 year old stepson screamed at my husband “You’re the worst father in the world. I know you love me but what do you DO for me?!?!?”
We aren’t perfect but my heart broke. Love has become transactional.
Great article. Definition of boredom... "the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest." Lack of interest in what? This becomes a brutally intolerable state for psychopaths who have no escape because they can't love... you or me or nature or anything or anyone else. The sky's the limit when it comes to amusing yourself with no conscience or empathy. You might even become president of the greatest country on earth and amuse yourself by destroying everything that made it great. I'm not trying to politicize this. Just to make the point as the article does that intolerance of boredom is a handicap and becomes an increasingly severe handicap depending on where a person is on the narcissism spectrum.
I was always bored in school because I learned and read a lot faster than most others. My solution was to complain at school that I had a stomachache and ask to go home, or put the thermometer against the lightbulb on my lamp to feign a fever. Then when I was home, I enjoyed watching “The Price is Tight“ and eating canned Chef Boyardee raviolis.
Come on down!
2
Good grief, this is a good and important reminder. Kids whose parents respond to their complaints of boredom by scrambling around for something to entertain them are also fixing in their minds that they are entitled to external stimulation. As adults, they look outside themselves for stimulation; one study showed that people would rather receive a mild electric shock than sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/07/people-would-rather-be-electrically-shocked-left-alone-their-thoughts
Both the entitlement and the painful paucity of thoughts is alarming.
Boredom is the fault of the object, not the subject.
What makes the author think there's going to be any work for the vast majority of today's young children with the expected development of AI and robotics in the coming decades?
1
Ironic that the UberParents who want to make their kids life perfect have completely ruined their childhoods. I am so thankful for my childjhood in the 60's where all the kids played outside and we almost NEVER saw our parents
7
Boredom is boredom. Let's not make it into the "eighth wonder of the world".
2
Alas, we're reaching a time when daydreaming is a lost art.
2
Wrong use of the word "bored."
It's true that only boring people are bored.
It's also true that children who are over-scheduled never learn self-sufficiency and how to amuse themselves in creative ways -- for the rest of their lives. Being bored is a habit that's taught.
Start leaving a child in his room early enough, equipped with only a blunt-nosed scissors, cardboard, crayons, scotch tape, and the like -- and a book of whatever level of difficulty he can handle -- and he'll grow up never knowing what the word "bored" means.
(And for heaven's sake, get him out of the parental bed. How can a child learn to fend for himself if he's never alone?)
2
The signal to report home was the streetlights coming on.
2
Was just listening to very needed conversation in our present moment, re: The "Dumbing Down" of America: Real or Not?
We're in midst of another crisis, when not kids only, but adults don't read anymore pass the headlines, there're massive layoffs at media outlets like McClatchy, Huffpost, BuzzFeed, Vice, since Google, Apple, etc. strangled their advertisement revenue, so no one can keep up financially, journalist and reporters are eviscerated and all this going on when our democracy is slipping through our hands.
"I love the poorly educated" it's plays right to the hands of GOP.
Beyond depressing.
1
Thank you Pamela for saying so nicely what many parents intimately know (but too often are unable to implement). It is funny to observe that the italian word "ozio", that most people translate as "idle time" and has now a negative stigma attached to it, comes from latin "otium". However, most latin intellectuals regarded otium as an highly creative phase of existence, when you stay alone with yourself to let emerge the great treasury that is hidden in our mind, in counteposition to the restless activity of the usual businesses, or "negotium".
More recently the great value of otium was rediscovered by others, for instance by Bertrand Russel in his "Praise of Idleness". More important than doing is to know what is right to do and this is what you learn during otium
3
I'm experiencing boredom right now waiting for yet another incomplete Peapod grocery order to arrive. In fact I had a whole week and a half of boredom stuck in the house thanks to gale force winds and sub zero temperatures. I almost can't wait to get back to work on Monday.
Teaching at university, I hear from a number of professors who say their students comment that lectures are boring. I've known elementary and high school instructors who drive themselves to exhaustion trying to find yet another avenue to keep their class " relevant" and "inspiring." Students and their parents demand their kids be entertained and if not, they will call the superintendent and complain and some demand the teacher get fired. So, said student comes to college and gets confronted with a reality: you're not here to be entertained but get information in the fastest way. This is not Sponge Bob, a video game, or an iPad puzzle. You're an adult now. It's your job to be educated.... emphasize job. Don't like it? Fine. You took someone's spot. They'll be glad you dropped out. And guess what? Employers think the same way.
3
My grad school prof said “ bore-dom” is a ( potentially) boring into the self. Never forgot that.
1
Boredom is vastly under-rated.
1
Only "man bites dog" stories get into the newspaper, and this is one of them. The premise is completely ridiculous. I had a wonderful childhood full of adventure, friends, and activity, and it led to a fulfilling adulthood where boredom and idle time are almost nonexistent. My hope is to offer my children similarly enjoyable and busy childhoods, although ultimately their tastes will inform how they spend their time.
1
Entertainment permeates our society.
Doctors offices,banks,restaurants,while driving,loud music in
Clothing stores,Televions peering at you everywhere one sits in a waiting room, smart phones, all level of media from the NYT to regular and cable TV, constant events put on by municipalities like fairs, races, POTUS, parades, sporting events, Superbowl anyone?
And adults are the most guilty for short attention spans. Their kids
Are merely imitating them and also being captured by the software in the devices they hold so dear. Software psychologically designed to attract and retain eyeballs, all for profit.
This started with Disneyland which morphed into Disney World,
Etc.
Who are we kidding? Pogo was right. We have met the enemy and he is us. When money stops being made from entertainment, only then it will stop.
1
I've been very bored and I've been very busy, and believe me, bored is better.
I was lucky to be at home with my sons while they were little. I learned to structure each month, week and day to get stuff done and keep them busy—a daily “outing”: to walk, sled, bike, swim, visit parks, libraries, friends, museums. Rain or shine.
“Class time” was flash cards, music & skating lessons, story times, reading, writing practice with mazes and drawing, “work time” to shop for food, wash, clean, plant, mow, shovel, etc. And we had rest time for naps/quiet time (never enough!) and “free time” for unstructured play around the house.
My children never said “We’re BORED...” because at the tender age of 2 & 5, I told them the rule: “If you whine, you’re telling me “Mommy, I’m tired and need to go to bed now”. If you say “I’m bored”, what I hear is “Mommy, I need a job now”, and I’ll find one for you.” And they knew I meant it and scooted off to play.
It didn’t always go perfectly— but altogether worked amazingly well. I highly recommend it.
1
All parents quickly learn that the most dangerous sound is not the childhood whine of "I'm boooorrred" but absolute quiet, broken by whispers and the occasional "Don't let Mom see it!"
Boredom is good for children -- no one can find the line between genius and disaster like a kid with nothing to do and plenty of time to do it in.
2
Well, boredom is often about power and stupidity, parents who seem to be devoted to training their kids to be ideal workers.
One reason many of us, and I am in my 70's, spend a lot of time in front of a screen of some sort, is because I want to learn, I want to laugh, I want to listen to people I respect.
That is available on the web, it was usually not available in my classrooms. The web is an individual space, so I can learn about dark matter and FDR, while a person next door can learn about...whatever.
Some of what this column is describing isn't boredom, it is about what happens in a capitalistic world where we are seen as fungible and our inner needs are seen as dangerous and irrelevant. Kind of like second grade.
No, we don't need less excitement, we need a million times more, we need a revolution in education, in workers rights, in the availability of online enlightenment.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
I read most of this article, got to the Candy Crush reference, and thought, "Ooh. Candy Crush!" Now I'm off to play me some Candy Crush. So you see, everything is fine.
2
Growing up, some of my most creative thinking was done during the Sunday sermon.
5
Do you really know how to raise a reader? And not just a reader of anything, but quality fiction? I succeeded and I know what I did. What did you do? Because I’ve never met anyone else in this iPhone age with anything like success.
Polar Vortex = four days of all school and kid activities in Minnesota cancelled. The result = genuine, old fashioned boredom. Success!
1
boredom is the bedroom of creativity - for those who also have creativity nourished in their lives. boredom is the bedroom of unpredictable consequences in a negative way UNLESS creativity is also nourished.
America has let its children down in many ways, and one major way is the lack of educating, at home and in school, the creative spark that does in fact reside in all people. The result, in part, is automaton children with their noses glued to screens, disconnected from reality and others in a real way (virtual is NOT real) and without a clue how to do something that comes from inside.
I pity you, America. You are the big Fail of the Future. Sad. Our kids deserved better parents and teachers than you provide.
Note to Parents: Yes, YOU!
I once knew a boy who was our close neighbor, his drawings were so detailed & exquisite, as one rescued by art as a boy my father's heart warmed at this boys inventiveness, within days of his mother allowing a laptop in his bedroom ALL changed, addicted to killing games till 3 am!
Art helped grab my life from a predictable destiny in Manchester UK, via a kind art teacher who encouraged me, my first show of famous faces at 16 at the local library made me realize there was hope, my first commission by a local rock star made me rich, 64 quid! Art brings life.
https://twitter.com/Kingspirazion/status/1091793490466418688
1
Question is at the end of the day, who’s in charge?
It bothers me to see preschoolers and even toddlers playing with tablets.
Once in an airport restroom I saw a little girl of maybe 18 to 24 months watching an iPad while her diaper was being changed. She was lying on her back, holding the iPad directly overhead with straight arms.
When I told people about this incident, most of them shook their heads, but a young mother said, "That's how you get them to lie still when you're changing them."
I didn't say it, but I thought, "How did parents in past centuries get their children to lie still while being changed?"
4
Thankfully I never imagined it was my job to entertain my children. “I’m bored,” was usually met with- “Oh good! You have nothing to do! Good time to clean your room!” Or a different task, in the highly unlikely situation that the room was clean.
Needless to say, I very seldom heard those words. Very,very seldom.
They are all fine hard-working adults— and still don’t speak of boredom. And I would have to say some still have messy rooms, but who cares?
2
iPad and iPhone will be to American civilization what lead plumbing was to the Romans. If you don't know the answer, you are proving my point.
2
As a child, as soon as I learned to read, I realized that as a reader, I would never be bored.
3
Quote 1: “Boredom, however, includes as a component the "need for intense mental activity," a need that in the bored person cannot find gratification by generating its own impulse but seeks "incitements" from the outside world as a means of decreasing tension" (Spacks 4).
Quote 2: “The Idler, who habituates himself to be satisfied with what he can most easily obtain, not only escapes labours which are often fruitless, but sometimes succeeds better than those who despise all that is within their reach, and think every thing more valuable as it is harder to be acquired”(Idler 1).
From:http://literatureandmind364.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-is-difference-between-boredom-and.html
I'm going to print this and give it to my high school students to read next time I see them playing games on their phones.
1
As a parent, I practiced what I called benign neglect. My kids were raised in the 70s when electronics hadn't been part of their world, when they could ride bikes everywhere, play with their friends, read, draw, whatever.
Maybe a new rule: no electronics for anyone after dinnertime. Or something. No phone calls. Kids will find something to do, even if it's playing with siblings.
As a fifth grade teacher, I am doing my part here, as boredom is my middle name. I teach a lot of boring lectures, and adhere to boring standards. I like being boring, however if I can't make the lesson entertaining in some way? They won't listen. Is this a good thing? I was ten once, I guess it is, as I turned out ok.
The problem all teachers face? Kids who are attached to their iPhone and consider homework a Fortnite marathon. What does that equate to when they return the next day? Their minds have been erased and I end up teaching the same concept again.
On the other hand I have a problem with the word "boring" as it is too subjective.
What is boring to me (watching a chess match) clearly isn't to many others.
What do you consider "boring?"
121
@Scott Franklin I consider myself luck--I was rarely bored, just never got it when my friends and relative kids said 'I am so bored'. I always found something to make out of where ever I was--and oh yes it was so boooring, I was raised on a farm, a 300 acre farm in the hills of PA---lots to do actually--pitch, shoot hoops, throw rocks at posts and trees, hide and seek, read, toys, ride bike, tease sistersm, magazines, watch clouds, drain puddles on the field roads, mow fence with a hand blade---not ever bored doing 'the same old thing' so sad for those that today have no coping skills--robbed by technologies of distraction of such a basic skill.
34
We as teachers can be written up if we stay on an activity for 10 minutes or more. I teach high school by the way.
4
@Mal Stone: The basic question is whether teachers should play to students' strengths or shore up their weaknesses (as George Miller pointed out). Or, to put it differently, should they accept certain weaknesses like a short attention span as given and work around them, or not?
@Mark
The education system in which I work says the first and will not brook dissenters
1
Totally agree it's good for them to learn how to be bored. We took our kids to family funerals and religious services from a young age and told them they had to sit and be respectful for an hour or however long it lasted. Whether they listened or spaced out, it was easy to take them places.
1
"Teachers spend more time concocting ways to “engage” students through visuals and “interactive learning” (read: screens, games) tailored to their Candy Crushed attention spans. Kids won’t listen to long lectures, goes the argument, so it’s on us to serve up learning in easier-to-swallow portions."
An interesting and thought-provoking perspective, this article and the comments have given me something to reflect on from my own experiences and wonder about the experiences of my students.
However, I would like to add that methods of "engagement" and "interactive learning" have immense value in terms of how they are used to stimulate creative and critical thinking, and mastery of subject matter. The author's assertion that these methods are "concocted" to accommodate students experiencing boredom or who have short attention spans leaves out the fact that teachers are using these methods with their students' education in mind. From my observations, these methods do make for a more interesting and dynamic learning experience, for the students and for me. I teach chemistry.
1
I agree that there is nothing wrong with children feeling occasionally bored (I'm a mom). That being said, childhood now is nothing like mine was, where I was free to roam my neighborhood and my wonderful parents were often at work leaving me and my brother with many unsupervised hours of TV watching a day. Keeping kids busy now does involve a lot of work for parents. Setting up play dates if you do not live in a neighborhood where kids play freely outside. Monitoring screen time carefully in a world where they observe grownups constantly looking at phones and computers. Work lives for parents are far more flexible now so we are often home with our children and multi-tasking work and parenting during after school hours. Gen X and Millenial parents have a different set of circumstances and that to me is totally separate from the question of wether it is OK for kids to be bored. And the desire to keep kids engaged in fruitful activities now probably stems from the levels of boredom and lack of engagement parents on the whole gave to children when we were kids. We know from experience it was not ALL good and I don't think it should be a romanticized past.
1
Paul says that the value of boredom is that it promotes creativity. In so doing, this piece makes precisely the assumption that it purports to call into question: that doing nothing would require some justification, and that that justification could only be found in what is "creative" or "constructive." If I am sitting on the subway, and everybody else is on their phone checking email, reading the news, or playing games, and I am staring into space, am I doing something wrong only if I am not subconsciously working on some new theory of something?
2
Sorry, wasn't exactly what I meant to say; "only if" should have been "if." Should have checked more carefully before I pressed "Submit."
Boredom is the best gift I gave my two children. Now, as young adults, they are far better able to entertain themselves and make the most of boring situations than their peers. They read more. They research more. They are generally just happier than people who need constant entertainment. They have deep reserves of self reliance to draw on in boring or otherwise taxing situations. They focus on and finish things they start. They are good company and good listeners. It was easier for me since I did not allow them to watch tv during the week and computers were not so readily available. Still, I think today's parents can opt to only allow computer and tv time as family activities, not an electronic babysitter. Their children will thank them for it, eventually.
1
It’s sort of funny reading all these comments about the halcyon days of yore. I grew up in the 80s and there was a strong current of encouraging parents to be more involved. The general thinking was that the ills of society stemmed from uninvolved parents. Over the 80s and 90s educators purposely designed homework to force parental involvement (hello science fair), and I’d occasionally hear snide comments along the lines of “why bother having kids if you don’t want to be involved..”
Now that that we’ve heeded that message, people are suddenly nostalgic for benign neglect.
2
Growing up I remember - being bored! Especially during the hot, humid, sweltering days of summer when there was no school for two whole months. I remember swimming in the river before the water got hot, came back had mangoes, took long cooling showers followed by lunch and forced siesta - a misnomer because the overhead fan did nothing for the heat to let us fall asleep. So we were bored, bored, bored. Which left us only one option - read whatever we could lay our hands on. Comics, Enid Blyton and even those boring Thomas Hardys, R.D Blackmore and Jane Austens. There was not even a black and white tv! Our playtime was monopoly, snakes and ladders and checkers.
Now I wish I had the luxury of that boredom. Nor do my grandchildren have that! I blame my offspring but honestly I blame myself. 20/20 I was so concerned about their achievements that I did'nt give them time - to be bored!
Unfortunately, for kids and their parents of today boredom has become a dirty word. No. An empty brain is not a Devil's workshop!
How could a child of six years or more with ability to read and a free library available, ever be bored?
2
Idyllic view, but as I recall, 'back when,' we bored young folks watched far to much television. True, I did a great deal of walking around. Thinking as I toured. And I enjoyed the view. Streets were either safer then, or we thought they were. Might be a good idea to combine a rich environment -- and I'm not referring to financial goodies -- with opportunities to be creative. Rich: the availability of books, paper, paints, computers that are not hooked up to the internet, workshops for youngsters, more importantly, the availability of ideas, and examples (parents and teachers who love pursuing their own projects). People create by reconfiguring, and that's more interesting, and sorry to use a word the author seems to abhor, entertaining, than looking out your window. Especially if you have lots to work with. Takes more than leaving a kid alone. Alone with what?
1
Nothing irritated my grandfather more than for me or my siblings to say "I'm bored". We spent time in summers with he and grandmother most of the time was spent on their ranch, so that phrase usually met with jobs we could do around the place, which meant go outside, watch for snakes, and don't shoot back towards the house.
3
As a kid all I ever needed to entertain myself was a scissors, a roll of scotch tape pilfered from my mother's supply drawer and the cardboard leftover from my father's dry cleaned and folded dress shirts.
2
There is a quality that today's young people seem to lack -- maybe even, it's a rare quality in general, among any age, in any age. For lack of a better term, you could call it "otherness." No one is ever allowed to wander. No one is ever allowed to explore the space under the floorboards of society. No one is ever even supposed to accept that that space under the floorboards exists. Every impulse toward being outside the pale of society and normality and empire, is now properly diagnosed. Kids aren't allowed to have free time, it all has to be scheduled and purposed. This is not a recent trend, it's a trend that has slowly increased with modernity throughout the ages. In fact, we're all supposed to have socially accepted "identities" and dutifully scream them out loud standing atop a table. Guess what, my identity is for me, and me alone, and not for public spectacle, or for expressions of solidarity. And no, you don't get to know what my pronouns are... and I don't even care that you know.
5
When my sister and I were bored our parents told us to read a book or go outside. I don't remember the books but I do remember us lying on our backs and making up stories about the cloud people that floated by. There is probably an app for that now.;)
9
America lost the element of imagination a long time ago. After radio, technology systematically removed the notion of imagination from the minds of the young.
“The medium became the message” - McLuhan had it right. No need to imagine when cyber-reality would present anything possible from Kardashians to Donald Trump.
Albeit we have a false reality in which we live, unfortunately we cannot imagine any other of value.
2
At some point we will become bored with being distracted. Then we will turn off the noise, the devises.
2
There are actually two separate issues for parents to consider.
First, should parents feel compelled to entertain children? Quite frankly, the answer is no. They're better off figuring things out on their own. Until you reach an age where adult considerations matter, like finance or sexuality, I wouldn't bother. Once you've achieved literacy, point to the bookshelf or send them outside.
Second, when and how should you go about giving your child their first computer? If you're loading movies onto an iPad for them, it's probably too soon. I prefer a Lego style approach. You can play with computers when you're old enough to build them on your own. You as a parent can teach and explain but don't build the set for them.
4
As a child in the 1970s, we spent our weekends and afternoons riding our bikes, cooling off in the local library (which we walked to), playing in the nearby park (either on the swings or using tree branches to pretend we were musketeers), playing board games, reading, making things, or acting out stories.
If I dared tell my mother I was bored, she would say, "Then go do something. Why are you telling me?"
I am astonished at how much today's parents entertain their kids, even when they both work full-time. Weekends are entirely programmed around activities with the children. Guests are expected to focus on the kids when they visit. Babysitters, including elderly grandparents, are expected to interact non-stop with the children and entertain them constantly.
If we suggest lunch or dinner, it is assumed that the children will come too, 100% of the time. The outing then proceeds to be all about the kids so that no conversation can be had at all. In restaurants, kids run around and play as if they were in their own backyard, and the parents seem to find this normal.
You are raising children who cannot occupy themselves, cannot manage themselves, do not have time to discover their own creativity, and worst of all, expect the world to cater to them at every moment.
23
Your comments resonate so well. I don’t have children but that makes this worse. I am expected to want to entertain my siblings children when I visit, day and night, as well as my partners grown children who have not reached any semblance of independence. These young adults still expect their parents to take them on expensive overseas vacations, and to continually buy them things. I’m expected to be ok with this and want to share all my time with them. We - the collective we of so many comment writers - had none of this, our parents coped with all of the same demands of work/life, we created our own fun on a shoe string or no budget, and all minus the massive guilt trip that seems to be part of modern parenting. It can be done. Put away the devices and please understand that children do not need to be the center of attention to be well loved and cared for. They just don’t.
5
Have you ever been trapped with a young child in a car seat on a long trip? You can’t hold or tounch them. They can’t see out the windows, so you can’t play games about counting cars or cows. Of course now there are no cows to look at anyway.
A portable DVD player or old phone with games on it is a life saver.
@GiGi When I was a kid we made several (summer) cross-continent car trips because of my father's U.S. Army assignments. 3 kids, 2 adults in a sedan for a week. No air conditioning. I got carsick, so to beat it I lived on the backseat floor of the car. In the screen of my mind I made up elaborate movies like the comic books I had read. Tom Mix and his horse were usually in it and I was the hero, of course. I agree that today's car seats are a horror of bodily imprisonment, especially for those littlest ones who must ride backwards, but once they are older, they DO (or should) have imaginations.
1
I agree with, and appreciate, this article. However, although I do purposely allow for unstructured down time at home with my young kids, it's difficult to allow for the constant and long stretches of freedom/boredom I had as a kid.
My spouse and I both work outside the home, him full time, me 30 hrs/week. I have no regrets about this arrangement, but I am a bit sad that my kids won't have the same sort of summer vacations we had. They are still too young to leave home along (PreK and K), so we need to set up camps and childcare arrangement during all school breaks. Even if one of us was home, all the other kids in the neighborhood are in camps/activities all the time, so it still wouldn't be same thing that I had.
That said, I have resisted the urge to overschedule our evenings and weekends. I've seen a lot of value in watching my kids explore on their own, make up their own games, navigate their own relationship with each other.
3
There is always singing along with "99 bottles of beer on the wall". If you can't beat them you might as well join them.
1
In "A Conquest of Happiness" Bertrand Russell devotes a whole chapter to boredom and excitement, and he argues that the deepest satisfaction, that which comes from achievement and hard work, entails significant amounts of tedium (e.g. a concert pianist practicing scales each day for hours, a scientist repeating experiments over and over in order to collect data, a student preparing for an exam, etc.) so resisting/resenting that tedium is a recipe for restless dysphoria. Conversely, the need for constant stimulation and entertainment can be harmful:
"too much excitement not only undermines the health, but dulls the palate for every kind of pleasure, substituting titillations for profound organic satisfactions, cleverness for wisdom, and jagged surprises for beauty..... A certain power of enduring boredom is therefore essential to a happy life, and is one of the things that ought to be taught to the young."
14
My family had a set of encyclopedias (second hand) and National Geographic magazines in stacks. Boredom and opportunity conspired to fill my mind with knowledge of the world.
7
Me as a kid: I’m bored.
My dad: Really? You don’t look like a board.
I would roll my eyes and then have to find a way to amuse myself. I wrote poetry, I rode my bike, I pretended things. I ended up becoming an actor and a writer. I’m very glad for the boredom and the fact that I had to find a solution for myself.
17
We kids could come up with something to do. Give us a Spalding high-bouncer and we could invent a game in any situation. In a minute we could agree on rules and play. No sophisticated toys were needed. It was rather magical. On rainy days we would destroy someones house. Parents were not that precious about their homes.
5
Sometime in the early 1990s parents could no longer feel safe letting kids run out the door to play in the neighborhood. There were no longer scads of kids on every block. A series of high profile abductions from bus stops terrified parents across the country. The seeds of helicopter parenting were sewn in that time. Lessons, supervised team sports, etc flourished as a way to keep kids safe while giving them an exrience of value. We need to understand the roots of the current situation before we unilaterally condemn parents. Kids do need downtime to develop, so let’s get realistic about how to give it to them while maintaining their safety. Throwing them out the front door to wander the neighbors is no longer an option. You can get reported to the police for negligence if you do so.
2
@Jean Sims
Even well organized activities aren’t safe any more. Just ask all those girls involved in gynastics at Michigan State.
2
@Jean Sims The safety fears are overblown imo, driven by sensationalism in 24-hour news coverage. Most abductions are by relatives, most assaults are by parties known to the victims. The fearmongering and panic emptied out the parks. Hopefully we can overcome our fears and let kids explore the neighborhood again.
2
Great article Ms. Paul.
I was an at-home mom with three children. My husband's income supported our household, and our budget was tight. The only activities we could afford our young children outside of the home were free of charge; trips to the library for story time, an outing to the local park.
Once in a while when they were bored, and I suggested a few activities and received 'Nah I don't' want to' my response was, ' well come with me I need some help with this household chore.'
More often than not they disappeared in a flash and found something to do.
In hindsight, I am grateful because they learned to occupy themselves creating all sorts of things to do and more importantly, they learned to enjoy their own company.
425
@mary My grandmother had five step-children. She became a widow with these children still at home to raise on little money. My father said she disapproved of reading unless it was of a religious nature. If she caught them reading anything else she found chores for them to do, so they hid themselves away when reading. All five turned out highly educated-- even my aunt had a true B.A. degree, which was rare for women in the late 1920s. Maybe instead of pushing reading we should forbid it?
25
In the late 90's , children in kindergarten were still learning by play. As a kindergarten teacher, I even had a mud table in my classroom in Manhattan. The kids loved to pour water in it. At some point they learned that they had to wait a few days to use it again because they had soup, instead of mud to build with. Around 2000, play was out in K and first grade learning took its place. But developmentally 5 yr olds learned thru play not academics. At the same time, as children got older and were ready for academics, teachers now had to make everything fun. I did not grow up in the computer age, I wrote w a straight pen and used ink in the inkwell. So, I understand it is a different world. Education needs to do some new research and find that happy medium and parents need to parent again. Of course all this easier said than done w many adults not even able to make a living wage, not enough food on the table or warm clothes to wear or a nice, safe place to live. All too heartbreaking w little end in sight. Our government for years has been largely at fault. Our elected officials need to represent everyone. Our country w trump at the helm has hit rock bottom and grinding lower. It is imperative for the sake of the country and the world that he is not elected again. For our children, he is the worse role model. Let us to what we can to support a Democrat for president, to volunteer and give money if able and begin to restore true wealth.
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@Rose
Your experiences with Kindergarten children reminds me of Kindergarten in the 50’s. We grew up in Oakland in a lovely area where we were free to roam. We walked in the creek, played games under bridges, made Indian villages out of the sight of parents. I urged my boys to play the same way. They had very few lessons and both were very imaginative. Now my grandchildren are behind if they can’t read before they start Kindergarten. The play time you describe is crucial.
I taught in prisons before I retired. How many times did I think "if you had been my little boy you wouldn’t have turned out this way." No lap time reading books before naps and bed, dysfunctional families no family dinners and boredom that wasn’t properly channeled. Three cheers for letting kids find out how to entertain themselves.
37
@Rose
Play is alive and well in my kindergarten classroom along with lots of open ended materials (junk sculpture, painting, sand, blocks, play dough and so on). And I'm happy to say play is supported and valued by my administrators and supt. of curriculum. That said,academics demands are unrealistic at best. As for entertaining kids 24/7... Parents are at fault, govt. leaders who link test scores to "success" are at fault, Common Core is at fault, unrealistic standards are at fault. You can't blame everything on Trump. In re: to elected officials representing everyone... my governor et al surely don't represent ME! Thank goodness we are free to work for true wealth... not rely on handouts or someone to do it for us -if we teach and expect kids to be creative and to think they won't need handouts.
12
Amen.
My kids are grown now, but my standard retort when they were little and said, "I'm bored" was "It's not my job to entertain you. Go find something to do." In my daughter's case, she could happily pull out the art supplies and get engrossed for hours making stuff. Any stuff, as long as it involved glitter and sequins. As a teenager, she completely covered her snowboard helmet in rhinestones. Took her an
entire weekend but the result was pretty amazing, with more than a few requests from others to have her do the same to theirs. My son had oodles of LEGO and loved building models. Admittedly, they grew up in a time when smart phones were not yet ubiquitous, and for that I'm quite thankful.
I think we parents have to think long and hard about how early devices are introduced to our kids and we have to be willing to set strict limits on their usage. But that also requires being disciplined about using them ourselves.
272
Very true: Boredom, at least the transitory kind, stimulates creativity. But why romanticize a less interesting cultural or intellectual landscape of the past? Why not embrace both the abundance of information now and the need to create oneself? I say this after reading the most popular comments here, most of which read as a predictable and nostalgic fabric of lies about how great, free, and bucolic our childhoods were in the most violent decades of the twentieth century. Get a grip, fellow readers! Let’s start by consciously putting down our devices before we admonish the children to do so first. Model that behavior for the young instead of excoriating them for finding screen life interesting.
1
“The cure to boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
Dorothy Parker
On a dreary Sunday morning, given the state our world, I’m heartened to read the insightful comments about the joys and
benefits of boredom. Carpe diem!
9
Being bored as a kid is most of the reason I'm an artist today. But when my kids were young, I felt bad about their boredom and made them a "boredom box". They'd put their hand in the box and pick a slip of paper with an activity written on it. If they rejected three activities in a row, I told them "it's your problem now, so just go be bored". They each grew up to be smart, creative, patient adults.
277
The box idea is very creative...I will use it for my family. Thanks
21
Unlike people who have grown up close to nature, our culture of screens and fast-paced brain stimulation strengthens short-term brain firing but not sustained thought, and mostly dampens creativity. Most of the world's best arts and inventions have come from tackling boredom and imagining and then doing something oneself. Wandering, getting lost, discovering something new oneself, and finding one's way to a new place. GPS is another crippler of this process.
170
@Jill M
After reading this article, I suddenly feel very creative. Ha!
Very poorly sighted as a child, I dd not truly see my first bird until the age of about 6-1/2; in the Spring of '67. Living in a Midwest Tornado belt, Twas the Season. After becoming accustomed to my new surroundings, almost a rebirth; I noticed the sparrow. Family tradition has and had, according to my rendition, a small tornado lightly touching the ground in our backyard. After clearing skies, I again noticed the sparrow; wondering how it held on thru all that. While the birds survival I now know to be more layered than its grasping a branch in the eye of the storm, I believe it was my first refuge from the boredom of my new birth. Nature.
23
@Jabin
Such a good story! The wondering gets the mind started. How lucky you got your sight. Thanks.
10
@Jill M Yes, it's ironic how we see all the adverts and hear the word of tech proponents extolling the 'creativity' that computerization unleashes when in fact the 'screen world' we seem to worship as some sort of societal silver bullet is really more like sociologist Max Weber's concept of 'iron cage of rationality' that he applied to bureaucracies of the past--it's a parallel to that--our seeds of creativity are actually stymied by screen culture and there is far less free expression and freedom and....less democracy too!
18
The somewhat casual, dismissive tone of this article is too oblivious to the potential, very complex effects of boredom. It is too supportive of the opinionated disregard common among guardians of the defenseless.
Boredom is a condition that results from deprivation of the absolutely essential requirement for stimulation of the mind. Like thirst and hunger, the degree of associated discomfort escalates as the deprivation persists to a point that can threaten the health and vitality of the victim.
That is why enforced boredom is the punishment of choice among authorities (parents, teachers, jailers) for whom corporeal alternatives are prohibited. It is usually imposed with confinement and/or isolation.
Clinical studies have revealed that the effects, depending on many complex variables, can range from relatively benign to horrendous.
Therefore, I hesitate to credit the casual opinions of ill-informed laity. Better, by far, that we hear from clinicians qualified by education and a keen sense of empathy and compassion.
2
I hate to mention it but the strongest antidote to boredom has always been fear. Fear of punishment in school and fear of destitution in the adult world. Is there a substitute for fear that is equally able to concentrate the mind?
1
Weopine: Boredom, good! The parents in the Balanitis Research Commune enforce rules requiring downtime for all chilren from birth to 19 years old. We have no smartphones, video games, or any activites that divert our bairn from self exploration and contemplation. Frequently, the parents will ensconce them, individually, in a quiet, darkened room at a temperature of 59 degrees F. When the children emerged from the room, they would be placed in a room with no furniture or stimulants other than paper and pencils. The creativity exhibited was astounding. Many of our most important research experiments were created by those children, using only paper and pencils. Therefore, at the Balanitis Research Commune, boredom in children is a vital component leading to our greatest successes. Boredom good!
2
We had a pretty good balance between activities and solo creativity while raising our kids. But I wonder if one reason parents now keep their kids super busy is because many parents are afraid that kids will do some of the dangerous things that we actually did and luckily survived.
We ourselves climbed around on roofs and on window ledges, played alone on the edges of deep ponds in the woods, made explosions in glass jars, ate weird things, had dare contests, lit fires, rode bikes downhill with no hands toward busy streets to see how close to the street we could stop, walked on thin ice, played hide-and-seek at night between parked cars, etc. Yet both of us were relatively smart and careful as children. Friends and neighbors did worse things.
5
Great article! The connection between unstructured time, flexible thinking and creativity are some of the goals of Forest Schools and other outdoor programs for children. They're designed for kids to explore using simple materials, to experience free, creative, unhurried play. In a world where parents and kids are programmed with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) on the next social group activity or are worried about signing up for sports skills or performance camps, this is an educational philosophy that gives "boredom" credibility, value and respect. Parents, caregivers and grandparents might be inspired to find ways to incorporate some "free time" into a child's day and feel good about what they're "accomplishing!"
1
Yes! As the dad of two young girls (6,7), I see this all the time and it is weirdest thing in the world to me. My kids enjoy a couple after school activities but for the other 5 days a week it is "go outside and entertain yourselves in the backyard. You can come in when we eat dinner." What happened to having to come up with stuff to do? Kids always look at me like I'm crazy when I say I spent entire days playing catch with myself or building things with sticks and mud. The funny thing is that at first my kids thought it was awful to just be left to their own devices outside. Now they love it and do what kids should be doing; building forts, catching bugs, playing pretend and getting covered in dirt.
4
Hallelujah! I am constantly trying to drive home the value and importance of "boredom" to my young patients and their parents. I suspect that much of the decline in critical thinking is due to the constant stimulation/entertainment/occupation available. And I've noticed that my patients who are most tethered to digital technology tend to express the least satisfaction with their relationships, the least confidence in their ability to solve problems, and the least sense of personal accomplishment. They also tend to complain of low self esteem. They are surprised when I tell them that self esteem is built by doing esteemable acts. I suggest they think about some of the things they don't like about their neighborhood or community or country, and pick one to think about seriously and work on addressing in some way.
6
When our ten-year-old son was being sent to his room, he said, “Mom, you could take away everything… T.V., phone… and I can amuse myself with my mind.”
That was forty years ago, and Bill is one of the most creative and talented people I know.
My wife and I both understood. In “down” time there’s always something to think about, wonder about, notice, reflect, create, or simply enjoy. I quite agree with Pamela Paul: It’s far too easy today to be entertained. Continual entertainment is continual distraction, and it's not good.
12
I remember, when I was a kid, laying on a blanket or in the hammock in the backyard, staring up into the warm summer sky, and trying to figure out what animal the passing clouds resembled. Do kids even do that anymore?
8
@Jackie
Brava Ms. Paul, I agree that so very much of our creativity comes the desire to stimulate our own minds. When kids are constantly over-stimulated they have no need or desire to interpret the clouds, or invent stories and games.
Thank you for a great article.
1
As an educator of many years, I have two words, "Thank you!" It's not bad enough that too many parents have bought into the "never let my child be bored" mantra. My evaluations and observations are weighted more toward entertainment, rather than actual learning. I believe in student participation and engagement, but I also know that for many of my young students our quiet, independent reading time is their favorite time of the day. As they sprawl around my classroom, immersed in a book of their choice, you can feel the tension, the buzz, dare I say anxiety, melting away. Quiet time, even boredom, give children time to reflect and reset. I know many adults who can't reset or reflect. You know them. The "every day must be constantly filled, and my life must be scheduled months ahead." They are exhausting to be around, and I often wonder when they sit quietly and reflect, or allow for a moment of unplanned serendipity in their lives. The greatest gift we can give our children is the gift of quiet, and dare I say, boredom. It will serve them well in the future!
14
Growing up I loved being bored. But as a parent sometimes I appreciate the scheduled activity my kids push for because then I don’t worry about social drama or devices overtaking them. But whenever they are bored enough out come the colored pencils and writing pads, the musical instruments and cooking projects and the dog even gets washed. Prince played one guitar in a room for hours on end. I imagine Aimee Mann was bored a lot too. As shesang in Ghost World:
Everyone I know is acting weird
Or way too cool
They hang out by the pool
So I just read a lot and ride my bike
Around the school
2
As a fourth grader, my life's ambition was to write textbooks. I loved going to the library and couldn't understand why library books--often historical fictions about characters such as Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett--were so much more interesting and fun to read than textbooks. I loved learning and reading and never felt bored when I read about and learned things that interested or fascinated me. There's no reason for students to be bored, especially if teachers are allowed to be creative enough to stimulate their students' interest in learning more about subjects that inspire them. I didn't do well with repetitive, boring jobs any more than I did with boring classes, and enjoyed working as a community newspaper reporter.
2
As I kid I was given a bicycle and told to go play and come home the minute the street lights came on, a recipe for making friends and inventing cool pass times. Feliza’s mom spent her days reading piles of library books in their Southern California backyard chain smoking Kents. We concocted weird recipes in their kitchen, played doll funeral, burying my Madame Alexander doll, then spending untold hours trying to exhume her. To this day she’s probably still 6-inches under. We sat in their jacaranda tree and spoon-capitulated Mrs. Hertz’s homemade yoghurt at passing cars. We went door to door collecting for orphans with a large jar and kept going till it was full of pennies, nickels, and dimes. Then we set the jar inside a roadside chapel with a note that said: “for the orphans”. Occasionally Mr. Bixby would give us a cherry Coke if we scraped gum off the underside of his lunchcounter. On rainy days we would ring the Newby sisters’ doorbell and ask if they would like to play cards with us. It was a sure invitation to come on in and play cards and drink coffee full of sugar and cream. And yes we built endless forts with other neighborhood kids, played hide and seek in the hills with them, hiked the fire roads, and wearing the Campbell twin’s outgrown matching outfits pretended we were twins: one of us was either a blind twin, or could barely walk due to polio. That was 60 years ago where fun wasn’t manufactured or sold, and the world was a safer place.
36
@Prunella Reminds me of the summer that my brother and I dug a big hole in the corner of our backyard! Took all summer. Then we spent a lot of time that rainy winter looking out the windows watching the hole fill up with rain water, anticipating how it would make a great swimming pool t he next summer. We were not bored! It is so interesting to read all of these comments.
When I "grew up" and had children of my own, I would tell them to go start packing up all the toys in their room to donate to the thrift store whenever they told me that they were bored. Then they found something to do!
It makes me uneasy now to contemplate the day my kid caves to my granddaughter's pleas for an iPad. Boredom is a surrender to a lack of creativity and curiosity.
1
Boredom leads to innovation whether its using a stick to make a bridge for ants to climb around on or lining up items in your room to fall like cascading dominos, or shooting rubber bands at stacked up cards. Something is learned. 'Something' is learned by a glued eye to a phone as well but all the innovation has been done for that brain- leaving that kid nothing to do but witness and little constructive ability to understand the dynamics of what they are seeing got figured into being. A balanced diet of reality and assimilation is an imperative. both my kids would hate when i made them do something else that pulled them away from 'watching something' but in the end it was that which they remembered when older- not the stream of endless content chatter.
5
I was a latch-key kid, walking home from school to an empty house from the time I was in first grade.
It was a different time back then, when moms didn’t have to worry about you until dinner time, when there wasn’t anything on television you wanted to watch until the Mickey Mouse Club came along, when toys—to the extent you had any—didn’t talk. These days independence is circumscribed by security concerns, screens from two inches to eighty-two offer an unlimited lineup of attraction, and toys leave no room for imagination. Our culture both limits and largely eliminates openings for childhood boredom. And that puts the monkey on already overworked parents’ backs to make room on their children’s already overfilled dance cards for independence and imagination.
I don’t envy parents these days in their endless competition with screens for their children’s hearts and minds, but it does seem a battle worth waging. Can we really expect thoughtful, responsible adults to emerge from from childhoods that provide so little opportunity, so little encouragement, for independent thought?
15
When my daughter, now 38, was in her early teens, we would drive 5 hours to Seneca Rock, West Virginia a couple of times each summer. On the drive, we would talk, or listen to thoughtful books (Shelby Foote's Civil War Trilogy for one). In college, she had a reflection published in the University Literary Magazine about how the best conversations were between her and her father on long drives together. I think this supports Paul's case, and I recommend ditching the electronics on trips to parents everywhere.
12
Amen. Speaking as a middle child, long car trips with either of my parents was special one on one time.
3
@David W. Anderson Yes, and also, watching the Wonderful Wide World out the car window.
3
Amen. A terrific and timely piece. We have become addicted to constant stimulation, and our digital devices are the hypodermic syringes that allow us to feed this addiction. There is no creativity without "downtime", day-dreaming, and idleness. These periods of reflection have become exceedingly rare for most people in this Electronic Age that we find ourselves in.
4
As I read this article this Sunday morning, the sound coming from my living room was video games and Youtube for Kids, my price for uninterrupted quiet reading time. We have gotten so in the habit of using tech to placate our kids that it becomes a challenge to buy these precious moments of boredom. When we do take the tech away, they always find something imaginative to do, but there is usually an extended pulling-off-the-bandaid period, and we often cave to the screams of protest. This article has been a wonderful reminder of the importance that we do it, though. Thank you!
15
I agree with the premise here - however, instead of stressing boredom itself - I think the key is teaching children how to appreciate and enjoy quiet and thoughtful activities. So that, for instance, a child can actually enjoy the peacefulness and beautiful of walking through the woods, or the freedom of having a blank piece of paper - instead of experiencing those things as "boring".
8
@Thoughtful Mama
Great news! You don’t have to teach and instruct and guide and direct the children to use what could be called free time rather than boring time. That’s the whole point!
Your job is to clear some time then LEAVE THEM ALONE!
If I uttered the words "I'm bored," my mother could be counted on to find chores for me to do.
23
...as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end...
2
Thank you for this appropriate reaction to today's over-programmed kids. I am a musician and composer, and without creative downtime there would be no room for ideas to enter my mind. True in my childhood, true in my adulthood. (My wonderful and enlightened wife also gives me time and space to create and reflect, even if it's just for personal satisfaction and serenity.) My parents didn't "underparent" - they gave me that gift of time. In its best form, I could be alone but not lonely. Thanks, Mom and Dad.
23
Compare an evening news broadcast, a classical music concert, or an opera performance today with one from 40 years ago and you can see the emphasis on entertaining the audience. Feel good news stories with no substance, shortened and lighter classical music programs, and captions for the opera. People are unable to sit still and listen.
Perhaps that helps explain Trump’s popularity. They find him entertaining and don’t seem to understand the gravity of the job of President.
21
@AB In defense of captions at the opera, I'm sorry but they really help me to understand what is going on, especially when the opera is in French, Italian or German. I love the costumes, the scenery and the music, but how would I have known that Madame Butterfly thought that American streets were paved with gold unless I had read it in the captions? I don't speak Italian.
7
@Jackie I understand, I don’t speak Italian either, but we used to learn the opera before we went to the performance. We would get a copy of the libretto and listen to the opera while following it. It makes the performance much more enjoyable if you are familiar with it beforehand. Also as a result of doing that I learned quite a bit of Italian as a teenager, though I am certainly not fluent. However I do understand that not everyone has time.
2
@Jackie
Yes, I agree with you Jackie. I liked what AB said up to the comment about opera captions. The captions allow one a more complete understanding of an art form that melds words with music.
3
Finally, common sense TRUTH. By the time I was an adult , I had figured out that most of life is boring and as stated, it was with that knowledge , one can get creative, learn to enjoy the silence and absence of the stultifying thought that every minute has to be filled with something to do!
Parents , teachers, adults must let children know that most tasks are BORING and that gives us time to allow the mind to wonder, to grow, to solve!
I love this article.
14
Somehow I've raised a child who is never bored. I took her on walks in nature; I provided her with art supplies; I surrounded her with books and took her to the library; I gave her wood block and wood animal figures; I gave her a scooter and then a bicycle. Most importantly, I modeled to her how to ask questions and how to find the answers through observation, asking experts, and finding answers in books and at online sites that play documentaries. The result is she knows who she is and what she enjoys, and she knows how to seek experiences to cultivate that enjoyment. Basically, I taught her to be curious. If every parent could just teach their kid to be curious before they showed up for school. . .
24
Pamela,
This article. Is spot on.For many of us, it is impossible to figure out exactly who and what we desire to be without taking time to contemplate why we are here and what’s out there. Too many kids today are overstimulated by various inputs, especially video games at home, alone, awaiting mom and or dad. Please consider your next article to focus on the fortnight /video junkies and the impact on these precious young minds, their teachers, and their Parents.
7
The drive by parents to keep kids busy has a variety of motivators: preparing them for academic and sports competition with other kids, a worry that their bored child will fill the vacuum with drugs, sex, or crime, and an aversion to guilt that they didn't do everything that they could to provide for their child.
Most of those motivators are derived from ambitions they project onto their children, not what the kids truly need nor what is best for them.
Better to provide children the freedom to explore what they find interesting and valuable and to do this by controlling the ranges of possibilities. Freedom within limits. And the exercise of freedom comes only during times of boredom, when you have the freedom to choose..
5
BRAVO! We do not need to constantly entertain children. As a former middle school teacher, I sometimes heard, "My child is bored. Learning should be fun." I often wonder how I got through school without the teachers coming up with "fun" ways to learn. Admittedly, bringing in more hands-on activities are good thing, but the emphasis on fun is not reflective of the real world.
14
@Jackie
Actually, I like fun, too. So modeling how to make something fun--like Tom Sawyer did to get that fence whitewashed--is a good thing.
A year after I left a job where I was in charge and had staff to supervise I heard that one of them pulled another aside and said, remember when MJB was here, we were laughing and talking and solving problems all the time. Now we just come in, sit at our desks, and complete work. It's quiet.
The person left that job soon after.
I suspect that not much new was happening actually. Just bureaucratic tending.
You can help people get really engaged in creative problem solving by providing time to think with each other, talk, and laugh. Many times a day. Potlucks for lunch...
I think work can be fun, and it can also be deadly. I prefer the former.
4
I tell kids boredom is a choice. I love the phrase, a rich interior life. When one loves to read and learn new things, when one loves new projects, or when one just watches the clouds and wonders why we are here, floating on a rock in the middle of nowhere, boredom is forgotten. All is mystery and an adventure.
18
I long for moments of boredom. We live in such a busy world, when those spare minutes arise, I sit silently and think. I embrace it!
13
I would add the word: "inspiration". As my life has gotten busier, I have been actively longing for some boredom because that is when I get inspired.
6
Great article! I belong to that generation of "underparented" kids. Boredom inspired adventures (real and imagined), incentive to read, draw, create. I bucked the trend of over scheduling my own children and even forbid video games in our house. Complaints of boredom were met, as I had met them, with books, pencil and paper, a boot outside, chores, or the option to sit and daydream. No surprise, we all survived!
9
Thanks. Your article revealed to me that in my almost 75 years on this planet I do not ever remember being bored. You also inspired my childhood memories of having massive wars in my bedroom all by myself with my toy guns !
4
Nice piece. But I do not think it is boredom that drives the child to learn to "make something happen' and "respond constructively". The activity you describe is play. Vygotsky (1966) through Piaget (1932) argued that play functions to develop in the child moral rules based on aligning the incentive structure.“Why does the child not do what he wants spontaneously at once? Because the rules of the play structure promises much greater pleasure from the game than the gratification of an immediate impulse” (Vygotskey p.14). Through play the child develops a new set of desires, teaching her desires through interaction with a fictitious, best-imagined self, that guides the child's future.
Taggart (2017), however, shows children say they prefer real actions in the world, rather than imaginary ones. But, Moffitt et al. (2010) argues self-control has pro-social values on the level of Children' SES, or intelligence. In other words, developing self-control, through play, which may be more possible than improving SES or intelligence, could strongly improve outcomes.
Therefore, if Vygotsky and Piaget were right—that play develops self-control in children—than the evidence points to the need for play-based, imagination inspiring interventions to improve self-control skills, even if children do not like it as compared to the real activities they can't access. I leaves open the possibility that cutting vegetables with a real knife, while bored, improves the development of play.
1
A wonderful and timely piece, Ms. Paul. Even for older children like me. Partly prompted by a bout with cancer, I retired early. I ended a very productive and satisfying career but also one that was pedal-to-the-metal each and every day. Since ending it, I have been re-learning, remembering how to be quiet, calm and bored. Re-learning how delicious it really was and how so much of what made my life interesting was incubated in those moments and stretches of time. New and surprising things are again bubbling up and I'm beginning to notice the fresh contours of my final years. Fresh, remarkable, and engaging.
11
Great article but it’s not just children. Adults get bored easily too. We tend to eschew potential mates because they’re “boring” and select the ones who entertain us. We like those people because they’re “exciting.” And as some commenters have said, we pick the exciting politicians over the boring policy wonks.
14
When I was a boy and doing the annoying things that bored children do, my Mother said to me, "go read a book." There really is not a second to waste, especially for children. That is why early education is so important. Kids are almost never too young to read, given the right tools. Once they do, they'll never stop reading.
16
Often, a child will say they are "bored" when actually they are saying that they don't want to do what is asked of them such as a challenging mathematics problem or practicing a musical instrument. "Bored" has become a catchall phrase for children.
I heartily agree that real boredom is not to be discounted and that children are over-entertained.
20
As an elementary school teacher, I heartily agree. Although I work to make my lessons engaging, there is going to be a certain amount of boredom as kids learn spelling patterns, gain fluency in math, and practice other skills that require a certain amount of repetition to become fully absorbed. I tell my students that it's OK to be bored sometimes, and that learning to tolerate boredom is an important skill. As an aside (or maybe it's directly related), my students very rarely use screens. We have a 15-minute break time every day in which they are free to do any school-appropriate activity, as long as they clean up afterwards. Kids build block buildings, play chess, create paper sculptures, and draw. No one ever asks for a screen; they have learned to cope with having to direct their own time.
24
Every summer my mother would give each of us a brown paper bag with lunch right after breakfast, shoo us outside and lock the screen door, and tell us she would see us at dinner. We figured it out....
22
Ms. Paul, thank you for your piece "Let Children Get Bored Again". You look like an intelligent Gen Xer and a mother. Those of us who remember our childhood lives pre-television (early 1940s), post WWII (50s) and pre today's social media culture which provides entertainment in one's very hand 24/7, know that boredom is the Mom of Invention. Your children may be Gen Yers now...they are inheriting the legacies of our lives in the past century. When we were bored, our minds played and so did our busy little hands with jacks, trading cards, baseball cards, comics, jump rope, tin can telephones, hopscotch, neighborhood games and time-occupying pursuits for kids. Nowadays our beloved children (Gen Xers) helicoptered over our grandchildren (Gen Ys). The world your children and my grandchildren are inheriting is a far-cry from the age-old endeavors and inventions that grew like flowers pushing up through the sidewalks of boredom!
8
Brilliant piece. We let our 6 and 8 year old entertain themselves regularly, and while hearing the 'I'm bored' does at times set you back, it often results in our kids playing happily with one another, contributes to creativity, and often times they discover something new.
7
I'm on a Facebook page with people from my hometown in Michigan. One time I counted all of the children who lived on my block when I was growing up. The number was 26. You always had someone to play with and we were outside until the street lights came on.
14
Thank you! I literally "lived" outside growing up as my father was transferred from one National Park to the next. You've helped me understand why later studying forestry for four years was, really, really boring. But without which I wouldn't have been able to serve as a Peace Corps forestry volunteer in Niger. And why, ever since, picturing and creating solutions - versus problem-solving - has helped shape and make for a full life ever since.
8
Amen! My thoughts, exactly, every time I'm driving behind a minivan with a child watching TV in the backseat. On a long road trip, okay. But coming home from soccer practice? Really? They can't be alone with their thoughts for even a few minutes? Thanks, Ms. Paul, for this much-needed piece.
35
It's difficult to compare current child rearing to the child rearing of the past, even the 80's. My kids were born in the early 2000's and everything changed just a few years later with the emergence of iPads and iPhones.
Bad influences range from things outside our own teachings as parents to outright immoral to deadly (the chemical composition of legal and illegal drugs has also changed and become more addicting). As an answer to boredom, humans wander either in their minds or by physical action. This is good, unless the boy down the street doesn't know how to swim in his backyard pool but is the best at Mortal Combat. Or the teenagers next door have parents who allow them to openly smoke marijuana because it's now legal. One of the problems is that we don't have a common culture or common societal mores. So... I miss that bad afternoon television: the Brady Bunch, Leave it to Beaver.
4
When my kids used to tell me “I am bored” my response was “Great. Einstein was bored to death as a patent clerk for the Swiss post office and came up with the theory of relativity.” Having free time and nothing to do allows your imagination to create. It is so sad that we do not teach our kids to use the best entertainment device ever created, the human brain, and replace it with far inferior video games and smart phones. Sure it makes the adults life easier but the price our kids will pay for this will be high, although yet to be known.
41
I was never bored as a child. if anything, I missed those lovely playful days of my childhood where I am not overwhelmed by information and other advertorials on digital platforms today. Extra-curricular activities were not rampant then but we engaged ourselves creatively. From dance plays to weaving fables of our own. It was a relishing experience. Today's parents in Nigeria are so preoccupied with providing everything for their children to avoid boredom to the extent they make their children too dependent. It is indeed sad how children are robbed of those experiences that make them children.
16
As both a high school teacher and a parent of a 3 and 5 year old, there is a lot of truth to be digested here.
I teach in an international private school to high school students in the most boring subjects: Biology and Math. As I watched the trend to entertain students take root in the US, it was refreshing to move to Geneva and work with students who have never known that type of teaching. They didn’t come to expect their teacher to sing and dance or be a clown. They didn’t expect to have activities every moment planned out to a t. As a teacher that burden is too heavy for the amount we are paid and unless you’re really good at it, ultimately doesn’t promote achievement.
As a parent, when I’m “ignoring” my kids from 5 to 6 pm while making dinner, they don’t ask for help, except when trying to put on their superhero capes... velcro is tough for a 3 year old. In this time, they’re in a fantasy world and they enjoy that infinitely more than attending a dance or music class. Are there messes?Massive ones! Is there screaming in our tiny Geneva apartment? Loads...sometimes from me joining in the fun... Are we perfect parents? No, but we have facilitated play by allowing our children to just be. Where I come from that’s called being content.
Maybe we have lost the art of teaching and modeling contentment because we, teachers and parents, make each other feel like there is always something more ti strive for. Contentment is a dreamworld to fantastic for us to find.
30
I like to say that boredom means I can start something. It means I'm not facing any crisis, and I'm not overloaded with things to do. So that means there's room.
I might start something small, like a book. Or medium, like a new class on something. Or even enormous, like planning where I want to live next.
I don't agree completely on screens, though. One place where people tend to get bored is in vehicles, and that's not always the good kind of bored. I was always told "bring a book," but I get carsick. Putting audiobooks on my phone has been a godsend.
8
I grew up in a former USSR in Kiev, Ukraine.
The concept of boredom was honestly non-existent.
In a old part of Kiev some buildings had big courtyards, where we played all day different games, that mostly involved, running really fast to outrun boys and girls, who lived in our L shape building on a beautiful street corner, lined up with the blooming chestnut and acacia trees, reaching to our stone balcony.
Hmm...memories, but playing all day was real fun, we would run home for short breaks only to go back until dark.
Reading all day on a couch was real fun, still remember my parent's library, even the color of each full collection...Balzac was a rich burgundy, Zweig was light violet, Maupassant and Chekhov were deep green, my dad's favorite Lion Feuchtwanger was burgundy/chocolate mix.
It was much fun, pretending to be sick to miss school and lounge all day with a book.
I was always circling around my mom, she was an artist, so her friends would come to our place with easels and canvasses with their aprons stained all in paints, they would paint all day.
Just to be there was fun.
We were always writing and reading poetry, and everyone would passionately debate one subject or another...
My father was talking about crazy system in Russia, listening to Voice of America and BBC.
Come to think of it, it was all real fun!
Never a minute of boredom...
That's my so far unfulfilled dream for my two adorable grandchildren.
34
Loved everything about this article. So relevant for today's parenting pressure. Those of us of a certain age relate perfectly to your mentions of the "way back." Made my Sunday morning.
21
Thanks. I'm a teacher of K-2. I can't tell you the times that, at the end of a task they were given in class, students will call out,
"what do I do now?"
My answer is always, " sit and wait patiently" especially if the class is almost over and they will transition out of the room soon.
Without fail, I get, " I'm bored" within the first minute.
This is very concerning and it's getting worse.
30
A nice insight. Boredom beats helicopters, for sure.
But, your view is only half right. Yes, children need breaks from the intensity of much of learning.
But, one must distinguish the social class natures of K-12: that is, lower class as opposed to upper-middle class education (with lower-middle a mix of the two).
The crux is that upper-middle class students don't get enough boredom. The lower class gets a lot more than enough. Indeed it's the main thing it gets.
I was lower class, and remain so, somewhat. My education was typical of my class, and for the most part, comprised baby-sitting. Now that was boring.
The upshot was that when I got to my elite college, I discovered that "the rich kids" were literate, and I was not. Ten of us, bright plebeian students, came together to the big U. Most flunked out or left during the first semesters.
How sad. It is a cliche that the salvation of the lower class lies in education. But, generation by generation, this seems not to be what is happening.
Something was wrong with our schools and classes. We were exposed to occasional serious learning, eg Les Misérables, our only novel. But our teachers were as undereducated as we. There was no fire, just boredom.
I remember the 12 years as a prison of ennui. I learned in the 13th year that I was illiterate.
We are neglected: babysitting and endless boredom.
This continues. As adults our economic despair is neglected.
Which turns Blue states Red, BTW.
29
@alyosha
I had a similar experience: total boredom for years. But luckily I had access to books and records from the public library which I devoured. University was difficult after an inadequate education, but I was able to catch up. It's criminal that no one noticed your literacy issues. But you turned yourself into an articulate person, so that is very admirable.
@alyosha This should be a NYT pick- spot on comment.
In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, we had no devices and just three TV channels, but it didn’t matter much. We played baseball or football outside; we had the Kenner Girder and Panel Building Set, Lincoln Logs, wooden blocks, little plastic interlocking bricks, etc, and used our imaginations to build endlessly different structures. We read books from the school library. It was a different time. If you were bored—and we seldom were—it was your own fault. I think we do a disservice to children when we allow them to use devices at the dinner table or in restaurants.
38
I have never been bored in my life, and I am 82. I grew up way out in the country in the 40’s with a radio my mother tuned. I have been a farm laborer, a construction laborer, in the Army for 20 years and an experimental test pilot. No job was boring. She calls pre-21st century tedious. She says Jane Austen’s characters playing cards and reading and taking walks was boring. Boring would be the 21st century running and even worse, swimming where you don’t observe what is going on around you. I have dozens of books, in print, on my Kindle, and on Audible that I haven’t read yet. But, no more, I have to go do the tedious job of feeding my horse and other livestock.
11
@Rich
Swing one is bored equates to being lazy. America today!
That's why we deserve the politicians we elect.
It didn't occur to me until I read this article that at 56 years old, I'm never bored. I am tired. To be able to sit and stare at clouds sounds luxuriously NOT boring.
However, you are wrong about how parents kept kids occupied on car trips back in the day. While gas fumes could be a source of entertainment, singing 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall at the top of our lungs-- 10 small but powerful lungs-- was how we made certain our parents were quite aware of our boredom.
19
We never sang that. It's a raucous song. We counted timber trees and out-of-state license plates and later grew to admire and name cloud formations and different types of houses.
3
Boredom is exactly what spawns Alice's adventure down the rabbit hole. Carroll's text begins, "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and having nothing to do." She debates whether it is worth the trouble to get up and make a daisy-chain, because that means exerting the effort to pick the daisies, when the White Rabbit appears and changes everything.
In addition, being bored, as I've told my students for years (when teaching Alice), is an indication that you don't have more pressing matters to attend to: finding food, shelter, clothing, medical care, etc. Boredom is actually a sign of privilege.
65
Thank you Ms. Paul. The perfect apolitical piece to read on a Sunday and help one reflect that a mindful and creative life is within everyone's reach. This "kid" from The Bronx wants to thank you.
6
Interesting stuff, and let's not forget (and its little publisized) about how ALL mobile phones' spectrum (EMF/electro magnetic fields, akin to microwave spectrum) no doubt has direct correlations on kids' growing brains/brain chemicals/hormones and of course, eye contact with that cool white/blue screen colors/rich colors...and again, eye growth till they are adults.
The lack of attention span and "generosity"" to be present AND respond accordingly in detail, not generic, topical answers that I have seen is also quite shallow. Such as the under 30 generation can be bereft (not all!) of carrying on conversations of true "engagement" that's full, surprising, curious, introspective, emotive...now the typical convos tend to be far more shorter, topical, generic, "happy" and canned.
Certainly not all, though the pervasveness of constant "siloed" attention span into the ipads/mobile phones seems to be quite detrimental to curiosity, patience, observance at its purest forms.
5
Jonathan Haidt writes extensively on the effects of today's parenting in his book, "The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure". Worth a read or a listen to one of his discussions.
12
THANK YOU for this article! I too, get bored sometimes and it is a part of life. And I did tell my girls when they were bored to "get outside" - best advice I could have given them. I'm 64 now - old in a lot of people's opinion - but I cringe when I see toddlers and pre-schoolers holding "screens" during dinner or in a stroller. Open your eyes, look at the world, and THINK sometimes.......
41
When I have time on my hands, nothing to do, I often do nothing.
Relaxing in a recliner is just fine.
It's fine to just be alone and let the mind wander.
Once you get over the guilt of sitting still it's easy.
25
This is not very convincing. The reasoning reminds me of what people told me when I was young: Yes, study Latin texts because it will make it easier for you to learn French. To which I replied (after 5 years of Latin): "First of all, I have no intention to learn French, and even if I would, why would I not go straight to French?"
If you want students to be more creative, teach them creativity.
Open their eyes to the countless possibilties. Show them what other people work on. Support them in exploring their interests. Connect students to work together and exchange ideas. Guide rather than teach. Invite artists. Practice concentration together. Let them learn that creative work is done in groups of people, all brining their own talents into the mix. And yes, show that if the flow of ideas stops, it is time for a break. Not to get bored, but to enjoy some fresh air and relax.
7
@Marc
Just another helicopter parent response. Sad.
1
This piece certainly seems to have struck a cord with many people. I reflected on it as well during my smartphone-free workout this morning - my daily 45-minute "shower idea time." All I'd like to add is although Ms. Paul has written about children and boredom, much of what she says has relevance to adults as well. Especially those of us who have entered (semi) retirement after decades of all-consuming professional work and look forward a couple more as life-spans increase. This is where lifelong learning comes in, whether is about that subject that always interested you or a new interest or hobby that requires knowledge and practice. Why always a reader, I now have started writing as well. Try fly fishing! Getting in a learning mode can take some time and effort but certainly beats the alternative of boredom during during the golden years.
14
What a relief! For parents who feel guilty for not able to keep children engaged all the time.
Thanks a bunch Ms. Pamela, for this wonderful article.
I instantly connected to this, as our spiritual Master says- "Do not reject smiles, when they knock on the door, wearing the mask of tears. "
And this article adds - excitement is embedded in boredom.
No more fear of boredom
10
I agree that children need to learn to distract themselves when bored. But do we really have to evoke boring jobs as a learning experience?
3
@Lifelong Reader
I had a factory job at 16. I worked on an assembly line full-time in the summer. All my friends, much wealthier, were out doing more interesting things. Thought I would die from boredom.
Fast forward to my work as a management consultant. Every time I entered a factory I remembered my old factory days. It was a contained little world of individuals with different stories and backgrounds. All were important.
It taught me to respect all jobs and grant every worker the dignity he/she deserved. I treated the person who delivered mail with the same respect I showed the president of the company.
25
My boring job taught me I didn't want to do it for a living, so I went back to college and. changed the trajectory of my life.
1
YES! Boring jobs can be the catalyst to deciding enough is enough and trying something else. Boring jobs, combined with being a risk-taker can lead to some interesting paths in life. @Lifelong Reader
I read this interesting piece with sadness.. I agree 100% with author but have had major battles with our 17 year old son over this issue. He prefers and lives mostly in the digital world and though we tried from a young age to cultivate time for contemplation and imagination the culture of technology and video games can sometimes be to powerful for parents to fight or manage. We keep trying...
12
@Meryl
History will show the real villains of our times will be creators of Microsoft, Apple, CATV, Facebook, etc. And the software and hardware engineers that enabled them.
3
Well, I am happy to be able to look up information I need or want -- whenever I want. I do not have social-media accounts, but the internet is a life changer, and a good one.
When I was a teacher, instead of xeroxing photographs from books and gathering kids around the desk to look at them, or trying to find VHS documentaries in the library and then queuing them to where I needed them and hoping the tech people delivered the VCR on time, I was suddenly able to show my kids all sorts of clips on my laptop and, later, project them -- including old footage of the march in Selma, of Harlem and its artists and writers, of the Warsaw Ghetto, of whatever I needed to get across the historical background of the books my students were reading.
If a book mentioned Greta Garbo ("Who's she?"), I could summon up a clip from "Anna Christie."
I am grateful for Google. Like any tool, it's only as good as the person who wields it.
2
But it's all for naught. They will never need again to be bored. Silicon Valley--and an army of cognitive and social and physiological and neuropsychological, and all the others, will find a way out of boredom for them, just like they will figure out a way to replace their own efforts to recall information, conjur their desires, and plan their evenings. Come on, do know where we are headed, right?
9
@debrae Eloi is what is coming, and soon.
Boredom is indeed the pathway to the imagination. I know I must have experienced boredom as a kid, but I don't remember it. I only remember endless hours in fantasy worlds. As a parent myself, I was never the least bit concerned that my kids were bored, and both of them developed the wonderful and amusing quirk of telling themselves stories, which were never ending. They both became serious readers as well. But now my three year old grandson is forbidden to even approach this ancient gateway to the imagination and the minute he is not engaged in a directed activity, he is swept up and taken somewhere.
I've said (countless times), "For heaven sakes, leave the kid alone," but both parents are convinced this will lead to a 'meltdown', which includes 'bouncing off the walls,' and other nefarious, completely avoidable outcomes. All too soon, like most parents of 'hyperactive' kids, they will plug him into a video game and that magical door will close forever...
32
@JJ Flowers well put and terrifying!
Amen, amen, amen! Shout this from the rooftops, Ms. Paul! This is exactly the sort of message we desperately need in this, the Age of Distraction.
When I taught college students I actually told them one day not only not to fear boredom, but to seek it out, for precisely the reasons you outline here.
Sadly, these are the days when the artful programming of stupidphone manufacturers is holding out the prospect of never being bored to phone addicts. Nowadays, if you want your children to be bored, step number one is to take away their phones.
Also sadly, many parents nowadays will get right to that after checking their Facebook page.
14
I wrote stories, made up songs, redecorated and painted my own room when I was 11 (red, white and blue theme all without buying a thing), joined in pick up games of baseball, made forts...all when I was bored, That gave me an infinite ability to entertain myself. It used to be called leisure not boredom.
Boredom teaches you to observe the world around you.
24
I used to get create work ideas while sitting through boring meetings. Then, I filled the boredom with checking emails on my phone. I realized I missed the creative thinking time, so now I work hard to put down my phone and just be.
5
I'm a writer and I force myself to put the phone down in public spaces so I can observe the world and the people around me. There's no better source material than that. I can capture facial expressions, body language and snippets of conversations, all grist for the mill. You do have to be careful not to come across as creepy, for watching too intently .
2
A quote from an old friend: “Boredom come naturally like appetite. Creativity satiates the uncomfortable feeling that boredom is”.
6
I grew up in Northern New Hampshire. We didn't get a TV signal up there until 1954, when I was 10. I remember spending a lot of time lying in the grass staring at the sky or lying face down inspecting ant hills up close. Simpler times.
30
@Betsy Beecher
I never stopped reading. Read out the children's section at our library. We moved to another state with a bigger library-I was in heaven, as you could check out 16 books at a time. I wrote creatively for Scholastic Writing contests, both of which cemented me as the reader I am today, and the writer I am for my work. And, at work, I think creatively to solve problems. All because the reading allowed my imagination to soar.
6
I did grow up with a father who said, "boring people are bored and bored people are boring." However, being one of five children and with parents who didn't really pay a lot of attention we had to "figure it out" and figure it out we did; we invented games, we created plays, we played outside in the snow and yes, we made snowmen, and we read. A lot. I have to laugh because last night while dining with a friend, in a restaurant, we looked over at a table with a family. Each child had his/her own I-pad and was watching a movie. In the restaurant. My friend and I commented, "What's the point? Isn't part of going out with your family learning how to converse? How to act when being treated to a night out?"
45
Pamela Paul doesn’t specifically mentioned the term in this excellent piece, but “daydreaming” has been an important part of my life for as long as I remember. I’m 72 now and still a practitioner. It stems from the circumstances that Ms Paul describes: both seemingly endless unstructured time and dull tasks at school. Throughout my career in the corporate world I have managed to carve out chunks of time during workdays to daydream, nap, ponder, play with ideas, think through issues. There’s always some way to go missing in action for short periods. I don’t think it ever hurt my prospects or performance; it may even have helped. I really feel for the young children whose lives I observe these days. They may never know what it’s like for a boring afternoon to turn into an adventure you could never have planned on.
20
If one is bored, it might, just might, stimulate the imagination and create a self starting individual. Take away every toy, game and other device from a child and watch their reaction. Given where we live (and used to be no cell service, no internet, etc.) it takes about 2 - 3 days and the child or teenager actually wakes up and starts talking to other humans and noticing the great outdoors. They start asking questions about birds, wildlife, plants and each other. If, for example, I was building or repairing something, or going fishing or hiking, I would suddenly find a curious helper or someone asking to go along with me. It is an interesting phenomenon.
14
This is a very interesting piece about one of the better ways to parent: how to redirect the thoughts of a bored child in order to change behavior in a way that will motivate that child cultivate their imagination and creativity and/or be realistic and self-serving about one of human life's facets. I think the next column by this author should be "Let Children Get Hungry and Thirsty Again" because lots of us parents should make ubiquitous food and drink more judiciously served and accessible.
7
I am rarely bored. My very busy mother had no patience for boredom. There were always plenty of chores to help her with. One of my favorite "nothing to do" activities as a child centered around a set of children's encyclopedias. Each article had suggested related subjects. I would pick a subject read the section and maintain a list of the related articles. I would read each one and then the subjects related to it and see how long it would take me to come to the end of the suggestions. The exercise taught me to appreciate the intricacy of the universe and how everything is interrelated.
11
@CMC
You were using "hyperlinking" before the invention of HTML!
I did similar things. Or, pick a volume of Compton's off of the shelf and start reading wherever I opened it.
When I read the headline, the first thing that came to mind was my own mother's response to such complaints: "Then go clean your room." I was pleased to read that I was not the only kid given that advice.
As a kid, I learned to lose myself in books to avoid the room-cleaning thing. Unfortunately, as an adult I still use the old book dodge to avoid housework.
21
When I was in high school, I distinctly remember a friend calling me and asking: “What are you doing?” . I answered: “nothing”. His reply was: “what do you want to do?”. My response was: “nothing”. At that moment it occurred to me that there are people who seemingly must be entertained much of the time and other people, like myself - for reasons of which I can only guess - were perfectly content entertaining themselves. For me, it was exploring the forest - because I lived in the country and I transitioned from playing in the forest with friends, building forts and catching frogs and turtles to just enjoying being alone in the forest with my dog and gardening. Like Calvin, because I lived in the country, I had a whole world to explore and to try to understand. Most people don’t live like that now. I/we were fortunate - when our son was young we moved to Newfoundland from the USA and he was able to live the life I lived - he would disappear in the morning and he and his friends would show up at some point during the day or evening and no one worried as there was/is nothing to be afraid of; certainly not people. Our son was addicted to Calvin and Hobbes, he even had a stuffed tiger named Hobbes. Perhaps, it isn’t so much about being bored, but feeling safe and secure enough to learning how to be, as a child, independent.
12
I was so bored at church when I was a child. However the church had these beautiful relief depictions of the Stations of the Cross. I thank the artisans who carved them. They were so intricate and beautiful. As for the service, I couldn't have recited one thing the priest said. My older siblings were furious that I had been present but miles away when they had been absent at the restaurant and needed to discuss the sermon with my parents. I really do credit these masses for developing many skills such as patience, imagination, and delaying gratification.
6
One thing I have learned for sure - if I am bored, it’s on me. We have imaginations - a wonderful gift. I like being bored because It reminds me that I’m present. I’m here. The day goes by slower. I do not want to spend my time trying to escape any spells of boredom by endless scrolling on a digital device. Sometimes I just look at the wall or out the window and think about what is going on in my life. In today’s day and age I think people are afraid to appear bored or unimportant - hence the constant glancing at phones. If you’re staring at your phone constantly you want to give the appearance of being important - that you’re “doing” something. Step in any elevator and people immediately take out their phones. I don’t mind watching the numbers change as the floors go by. Plus, I don’t even want every moment of my day to be “exciting” or screen filled or appearing uber busy. Put away your device from time to time to just think. Why the need to escape yourself? Or just be an observer. Down time replenishes the brains ability to be attentive and encourages creativity. So, it’s OK [and good!] to be bored for ongoing development of your creative self. So, try develop more your creative brain muscle and less of your screen typing skills.
20
We took a road trip across Italy and my NYC kids were in the backseat squabbling, are we there yet and fighting for the window.
I wanted to jump out the door but then I realized they’ve never been bored in a car. It was good to see.
6
Will the long line of "kids today" and "when I was a kid, my parents" never stop? If you don't like how other parents raise their kids, then raise yours the way you see fit... and leave the rest of us to do the same. For about 300 thousand years, parents have been muddling through the rough process of preparing kids to function in their environment. By and large, most of us have managed it, despite the dire criticisms of Ms. Paul and her ilk.
6
Alex, I’m with you. I don’t like to be criticized. Parenting is hard. Walk a mile in my shoes...
But this one isn’t a criticism. It’s a call for spreading of cultural norms. I’m ok with kids being bored. But now that my kids are social 8 and 10 year olds, they need a community of kids and parents who share those norms. We’ve gone from under parenting in the 70s to helicopter parents to a ubiquity of devices — I’m grateful for articles like this.
My boys got serious “play on your own” time and we don’t have gaming devices in our house. 10 years ago, video gaming was pretty much it for adolescent boys. Bored? Unlimited immersion gaming, putting limits on that is uncool, as long as you otherwise comply with the agenda mom and dad have laid out for you. Articles like this make it possible for me to set these limits and for my boys to have a community of friends who also find their way to some limits — now, while they still know how to make their own fun.
This essay and the comments I've read remind me so much of a childhood that was amazingly rich in a million experiences that I made for myself and with my friends. I was lucky enough to grow up in a small town and in the summertime there were kids everywhere outdoors playing kick the can, building forts, fishing, riding bikes, running lemonade stands, etc. In the winter there was sledding and skating on icy driveways and building monstrous snow forts and snowmen. For me there was the children's library my parents put together with floor to ceiling books. If it was pouring rain you'd find me in there, reading for hours. But I also had Lincoln logs and Breyer horses to build horse farms with. My sisters and my friends would put on plays and musical shows for our parents.
Aside from building our imaginations, all that activity also socialized the heck out of us. We had to deal with bullies and shifting alliances and interacting with other kids' parents.
This wasn't the 50's. It was the mid-70's. It really was not that long ago.
16
Funny, your description of childhood in a small town exactly matches mine in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, right down to snow forts, Breyer horses, and books. But then, that was 60 years ago. Today, my Windsor Terrace great-nephew is so over-programmed, my heart breaks for him.
10
@B.
I think parents today are too concerned with their children's missing out on something. When everyone was in Little League, my son was digging to the center of the earth. Computer time was always restricted.
You actually have to work very hard to parent differently today. It requires discipline. And the courage to break with the pack. But good parenting is always like that.
8
Many people are looking back on unstructured community experiences. It’s not all about breaking with the pack, but about finding (and building) yours.
Agree with most of this (and generally try to allow my children to experience boredom) but definitely not the plane ride take. Lord help me, and the rest of the passengers on that plane, if my children are not thoroughly entertained and immersed in an iPad during air travel.
9
@Jared Sherr Air tavel with two small boys before the invention of iPads, we taught them card games (poker) and each had a little "briefcase" with a book, drawing paper and colors, and a few legos. Dark age solutions still worth trying. loved it when the 5 year old beat other passengers at cards, too.
1
Our children (8 and 10) look forward to air travel as the ONLY time they get to game. Bliss for all.
Otherwise: sorry, dude. Join the world.
@Jared Sherr Just one thought about long plane rides: books.
1
Same can be said for our opportunity in our second childhood Retirement
44
This is an important piece, actually.
One other function of boredom is it enhances actual interesting activity: Baseball is said to be an hour of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror; Rembrandt and Vermeer often constructed paintings of mostly shadow (boring) which made the features of the people in light more dramatic.
Snowden, in Catch-22 pursued boredom to make life seem longer and he valued life more because on missions he was terrified of his life ending. Boredom seemed sweet.
But, as you point out, nothing stimulates creativity more than boredom. A blank page beckoning to be filled with astonishing things.
17
I agree that children need to learn to be board. I have a creative niece who mastered boredom at a young age and is now a budding artist. When she comments "I'm bored" her parents respond, "Go draw," and now she has become quite good at it.
I do disagree that teachers should let students be bored. How students retain information is linked to the emotions they are experiencing when they learn it. If you teach a dull lesson, the information is not retained. If you are engaging all of the senses, if you get children up off their feet, they will remember the activity and more importantly the content being taught. This concept that started in early elementary school is now making its way into college courses and adult continuing education, because when something is fun to learn, we remember it better. After all what do you really remember from your high school [insert most boring class]?
12
@Sarah I agree with your point about school. But the author's point has less to do with what happens in a classroom than it does with what happens when not in a classroom. We have to attend to the learning styles and needs of kids and adults. But then a developing brain needs to set itself free to be open to creativity, inspiration and even - perish the thought - independent thinking. Daydream on!
3
@Sarah
Yes, there is an element of theater in good teaching. However, making sure your students aren't bored is absolutely not the sole responsibility of the teacher, and in any case is flatout impossible. For one thing, in a classroom of 30 students, how in heaven's name can you ensure that every last one of them isn't bored? You can't.
Finally, if you ever hear a teacher tell you that all of education can be made as entertaining as you seem to think it can be, they're either just starting out, or lying.
3
Some of my most delightful childhood memories revolve around doing nothing! Lying in a snow bank under a full moon. Climbing to the “top of the world” and looking over the electrified farmlands of Queens stretching out to Kennedy airport. Traveling solo on a city bus to go to and from school and beginning my day with a slice of the real world—the best education I received.
It had all of the elements of what might be called boring—quiet, solitary, ordinary. It had many of the attributes of a “boring” childhood—independence, mindfulness and unsupervised.
As an adult, I experience many different days, exciting, sad, busy and yes, many routine but none do I now call boring. I embrace opportunities to spend time alone. I savor silence and attempt to live a mindful existence in a tumultuous world.
It is a shame that we have come to think that overstimulation is increasing children’s intelligence and improving their lives. Parents mistakenly think that constant activity will increase their children’s competitive edge.
Instead of signing up for one more coding class or after school chess club, take a walk on a chilly night through the park. Teach children the benefit of stillness instead of movement and maybe everyone will begin to look at boredom differently.
28
I recently joined a gym where there is an interesting mix of ages, young to very old. All the teens and 20- and 30-somethings are attached to their phones, ostensibly to keep track of their progress -- but I can't help peeking at them and noticing that, almost without exception, as they rest between their three sets of reps, they're actually texting and checking social media.
Indeed, it seems that boredom -- or just thinking/resting in the moment -- is anathema to many young people.
11
When met with the complaint, I'm bored," my very wise mother-in-law would respond, "Boredom is from within." In other words, not her problem. My parents were similarly disposed. And if boredom lead to mischief, the consequences taught us to use our time more constructively and less destructively.
7
Kids today ......(fill in the blank). In my day I .......... (fill in the blank). It all started with Elvis.
11
The very best thing my parents ever did for me - because it was the very best they COULD give - was time and freedom. Growing up on a farm in Iowa while they were busy in the fields and in the garden and the kitchen, I developed an entire world with my imagination. If not that, I was helping in the garden and kitchen and learning to sew and cook and developing a strong sense of confidence and my capacity to make things happen. As an adult, I'm a a very happy interior designer and can point directly to these experiences. EVERYTHING we create starts in the imagination. A meal, a computer program, a room, a story, a book, and yes, even a golf shot, according to my husband. If you want to develop the imagination in your children, check out the Waldorf schools. (Full disclosure - my husband and I have started a non-profit one in Charleston, SC) where the world is slowed down for the children and they are granted time to use their imagination throughout the day. It's the basis of the pedagogy. As Einstein is quoted as saying. "The imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." I am so lucky to be able to say I have never been bored. And so lucky to have had all that empty time.
14
I could not agree more. Boredom often opens the channels of imagination and can increase social discourse. To wit, being bored often forces people to talk to others in the real world, i.e., face to face. Imagine that.
12
"Well, find something to do." That was my mother's refrain. It was up to us, not descended upon us. This was the 1950s...and no TV before 5pm and none after 7pm. And we did find things to do. And we had great fun. Yours truly, PhD in Neurosciences and Professor.
40
I once told my grandmother I was bored. Her response: "You have a library card, don't you?"
66
@loiejane A library was always a lifesaver for me.
I think boredom is an important opportunity for thinking (or pondering) - and essential for development of creativity. Only when you have nothing to do will you have time to begin considering things.
23
As a teacher of elementary age students, I very often found that complaining of being bored meant the child didn’t understand the book or the work. Finding an alternative easier book sometimes really helped. Hard to be interested, excited, or focused when the work is too incomprehensible.
It wouldn’t do for all situations, but I thought one commenter’s
suggestion of introducing those Calvin and Hobbs’s collections was an excellent one!
20
As a youngster we weren't rich, so we made our own fun!
In the summer we built held "school" on the porch. We built little boxes out of popsicle sticks and wove potholders out of discarded fabric loops our Moms got from nearby mills. We put baseball cards on the spokes of our bicycles and dreamed we were riding motorcycles. And if the weather was bad, we threw a blanket over the long dining room table and set up a fort underneath where we'd play cards for hours.
So, in retrospect, we may not have been rich in dollars but we didn't lack in imagination or fun. I wish that same legacy for today's children, who live in a much more material world.
56
I think what you call boredom is a lack of entertainment. Newborns and toddlers live nicely in that world where so much is learned from their own observation and experience in the moment. Young children can keep that keen sense of observation, excitement, daydreaming and imagination if only allowed to do so — not constant planned activity or t.v. or screens. I watched our daughter playing around the home, making up stories and games from simple things around her. E.g., the Xmas crèche scene made out of kitchen utensils. I’d be cleaning the house and become the “school janitor who likes children.” Stuffed animals would become parts of a broader community with characters and events. She would be comfortable in the moment. It helps if parents recognize the importance of their children’s play — it is important to them. It is not so much boredom, but being comfortable with quiet time. At 65, I find this ability something to be practiced.
24
I recently visited my Hasidic family in kiryas joel, and it was so eye opening to see a large square table with teenage girls all sitting around, not a single one with a smartphone. It brings back the memories of the challenges -- the kids who clearly feel left out of the animated conversation, the girl who tries to be more "lively" (probably coached by her mother, after crying at home about feeling like she wasn't wanted), the social politics, competition, hierarchy. But it also feels so much healthier to live with these issues, for the kids to sit together for a long time and chat excitedly, this one getting in a story while the other tries to scream their own story more loudly, sudden whispers and gossip as an adult arrives, quiet drama and blushing and collective laughter...
The takeaway for me is that for people to not be constantly distracted, there need to be others to do the same. A social contract of boredom, if you will. Sadly it won't happen on our world except among the privileged few.
6
Huxley took it a step further in his dystopic vision "Brave New World" when he invented Soma to relieve boredom along with everything else. When constant happiness is the goal, reality vanishes.
"Only boring people get bored" my freshman English Prof. told the class on day 1 in 1984. "Here we are now, entertain us" is one of the truest lyrics of human spirit in Nirvana's 'Smells Like teen Spirit' in 1991. Boredom is old as sentience.
I am fortunate to have a wild, deep, and vivid imagination and never get bored. I was raised with 5 TV channels and rotary phones in Brooklyn, NY. And my favorite sedentary activity was (is) reading, but I also played every game I could like basketball, swimming, stickball, punchball, off-the-wall, etc, ...
My peers and I--mostly educators in their 40s and 50s--worry about this generation of teens inability to not have some kind of (electric) input all of the time. Our concern is a common one and it is tangentially related to this concept of boredom through constant recreation. Humans have 5 senses and we use them all--in different ways and to different degrees--when we communicate with each other; however, today more and more people prefer to communicate via their smart phones. I wonder if it isn't because once on their phone they don't have to wait the microseconds for their communicant to find the right words--if there's a lull in the convo, they are already tuned into their handheld entertainment device.
20
I think every parent should introduce their kids to Calvin and Hobbes and really help the children appreciate the vivid and wonderful world Clavin conjures up in his imagination. The mind is a theater kids, and making great shows in it is a craft! To have that funny, witty and insightful inner world is possible and oh so fantastic because no one can take it from you, no time limits can yank it away! It just takes patience and the commitment of sitting through boredom because flights of fancy are hard to catch if you're distracted! But oh, how much fun to take off into the wonderland of our imagination!
36
I agree that boredom can be good and that pandering to every kid's need for instant gratification can inhibit real growth. On the other hand I fail to see the virtue in teaching kids to accept that pulling products off of shelves in an Amazon warehouse so Bezos can line his already super-wealthy pockets is a righteous future.
Kids face many challenges these days that adults did not when we were young. Their experiences are different in ways that we do not always comprehend. We need to keep that in mind. Thus I sense a bit too much right-wing "life is tough and we are creating a generation of snowflakes" philosophy for my tastes in this column.
7
@PDR Thank you. Exactly.
But kids are getting fully indoctrinated in the equivalent of spending all Friday answering emails by suffering through the hours and hours of homework, aka busywork, that most U.S. school deluge their students with, at younger and younger ages no less. Contrast this with Finland, which basically gives no homework, leaving their kids plenty of hours for fruitful boredom. Radically revamping homework is a good place to start if you want to roll back the clock to a time when kids could be aimlessly kids.
40
@R1NA Yes, a thousand times yes.
1
Children have long complained of boredom. No surprise to any parent. When my kids complained of being bored, I offered them a world of possibilities that did not include TV (we only had TV via antennae for 19 years in the age of cable & satellite) or smart phones.
When my girls were 6 and 8, my wife had a full-time job offer so I switched to part-time work and became Mr. Mom. I loved parenting because I'm merely a kid grown old. I taught the kids to not stick forks in outlets or play in the street, everything else was learning curve watching.
For example, I love doing anything outside in all seasons so that's one of the first things I taught my kids. Nature and options for having fun outside are limitless. You can try to see and do it all but nature is vast. Then came sports which we all do. Thirdly, my wife and I taught the girls reading. Books. Kindle was not popular yet. To me, a library is a huge playground for indoor fun. Novels, short stories, picture books, reference texts; I enjoy them all. So my girls never complained to me that they were bored because they had many options.
My eldest turned 30 and they both have smartphones. I think too many parents give kids smart phones too early and rely on them to entertain children. I only use a flip phone because smart phones can waste life starring at a vid screen. I love nature, playing sports, books, face to face talks with friends and business associates. Life has too much going on to be bored.
20
I was surprised that you didn’t mention Michael Harris’ book: “The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We've Lost in a World of Constant Connection.” Your lovely essay presents his premise—that due to our constant contact with smartphones and the internet, we’ve come to “the end of absence—the loss of lack.” Harris says, “The daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished. There's no true ‘free time’ when you carry a smartphone. Today's rarest commodity is the chance to be alone with your own thoughts.” Of course, the remedy is simple: Do what we used to do pre-1980s before the tech boom occurred. And we must teach our kids what we once knew (something they might never experience)—be alone with your own thoughts.
31
The most difficult class I took in high school was also the most mind boggling boring class I have ever taken. US History 302 with Joe Grasso. We spent 50 minutes, 4 times a week, reading our typed notes from 1968 back at our teacher. We all at some point fell asleep that year in class, and we all remember the majority of what we learned. It is because of that tedium and boredom that I can still recite the issues and rulings of Marbury vs. Madison, and many more 19th Century Supreme Court rulings. Which, btw, are still relevant. Thanks Joe for teaching the most boring class I have ever taken. I learned so much.
57
When my grandkids were small we’d cuddle and they would say “tell us a story.” I would then concoct a fantasy story which included them in some way and they listened intently. If the story was too short they'd ask for another. Sometimes they added to the story, or made plot suggestions. There was a sense of human engagement, yes. And it wasn’t out of boredom.
Those were the good old days. Now they’re stuck on their electronics. I keep wondering how electronics are going to affect our present and future generations. When I sit in a restaurant and look at tables around me, and see each member of a family on their phones, separately, even though they sit together, I guess that’s a clue. Are they bored?
23
@MIMA When my daughters were young, their favorite book for me to read to them nightly was the new American Girl doll catalogue. There was a brief bio of each of the girls and I had to make up stories about each of them on a nightly basis. It was one of the highlights of their young childhood...mine too.
9
@TRKapner
Ah, American Girl - Wisconsin can claim their derivation! I remember going to the warehouse here for their every so often sales. We all had favorites and for what reason, right? Make believe brought to life. Pioneer days to present. Yes, more fun to make up our own stories about them. Thanks.
MIMA
@Mima : how will electronics affect future generations? Try Isaac Assimo's Foundation Series. A wonderland ( ?) awaits ...
BOREDOM In our hyperconnected world has a specific meaning that it could not have had before. Kids complain of boredom when they are not tweeting their friends or playing video games. It described a state of social isolation accompanied by activities of which kids are consciously aware. The idea of relaxing without intrusive stimuli is foreign to the regimentation of social media. Kids become dependent upon constant contact and stimulation with people not present physically. The brain engages in a great number of unconscious activities. Therein lies the rub. Studies have shown that creative thinking can occur when people are engaged in other activities, resting, sleeping and so forth. Children who are overly engaged with media tend to become dependent upon others for communication and for forming their ideas and opinions. With the advent of the unrelenting bombardment of infomercials online, self regulation is disrupted. Many thoughts are generated by the implicit functions of the brain. Boredom focuses, by contrast, mostly, if not entirely, upon forced conscious thought when reflection and daydreaming are essential to memory formation as well as getting a sense of how people share ideas in a democratic, free society. By reflecting upon ideas of mutual concern, mulling over strategies and meeting in the town square to have an informed, respectful debate. Such a system does not translate well to tweets, constant testing and constant demands of conscious thoughts.
18
The problem with boredom today is that it more often leads to a marathon vaping habit, raiding a households medicine cabinet, liquor cabinet, a social media addiction to adrenaline highs that include unencumbered sexting, or dangerous punking, that often comes back to haunt the "bored" in later life.
4
When I was a teacher I told my students (and my own grandkids) that the first thing that adults forget is what it’s like to be a kid. Every generation disparages whatever the younger people like. The Beatles, Elvis, Howdy Doody, whatever. And every grandparent remembers his or her grown children as having been angels when younger.
Nonsense. Each generation must make its own way. Isn’t that the cycle of life?
9
Wonderful article! I agree that there is a very important difference between boredom that encourages creativity and boredom that leads to mind-numbing screen time. Growing up in a poor, dangerous neighborhood, I could not go outside to play. My sister and I became avid readers, a skill that has served us well academically, as well as personally. When we could go outside, we very much appreciated it, and today both of us are nature lovers and still very much book-obsessed. However, it is a sad truth that many children are not exposed to reading and are not given options for learning in the home. I am not saying parents must cater to the child’s every whim, but rather have some positive, brain-building activities on hand to let children choose. It is a sad reality that many parents are too pressed for time to give their children even this small freedom. Many must work long hours to make end meet, or believe that paying for “necessities” such as iPads and whatever other extracurriculars is more valuable than time spent with children. We all need to think harder about our values when it comes to these things; today’s children—tomorrow’s voters.
11
I briefly taught French in junior high school in the US many years ago, and although we did some “fun” things like making crêpes or role play with “berets and baguettes,” I also had to push them to memorize those pesky verb conjugations. When they complained about how “boring!” that was, I told them what French parents tell their older children when they say they’re bored - “if ‘s'ennuyer’ is a reflexive verb, there’s a good reason.”
16
I found very early in life that the way to end boredom was to stick my nose into a book and 'live' elsewhere between the covers.
My kids were all teens in the 70s and being bored seemed only a small part of their lives as they had to find their own amusements since entertaining them wasn't part of my parenting skills. Each of them found after school part-time jobs when they reached the age to work
and although they often complained of the 'boring' job, they learned early on that life is not 24 hour entertainment.
12
As a mother from a 8 year old I can tell that a lot of pressure is built from other parents, siblings and even teachers. Relentless are the suggestions of what hobby can be picked up or how otherwise development can be stimulated. At that young of an age children are still arriving in the world. So no phones, ipads, podcasts, screen time up to a max of 1 hour a week. VERY limited amount of so called toys and presents in general. Instead regular (boring) walks in the forest on the weekend. Made up games on road trips. Helping cutting the veggies for dinner. The final judgment is still out but for now we have a polite, happy and loving child that gets plenty of sleep, is engaged with nature and a self taught avid reader since the age of 5 ( of course she is much more).
One last thing to mention though: I am so grateful that my husband and I are on the same page as this is explosive stuff for a marriage.
15
@Jut
Obviously living in Europe makes it somewhat easier to teach particular values. But I agree that it is becoming more difficult here as well. The "American way of life" has established in many families. Deviating methods of raising a child are more difficult to maintain. But what helps is being a role model. Children can gage if your behavior is hypocritical. And then, there goes the harmony you imagine. Always be the examples, with all the compromises that you might have to endure. That could mean there is limited screen time for you as well. For children, our behavior should mirror of what we expect from them. I did that with my daughter. And because my "rules" made sense to her, there was rarely any friction.
5
@Marianne Pomeroy
Yes, there is plenty of compromise.
And so much joy!
And just setting rules without understanding the loving intention behind it doesn't work with these kids that are brought up in an atmosphere of being constantly asked what they want. And they are very understanding at that age. When we are out at a restaurant and our daughter sees another one not lifting the nose from the whatever gadget while the parents are having a grand time with each other, yes - she already knows. Even if our table is very boring or yes, that happens as well, off-resonance.
2
@Jut
For his first 6 birthdays, my son received books as birthday presents. I asked guest to bring their favorite childhood book. We received an amazing assortment of books I would never had known about otherwise.
2
I grew up in Brooklyn in the 60’s and 70’s. We had the biggest backyard in the neigborhood and it was our paradise filled with endless fun. I was also content just reading a book on the old iron swing, looking at the cherry tree, apple tree, maple and oak trees, my grandmother’s rose garden, my father’s vegetable garden. I miss that time and place. It no longer exists.
26
I’m with you... I spent my childhood in the 70’s & 80’s in the Chicago suburbs, and spent lots of time alone (and also running around with siblings, cousins, and friends). We were fully expected to “make our own fun”, and we did, playing tag or hide-and-go-seek, creating neighborhoods out of poster board buildings, riding our bikes, and building snow forts. Meanwhile my parents were doing whatever adults did. In the summer, we were often outside on our own from morning until night, with brief pauses for popsicles and hot dogs. And yes... actually admitting you were bored meant you had to clean your room ;)
13
@BayAreaArtista Our memories are priceless. We’ll always treasure them.
6
I was the younger sibling who was tortured by my brother in the back of the car on family road trips. Oh, we had some games to play, but my brother preferred torturing me, just as he spent much time tormenting me after school while both my parents worked. What I would have given for him to be absorbed in a movie on an iPac so I could read or play in peace!
13
When we’re kids we need both boredom and activity, and we need it at the same time. That is, we need time that’s empty of supervised activities and empty of objects that essentially prescribe our play but that contains materials for turning mental energy into activity.
For one of our children during a certain period, a single large sheet of paper and a pencil were all it took to banish boredom for an afternoon. He’d lay out a baseball stadium with player rosters and proceed to entertain himself with a lively play-by-play narrative. He entertained us as well, but that was incidental and unconscious. He was at the ballpark in his own world, the infinite sheet of paper.
Of course, that was one child at one stage. Different scenes of boredom require different materials, but I think there must always be something physical that’s there to follow the child’s mental commands as distinct from holding the child’s attention. Later comes the pleasure of entirely mental recreation or of diving down the rabbit-hole of a good book.
We shouldn’t do things with our children just to hold boredom at bay, but by spending time in books with them we can help them conquer it for the rest of their lives.
5
I've often thought I was borderline ADHD, and a little "asbergy", even though we're not supposed to say that now. But, instead of becoming outwardly difficult, I would "check out" into my own fantasy world. I got very good at this in the '70's, what with the long car trips and lack of quality stimulation. At some point, my own daydreams were more interesting than the books I was reading, and I started to write them down. All praise for boredom, the crucible of fantasy!
21
I am a 62 year-old cardiac surgeon. When I was first in practice, I listened as two surgeons who were older then than I am now were having a spirited discussion in the OR lounge. One was loudly complaining about a proposal before the medical staff to put roadblocks in place that would make it difficult to continue operating past 65. He said, “I can’t believe some of these young doctors. They think, just because you turn 65, all of a sudden you no longer have what it takes to operate. I’ll tell you it’s just plain ridiculous!” The other said, “what did you say, he’s from Texas?”
7
WIthout the 'benefit' of devices, my sister and I spent the time on long drives by singing harmonies. We do it to this day. Today, I know no young people who spend time just singing, unless in a formal setting.
15
@ S North
We made up spelling and number games for our kids on our long weekend drives. In the numbers game, I snuck in things like a "bubble sort" and Zeno's paradox. They were just trying to guess the number.
3
Brava, Ms. Paul. Timely and important, for both children and their parents. As Pascal once said, "all the problems in the world stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room."
21
Much of what is described as boredom in this piece is not boredom but merely the lack of external overstimulation. There is a large difference between tedium from repetitive activities and having the space to process the world from inside out. Overloading children with parental-defined input actually denies them the room to discover, the self-testing that builds self-confidence.
The "terrible" reality of being a parent is that you cannot do the one thing you want to do, and that is to protect your children. All you can do is provide your children with the tools to interpret and manipulate the world as they find it, not as how you as a parent find it, or hope or fear that it is. To over-define a child's experience denies the child the space needed to develope. And one of the most important tools to pass on to one's child is the opportunity to learn how to transcend failure, to look inward at his or her own pace, in his or her own way, their realizations that can only come when they have the space to explore their own thoughts.
27
I used to tell my boys that the issue wasn't if they were bored, it was if they were being boring. In my family, we didn't let children get away with the tyranny of "I'm bored, so amuse me." Go amuse yourself. Don't be boring. Being bored will not hurt you. But annoying other people with your boring mantra, "I'm bored," is just plain rude and you do not have the right to be rude to other people. My boys learned to amuse themselves and sometimes how they did it was pretty amusing. My youngest, who hated our cabin in Montana, would spend time lying on the bed looking thru binoculars the wrong way. He grew up to be one of the most interesting people I know--always reading and learning. My father dealt with my "I'm bored" statements while visiting my grandmother who lived on an island in Maine by making me lay on a big rock and listen to the earth breathe. There are too many wonderous things in God's world for children to ever be bored if they are taught to look and to listen. As adults, that's our job--to teach our children to be interested and to be interesting.
81
When I tell my grandchildren that I have never been "bored" for one second in my 70 years on this planet, they look at me like I've come from another galaxy. I also don't remember my own children (ranging in age from 35 to 45) ever having complained about being "bored" - because they never were.
But it's a different story with the grandchildren.
I have said many, many times that the best way to combat this would probably be to just take the word "bored" out of the lexicon (out of EVERY language's lexicon). Of course, how to do this escapes me, but I never get bored trying to figure it out.
16
When you always have a screen at the ready to entertain you, where is the opportunity to be creative? Creativity requires active participation; watching content on a screen is a completely passive activity. I am not a neuroscience expert, but I fear that we have allowed the brain receptors in children to become wired to mental passivity, rather than active curiosity. They can binge-watch some Netflix show for six hours, but can’t sit still long enough to read a chapter of a history book for 30 minutes.
26
A long time ago, I attended an installation/performance featuring John Cage at the Art Institute of Chicago that also featured randomized excerpts from James Joyce's Ulysses. I remember there being feathers involved. And dice with more than six facets. I recollect, too, the thrum of the HVAC units prior to Mr. Cage's arrival in the auditorium. I treasure my copy of Silence, autographed, "For Hennessee Oink-Ping, Best Wishes, John Cage". I'd made the name up for the sound of it. He asked if it was Oriental. I am the father of two daughters and a son. Guess who. Good luck.
3
Boredom in German means "Langeweile" But to me it does not implicate the same. Much as the author states, it can lead you, by default if you will, into perusing things you never thought of. My daughter, being a single child, did not always have friends around to play with. And the one thing she chose do for herself was writing. She wrote poems and short stories in both english and german (she is Swiss-American). Being in school in Switzerland she had to adhere to the subjects at hand, but because she spoke english very well, she didn't have to study basics in that language (but grammar of course) and therefor had some free at time for herself. Her choice was to continue writing stories. But, those writings were evaluated, every misspelling underlined, and she did not have all a's, to say the least. But she learned that "Langeweile" dos not have to be boring at all.
5
How anyone can be bored when there are a multitude of books to read escapes me?
From the time I was three years old, if I had nothing to do (a frequent occurrence as I was a sickly child and often bedridden), I always had books (from the library) to read in my room. Once I was in school (and I had a library card), I could (and did) go to the library which was caddy corner to my elementary school and within walking distance to my parents' apartment apartment when I was in junior high and high school. I learned as much from those trips to the library as I did in elementary school.
I also had time to think and dream, some of which came from my reading and some of which came from processing my world. I still think and dream.
16
It is good for children that they spend their leisure time without internet and TV. They manage to find out a way to enjoy themselves such as playing outside with friends. Long hours’ school time in Japan has deteriorated the creativity of students. They should have more free time without teachers and coaches, which will cultivate individuality and creativity.
13
When they were much younger, any or all of my 4 sons would occasionally lament: ‘there’s nothing to do!’, my reply would often be ‘then do nothing.’ After some do nothing time (which most certainly can be creative thinking time), they’d be into a project, or reading, building great LEGO structures, or some adventure would begin. I’m grateful their beginning years were not involved with iPhones etc... (they’re 34-42 yrs.) no doubt they’d have had limits on devices. they didn’t grow up over-scheduled, but there were some activities/music/sports mixed in. Study maps! We had a ball looking up places in an Atlas, checked out travel videos from library. Or blockbuster... remember that?
I once had a friend ask, now that you’re retired aren’t you bored all day? I gave the classic answer, only boring people can become bored. And any portion of the day I am ‘bored’, I’m recharging and refreshing. Cheers!
22
@BA Mitchell I’m recently retired. Boredom? I don’t know what that is. Happy you are enjoying your retirement as much as I am. Happy days are here again.
1
This article is so spot on. Concern over kids getting bored is a symptom of helicopter parenting. As #6 of 7 kids my parents never cared a wit if I was bored, and I was smart enough not to complain. When my kids complained of boredom, I told them, that is a personal problem, take care of it!. Our quest to fill every minute of their days with meaningful activities has resulted in an entire generation that lacks creativity and is overly dependent on canned entertainment because they never learned to create their own.
16
I think the greatest reward of boredom is freedom from the anxiety of reaching any milestone. We live in a world where there is some expectation of always performing, being productive, having "quality time". The idea of what used to be "lazing around" is unacceptable at least in the North American middle class parenting mindset. Of course, it is a whole different story when surviving is a full-time job and boredom becomes a privilege. And yet, quality time is not always the kind of quality we hope for or need, and ends up being more "doing" than "being". As the great English poet Wordsworth once wrote:
"For oft when in my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood
They flash upon that inward eye
That is the bliss of solitude"
Maybe we should take our eyes off our smart devices once in a while and learnt to appreciate that boredom/solitude again.
11
An essay about almost anything will excite the imagination - except an essay on boredom. And for some reason it seems that people who write essays about boredom cannot resist the temptation to get ever so slightly moralistic about it. I'm not sure why that is. Now Kierkegaard wrote a definitive little ditty on boredom. It was either in Either or in Or, I can't remember because it just wasn't sufficiently memorable, and if there was any point to it, I surely cannot recall what it might have been. I confess - there are moralistic undertones or overtones to what I have written here - because I am writing about someone else writing about boredom and indulging in an excess of academic pedantry by citing someone else who wrote the definitive piece of work on something about which nothing definitive could ever be written - that must be something like boredom raised to the boredom power. This is only going to get worse so I better stop. Maybe your next essay could be on something like the use of emoji's as an alternative to intersubjectively valid emotional expression, or maybe take on a truly perplexing question like whether a day without anxiety is in some small way like a fish without sunglasses - maybe.
3
@Little Albert I confess that your comment gave me a good chuckle, and I agree with you regarding the moralistic tone. And yet, I can't pretend that I don't agree with the author's message. Yes, it's basically just another take on why device-addicted, helicopter-parented kids are poorly prepared to enter adulthood. My niece and nephews are prime examples. Do you not think it's troubling? What would be a better approach for the parent who needs to read an article in the NYT to consider such things?
13
Thank you for this piece. I think you are discussing two different kinds of boredom here: 1. the response to something truly dull and two-dimensional, something that does not become more interesting unless the mind makes it so; and 2. something that seems boring at first because it is difficult or long (or because it doesn't offer immediate entertainment). Both kinds are important, but in different ways. Yes, as you say, a truly dull activity (or lack of activity) can be the starting point for stories. But a profoundly interesting activity, if we give it enough time and attention, begins to reveal itself.
I say this not self-promotionally, but genuinely: you might well enjoy the chapter on listening in my book Mind over Memes: Passive Listening, Toxic Talk, and Other Modern Language Follies. (In the aforementioned chapter, I challenge the notion that listening is passive. I criticize the frequent opposition, put forth in education discussion, between "active" learning (group work, talk, etc.) and "passive listening" (listening to a lecture). Lectures can be dull, but they can also open up a subject in interesting ways. What's more, they can challenge the audience to take in the structure of the argument, the examples, the digressions, etc. and think of questions to ask. Students (especially in elementary, middle, and high school) should not have to listen to lectures every day. But if they never do, they will miss a lot.
6
The greatest pleasures over the course of my life have come from my vivid daydreams. My wife is a daydreamer, too. Our house is disorganized, we don't often go out to "do things," and we say to each other that we lead a boring life, but we're very happy.
18
Between getting older, and living/working in this technology and data-driven world, I miss and wonder how I used to have entire weekends with nothing more to do than perhaps relaxing with a print copy of the NYT. How I found time and energy after work to paint, draw or use the photography darkroom. Now, I feel as though my creativity has mostly left me- even daydreaming.
I never forgot the moment when I chose ‘slow travel’ (not knowing at the time there was such a term), because I no longer wanted to rush from sight to sight. I spent 5 days doing almost nothing but read a book on the beach (not usually a beach person precisely because it is so boring), or sit in a small plaza watching the locals going by. Those 5 days felt like 2 weeks, and rejuvenated me. Counter-intuitively, doing ‘nothing’ , or having nothing to ‘do’, just like watching water boil, was the best way to stretch time.
20
I worked in my local high school and constantly saw students whose days were so filled up, they did not get any sleep. They went from one sport, one club, one music lesson, to another. I often felt guilty that I did not encourage my own children to do the same. If one requested an activity, my husband and I would do our best to see that they could participate, but beyond that, we just let them be.
I guess it worked out because they are very happy, successful, fulfilled, adults.
16
Yes.
When we were bored, we were most creative and involved in our lives.
12
I grew up in a very small town in rural northern Illinois during the 1970s. There was nothing to do, so we kids made up our own games, like “imaginary fishing” in a drainage ditch. Or making dandelion soup in a rusty wagon. Seriously. You had to be creative. I’m thankful that we didn’t have our heads buried in smart phones and the Internet. We’d be stunted otherwise.
7
Boredom is fine. I don't remember being bored as a child though. I had a bike to ride, a woods to walk through or sit in where I could watch birds, chipmunks, and tree leaves. I had books to read and re-read. I had a brother to torture. I didn't have many friends but that's a different post.
I found rhythms in boredom when I was a teen. Some types of boredom are great for daydreaming. Others are conducive to reviewing things. The best boredom was one that refreshed me enough to leave me wanting to do something like swim, read, write, or fill myself from toe to crown with the feeling of the universe.
29
Due to rain and wind today, our internet was out for most of the day (quelle horreur!) Sat down with my cats and read one of many books I've been neglecting. This was time well spent.
43
Here I am, reading an article on boredom, on a Saturday night. What does that say about me? And here you are, reading my comments. We obviously have something in common.
My 8-year son old complains about boredom. His mom and I are okay with that. He has a house full of books and a neighborhood full of friends. We almost always say, read or go outside. When he says he's bored, he's really asking for screen time, and we put limits on that.
Some of our happiest days are when there's nothing on the schedule. On those days, we get to follow our whims and discover who we truly are.
288
I knitted a blanket for my grandniece. Upon presenting it, she immediately used it for a tent fort, made of chairs and blankets. To me, that was the ultimate compliment. So great to see her using her imagination!
92
Lovely illustration Mr Espinosa.
12
Inspiration doesn’t find you when you’re checking Facebook/Twitter or you’re over scheduled. Quiet time welcomes creativity.
Nice essay.
39
The best adventure stories often start with, "We were bored, so we decided to..."
27
3 years ago I attended a Saturday afternoon “conference” being offered at an upscale Connecticut private elementary school because of our “gifted” 6 year old. We were trying to find things to do to “enrich her.” Of course their best solution was their $30k tuition.
However, it was there I learned the best piece of non-apologetic advice I have ever received for raising very smart children in this hyper-helicopter parental-guided learning world...LET CHILDREN BE BORED. Even more so, if they already have every advantage you can give/hope for them; CREATE BOREDOM. My happiest and most rewarding moments as a parent thus far have been depriving my children of a structured learning environment or handing them their iPad when they are “bored out of their minds” and watching the magic unfold between them when they have absolutely nothing else to do but be with each other. It will make you question if you can remember yourself ever being so creative or having such a magical imagination. I recommend it to any family from any background, let your children be completely bored and then watch their unique brains blossom and create. For adults it is similar to exercising; the first 15 minutes are painful and awful. But once you get “warmed up” you feel like: Anything is Possible! In my experience as a mother of 3, boredom has always been a blessing rather than a curse.
29
A. wise teacher once told me to pay attention to how I bore myself -- another way to say that we each need to make our own lives interesting and meaningful.
14
I have vivid memories of me and my friends sitting around doing nothing until one of us figured something out. Our parents left us out in the morning and expected us back by dinner. Lots of long stretches of time before one of us hit on something semi interesting. We had a world of our own at 6 or 7. We learned from our choices. We didn't ask permission. Our parents were raising the little ones. We read our brains out, created dresses out of old curtain (and lots of pins), ranged over the woods beyond the edge of the development. We played street games with all the other kids on the street, we wrote plays and acted them out. We sat and sat and sat, bored out of our minds many times, waiting for one of us to hit on something worth trying. And my parents generation did the same thing, only on the streets of NYC.
We have created so much that we don't need. Half of what seems to be important today should be ignored or thrown away. Our lives are crazy-embroidered with someone else's fixation. Layers and layers of people whose entire existence is wrapped up in telling the rest of us what we should do. About the house, about the diet, about the children, with the car, with the phone etc. Rules growing like fungus, you know? Creating this frantic quality of our life. Too thought out, too processed, too cautious.
152
As a dad of 3 eight year olds this is relief to see. Thank you for helping me validate boredom is ok. I’m ready to cancel Netflix not quite there to toss out my TVs, but I can control the wifi to each device in my home. There is nothing to watch without WiFi.
My kid’s fav guilt line, “Why do you have to be so mean!?”
38
Ah yes, the good old days. Except now, if you don’t hide the electronics, boredom morphs into device addiction, which is the scariest of all.
29
Bless you! This is wonderful, and much needed today. I look forward to watching my kids be bored all next week. Keep up the good work!
15
When I was a kid I usually got parceled off for the summer to my maternal grandparents who lived high up in the Blue Ridge. Not much to do up there but they saved every Reader's Digest. I devoured the Condensed Book sections. I was lonely at times but never bored.
45
Did you make Christmas trees after reading them? I always liked doing those.
What a wonderful article. Life doesn't have to be all Christmas blockbuster movies. The quiet, contemplative film is often much more fulfilling than the latest Super Hero action thriller. And I'm a Spider-Man fan.
21
Did anyone else notice that boredom in children triggered hunger and within minutes they were in the kitchen finding ingredients to concoct something sweet-usually brownies.They were no longer bored and were happily indulging their sweet tooth.The only downside to this instant cure for boredom-a kitchen sink full of messy pans for Mom to,clean up and lots of flour, marshmallows and chocolate chips scattered around the counter.Children and grandchildren in our “foodie” family have contests to see who makes the best guacamole or the tastiest tiramisu.This escape from boredom definitely inspires creativity.
19
As a parent of a five year old and a two year old I’m a big fan of the phrase “something will come up!” when told “I don’t know what to doooooo”. It’s maddening and I know they hate to hear it but ... especially with my older daughter, the beautiful age she is right now with her brain progressing in leaps and bounds, that empty time leads her into this awesome creative play with her stuffed animals and it’s so great to watch. Or if they absolutely need *something* the watercolors come out and we read a lot. Outside time is always an option. I see how they find things, mostly play, or looking through books, to occupy themselves when I can’t (or won’t???) actively do something with them for a variety of reasons including, laundry/dinner, or just because I think it’s good to figure it out for oneself. They don’t have devices and we don’t have a tv and yes I do wonder what is going to happen when they start school. Crossing fingers we can keep the boredom up at home to counter the devices they will no doubt encounter in the classroom (kidding - mostly, but I know things will most likely change).
13
This is a wonderful point, I have my own childhood memory of asking my mother, "what should I do?" She answered, "I don't want to tell you because I want you to figure it out yourself." And so I did. I spend endless hours in the world of imagination. The girl next door and I drew pictures with sticks in the ground.
Too many of today's kids are so busy they do not have that kind of time. Too many of them turn to screens instead. Boredom is an invitation to your own Narnia.
60
So funny about the grocery job...for me it was typing class. We had to do these sample letters and I made up stories about them....
13
Love this! Haven't heard anyone make this point before. Thank you Ms. Paul, and thank you all who have commented. Not a moment of boredom now, but many in my 1950s childhood. Which lead to endless reads and walks in the woods till they were subdivided. And all these years later my 13th book has just come out, all of them birthed from that open spacious free time whose infectious delight still pops up in my dreams.
38
Without boredom you can’t enjoy a slow rainy afternoon! Also you don’t learn patience waiting for events, news about anything important to you. Or getting something done that requires time.
12
Very "interesting" ideas about being bored! Thank you.
But often boredom for kids and adults is a serious problem.
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(Trump may have gotten elected, because he realized that he had to be interesting, on a daily basis, to feed the media.)
I am working on ideas for a book on "Bored of Education."
It student are too bored with school, they may fail to study, at all.
I think this is what happens to many kids, who lack interest.
Boredom can feed on itself. We get bored and want to give up.
I think one way to cope with boredom in school, is by sharing.
Students can constantly share helpful ideas with other students.
Another way to cope is by debating about some class questions.
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www.SavingSchools.org
5
A fundamental premise for the creation of great art is boredom, passionate boredom.
-T.S. Eliot
57
"What did parents in the ’70s do when kids were bored in the way-back? Nothing! They let them breathe in gas fumes. Torture their siblings," the essay says. Actually, when our family drove east to Dutchess County from Ohio to visit our grandparents, squabbling in the backseat was distracting to the driver and when my father got too fed up, he could pull over and administer discipline. The piece is nicely argued, but only a few people use the blank slate of "boredom" to get creative. Too many people in this country are bored to death and it's not good for them or anyone else. Rather than glorify boredom, cultivate interests from an early age because those sustain you to and through old age.
16
From a 9 year old boy:
I agree that it could help kids in their future, like prepare them for their jobs because not everything is going to be fun in life. A lot of things are going to be boring and not interesting. But you get the occasional things that are fun. I handle boredom by reading a book or relaxing in our house or I just snuggle with my stuffed animals. I have 34 stuffed animals. When I’m bored, my mind feels like, “must do something fun” so I just daydream. I daydream about stuff I like, like sometimes my stuffed animals coming alive. A lot of crazy things!
76
Ah Edward Gorey...A man who's writing was never boring...
It is true that teachers don't necessarily have to be entertaining; indeed the should probably avoid that like the plague...
But they do have the obligation to make the subject matter of their teachings entertaining or at least perceived to be useful.
7
@The Owl My son is in his "year off" between college and graduate school. But I still remember when he was in middle school, a teacher sent a permission slip home asking that we give permission for our children to watch "The Ten Commandments" (yes, Charlton Heston) in history class. I called the teacher to find what the point of this exercise was and was advised that they were studying ancient Egypt. I asked about why they weren't, you know, "reading" about ancient Egypt and she responded that some kids didn't retain information by reading - a movie was better, and they would learn how ancient Egyptians dressed. I said that they would learn how 1950's Hollywood thought ancient Egyptians dressed. I didn't push more because my kid had to deal with her but I was angry. Obviously upset her too, as she later called and left me a message about how for some kids a movie is the best way to learn. Seemed to me that a good teacher would be able to engage most kids with good reading material and lecture - but she obviously didn't agree.
7
@The Owl As a retired elem. teacher, I agree. And I often found that what sparked the most interest in the kids was when I went off on a slight tangent before going back to the core of a lesson. That’s when the classes often really lit up & became the most engaged. Sometimes I was the one who introduced the tangential subject, and sometimes it was one of the kids.
3
@Cathy F.
Good for you...
I tutored seventh and eighth graders from a private school for a couple of years in arithmetic. It was an eye-opener to say the least.
I was appalled at how few skills they had at figuring out the problems there were supposed to be learning and hadn't a clue as to how they were actually using concepts in their day-to-day lives. The connections between life and learning were never made.
I never had a kid skip a session, and they all seemed to leave with with an energy that they didn't have when the walked in the door.
It's not to say they became great students, but few of them had to return the next year...a mark of success for a tutor if the students went on to get passing grades in the future.
1
Both my parents were teachers. Their budget didn’t allow for cable TV but we had a daily newspaper delivery and magazines in addition to trips to the library. I did watch a lot of public TV or classic films growing up in LA. They provided us with a record player and records (45s and then I discovered my dad’s Motown, Beach Boys, Dylan collection). My dad taught high school vocational arts drafting and architecture, so we had markers and colored pencil sets. My mom let us try different recipes as long as we cleaned up. My parents encouraged walks around the neighborhood. Bring “bored” at my parents home involved so many options for fun.
25
I think many are equating boredom with downtime, unplugged, and disengaged time, intermission so to speak. As a psychiatrist, in a clinic with many therapists, it is demoralizing to see children and retirees alike, waiting to be seen and heard, seeking to find healing and wholeness, riveted on their phones rather than seated in quiet contemplation and reflection. As many of my colleagues muse, as these devices continue to impede or delay the growth of 'self' and the development of relationships with other humans, and disrupt fundamental human nature, the more we can count on job security.
23
Excellent, well-timed piece, Ms Paul - thanks for this.
5
As an elementary school teacher, every time I would tell my class that it was time for twenty minutes of sustained silent reading, at least four of my kids would immediately ask, "Can I draw?"
Now, as a seventh-grade teacher most of whose students read at no more than a fourth-grade level, I've had to rewrite my entire History textbook into two-page lessons that can be read aloud in fifteen minutes or less.
Why? So my students won't be bored. Practically every professional development I attend is about some edufad designed to get or keep my students "ENGAGED".
I largely blame smartphones and all forms of social media. We're creating a brain-dead society of kids who actually say, "Why do I have to know this? I can always look it up."
Someone should have strangled the founders of Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat at birth.
122
@Vesuviano
I yield to no one in how much I love reading, but I have found, both with my own children and with students, that letting them draw or just doodle while I am reading aloud can make it more enjoyable for them and even improve their focus. For the most part they seemed to retain just as much of what I read.
I resisted allowing this for a long time, and I’m sorry I did.
9
@Nancy
I'm with you all the way there, but the kids to whom I was referring wanted to draw instead of read. They told me, "I hate to read", and they had a lot of catching up to do.
My solution was to start taking my class to the local library, where I got them to check out books that taught them how to draw. Books on soccer, Pokémon, and the Spice Girls were also big hits.
Mind you, at this time my school District, the L.A. Unified School District, was on a crusade to always have kids "engaged" in "hands-on" activities. I was admonished on more than one occasion for having my students "read instead of doing something."
Honestly, you can't make this stuff up. Cheers!
9
@Vesuviano Sneak a cell phone blocker (illegal to use in the US) into class. Tell them there's "something in the room's wiring" interfering with their reception. You'll be amazed at how boredom forces them to pay attention!
6
The most important education research I was ever assigned to read correlated kindergarten children's ability to sit quietly and wait with later success in life.
15
I was never bored if I had no one to play with as long as I had a book to read. We went to the library every Wednesday where my sister and I each got 10 books, the maximum allowed. I'd have read all of mine and some of hers by the following Wednesday. if I was tired of reading I made things. My favorite toy was a bag of fancy fabric scraps (my grandmother had a friend with a sewing business, who gave me the scraps) that I endlessly sorted and rearranged in interesting patterns and combinations.
Sometimes I watched TV but never for long.
If this sounds horrible...sorry, but it's kind of what I do now that I'm retired! I read, I sew, and I collect (and sort) old buttons. I have other interests and activities as well, just as I did as a child, but these habits I developed so long ago are still with me. What will kids today be doing in 60 years?
34
Beautifully written, and thus far from boring. I can think of an immediate small example to support the author's contention: I often find myself driving, and become suddenly aware of how annoying the stimulus from my radio is. I reach up, turn it off, and I feel a sudden, joyous relief, and the "boredom" thus provided my brain affords my mind opportunity to fill that silence with all sorts of diversions. I can hear myself think. I'm old enough to remember the gift of "underparenting," and therefore I have the skill to use the boredom in my own healthy way, as opposed to just changing the channel on the radio to avoid the silence that I so need for mental nourishment. I love her line "prepare them for a more realistic future, one that doesn’t raise false expectations of what work or life itself actually entails." That fits in with my fantasy of someday writing my book, titled "Finding True Happiness Through Lowering Your Expectations."
14
I don't know whether boredom is good or bad.
In my former life [I am a retired bum now] I taught high school and college physics.
I tried to present examples that would be of interest to my students.
Instead of saying two blocks collide I would discuss why some baseball players would drill a hole in their bats and fill the hole with cork.
Of course any course includes boring memorization.
There is nothing exciting about memorizing the addition and multiplication tables or how the french verb avoir is conjugated.
But good teachers try to make their classes interesting and relevant.
14
Thank you for this opinion piece. As a teacher I have seen up close what electronic devices, massive amounts of screen time, and social media have done to my students. Asking them to sit with a book, quietly contemplate ideas, or engage in real-life discussion is torture for many. They simply don't have the stamina.
Every single year is gets more difficult to hold their attention. Although their cell phones are supposed to be in their lockers during class, trying to enforce this is a nightmare. And so I watch my students' eyes widen slightly or give a little start and then they jump up with an urgent need to use the restroom (i.e. check their status, likes, texts, etc.). I have also never seen so many students with diagnosed anxiety disorders.
I truly believe their brains are being rewired. And not for the better.
191
@Independent My best friend is also a teacher. She solved the in-class screen time problem by bringing a cell phone blocker (illegal in the US) to school, hidden in her coat. The result: Blocker on, phone connections off, students paying attention because they're "bored" without access to social networks and games.
The explanation that "no one's cell phone gets good reception in here" has served her well for years -- and improved her students' learning capabilities! Now if we could just install those blockers in moving cars...
16
@Independent My granddaughter complained of having headaches. My daughter took her to have her eyes examined and they were fine but the doctor suggested she go off using her Ipad and stopped having headaches. She is six.
17
@Independent. Your description is accurate. The incoming 9th graders the last 2 years have been particularly weak, overall, a noticeable drop from previous years. It's not that they aren't intelligent; they just don't have the mental stamina to actually think!
Scarier still is our district's official response to this: 1) give everyone MORE technology, and allow kids to have their phones in class, and 2) lower the overall "passing" grade so that literally a student can fail 3 marking periods, but get a B+ in the 4th and pass for the year! Ridiculous!
18
In 1970 I invented a few superheroes, just in my head. Years later I walked my college summer girlfriend home many times, and once she asked if I was daydreaming about comic book heroes (I was), and wow was I impressed with whatever she noticed. Now, nearly 60, I find my last thoughts before sleep wondering how my inventions would engage these new movie myths of Marvel, DC and others. My boredom gave me a 40+ years entertainment that with a little bit of license is part of today's world. Nerdy, but I would not change the slow days that gave me my superheroes.
13
We can blame the kids, but doesn't this stem from the behavior of the parents? Parents can't put down their cellphones; parents don't take walks; parents don't just sit there and read, etc. The kids are emulating us.
I'm more disappointed with my peers when they pull out their phone when we meet up, or call me while they are running errands, or watch TV while they are also on their laptop, etc. When I ride the bus I look around and over 90% of the people are looking down at their phones. They barely register who is even sitting next to them.
If we want kids behaviors to change we have to change ours first.
271
Allowing kids to be kids, bored then creative, free range, less homework is a positive trend, but it’s a reaction to the dead-end future most gen y and millennials face. Helicopter tiger mom parenting works for a tiny elite who work SAT prep classes, expensive traveling soccer teams, and private schools to make it into the 15% professional technical and managerial class who are rising in income and status. The rest of us live paycheck to paycheck. Today Tom Sawyer’s brother Sid and Jo March’s sister Meg might be health care aides or telemarketers, while Tom and Jo might be showrunners for HBO. A winner-takes-all society based on merit and creativity should be better than one based on heredity, the American Dream, but when most of us are excluded it’s a nightmare.
15
@Bruce Shigeura
I prefer the outlook of Larry Ellison of Oracle, who in recalling his unprivileged childhood, said "I had all of the disadvantages necessary for success."
As a college professor, I have preached this for years. How can my students possibly think critically when every waking moment is easily filled with a distraction? I was asked by AP students once to suggest what they should do in the summer to prepare for college. I told them to take a walk walk to the beach -- without a cell phone, without a radio, without a book, without anyone else. Boredom forces you to spend time with yourself, which inevitably leads to thinking.
434
@Dan Shiells I agree; and there is also reading for pleasure, a favorite summertime activity. My English Lit professor said he read "War and Peace" every summer. That was 25 years ago. It was met with awe. Today, I suspect that it would be met with derision. Times have changed, and not necessarily for the better.
18
@Dan Shiells Thank you. I taught AP English Literature and AP English Language for 30 years, and I wish I had a dollar for every parent of a poor-performing student who told me that their child was "bored" or "unchallenged" and therefore, could not do well in my class. Although it took me several years, I finally got brave enough to tell parents that if their child was bored in my AP classes, their student was too smart for me. They should probably transfer out of my class into a regular English course. This mostly cured the problem, and it was easier than saying that their child wasn't bored, but was too lazy and/or coddled to do anything that was difficult or required critical thinking, and that they, as parents, were enabling their student's poor grades by telling them they were smarter than all their teachers!
21
if I ever said I was bored to my mother, there was never a time she didn't respond with, "Well you better find something to keep yourself amused, or I'll give you something." And by giving me something, she meant mopping the floor, folding laundry, sweeping the walk, sweeping the driveway, or any other of the numerous tasks which were frequently assigned to children in our household.
102
@Cheryl Yup, ditto this. Needless to say, after a few household chores assigned to me after complaining of boredom, I found my own stuff to do.
9
@Cheryl
For me, it meant washing out all of the kitchen shelves and drawers and putting in new contact paper. I didn’t get bored after that.
5
Great read. I can hear my Mothers favorite retort, “You’re bored, then go outside.” (short for: I don’t care) Some of my best childhood memories were finding random friends, who were also bored, and riding our bikes through the woods and trails. At times we pushed the limits and did things we shouldn’t have, but for the most part we just had fun and grew up. We didn’t need a parent to police us to stay away from the really bad scenarios and kids.
70
My 1940's elders, and when I was the elder myself with two children, never could have imagined the rat race that our society is now. Back then, people had jobs with actual fixed salaries, hours, benefits, and pensions, as did I. I think parents these days fear for their children's futures in so many ways. Those with means seem to feel that somehow one more play date, piano lesson, or cram school might, just might, help their child get into an Ivy League school to better compete in a future that looks to have not enough decent jobs. I'm glad to have raised my children when I did. Back then, the biggest distraction was television, and my two got to watch little of it. If I were raising a child now, I'm not sure what I'd do but I can't imagine depriving my children of what would be considered "down time" now- their time to let their imaginations run wild.
35
I spent three years of my childhood in a small town in western New York state.
The time was the early 1970s, and, in summers, I spent time reading in our small but cozy public library; played exciting games of Kick the Can with the neighborhood kids until the darkest dusk; played Monopoly with a friend and her little sister as horses pulling Amish wagons slowly clop-clopped passed us; built little dams for wading in the "crick" behind the old house my family was renting; made forts from feet of snow.
How did these things usually get underway?
We were BORED, and those were just some of the things we wound up doing to compensate.
Boredom can be a wonderful gift of time. How I wish we would impart this to our children.
95
@Valerie Thanks for the memory of building dams in the "crick" and making little boats to sail around it. The water was so cold.
3
I think adults are in denial that the consumption of an electronic entertainment product, psychologically, is very similar to taking a drug. Like all drugs, there is a point at which the quantity becomes harmful. For children who have often had very limited experience of the world, the simulacra of a world, akin to hallucinations, in an electronic drug (film, video, game, etc.) is far more broadening and fascinating than a working class flat or the same playground they've visited for years. Reality doesn't compete.
I don't want to tell others how to raise their kids but I'm beyond alarmed. When I try to interact with my friends children I get blank stares. If I ask them a direct question using their name and making sure to get eye contact across the dinner table — I don't get an answer on the first try. Most oftne the parent has to intervene and order the child, to respond, though more often they don't. The kids just stare down at their phones.
It comes from above. The parents can be seen walking around town as well with children tugging at their sleeves asking them questions that go unanswered because the parent is absorbed in their electronic drug of choice at the moment.
Children of alcoholics frequently develop drinking problems, children of phono-holics ... It really is that bad. People in my generation have the same problem, but in their past they had experience engaging directly with others in ways guided by sensitive attentiveness. The kids haven't.
76
I remember reading an interview with poet Robert Frost, and the interviewer asked him what was his greatest inspiration?
He said simply, "Boredom."
Makes total sense. You can't let new ideas in and take root if you're constantly busy -- you need to have a great expanse of nothing going on to let true inspiration flourish.
I think that's what weekends -- and vacations -- used to be for.
But now on weekends parents are slammed -- driving kids to athletic events, team competitions, dance classes, language immersion workshops. Summer vacations are programmed to take in x amount of sights per day. Summer camp is programmed more tightly than school. And traveling to and from each activity there's always a smart phone of some kind of screen to keep everyone "engaged."
I'm as addicted as the next person, but I do think a time is coming when we'll all step away from our devices, look around, and realize we don't even know what we're missing out on.
I can't wait to unplug. I'm just not ready to yet.
49
I remember playing with that car seat belt! I'm a mechanical engineer now. Guess being bored isn't a waste of time...
62
I’ve lived almost sixty years on this earth, and most of the time when I was bored, someone justified it with just this mix of hard-headed realism (it’s “life” son; get used to it) and can-do optimism (you can think! you can read! you can write!) I can’t disagree. I’m grateful for lack of sympathy I got from my hardworking parents when they told me to go outside and play if I was bored. I certainly feel the same way about the panic stricken attempt to fill every void in a child’s life with some movie, podcast, or video game.
And yet, something about this piece sticks in my craw. I suspect, like many clear-eyed youth, that at least half of the tedium people pretend is just “life” might not really be all that necessary after all but is rather a product of lazy, jaded, and unimaginative adults who defend the deadening boredom of the status quo to justify the lives they gave to it.
This inability of the adult world to take responsibility for the needless tedium makes cynics of children, who “grow up” and in turn justify that tedium for the same lame reasons. I am ashamed of how often I have allowed someone in authority to convince me that boredom was necessary when I should have packed my bags and hit the road, and I’m proud of every time I saw through their bluff and went my own way.
15
Boredom is definitely not a good thing, and shouldn't be thought of as an appropriate response to the world around us. I've had classmates, friends, family members, and others remark throughout my life that they're bored. To me that just shows a lack of imagination, hoping and waiting for someone to entertain them. I can't even imagine having a boring day because there is always something to do, something to read, something to take apart to figure out how it works, and always something new to learn. I do believe though that daydreaming is one of the best things a person can do if they're not inclined to actually do something. Daydreaming is the incubator of ideas and a window into understanding the world around us. Boredom is anathema to that concept .
19
@Michael Gilbert I’m with you. I am 72, and retired, and don’t have enough minutes in the day to do all the things I would like to do. I find myself having to prioritize projects, and decide to abandon whole areas of exploration for lack of time.
When I hear people say they don’t know what they will do when they are retired, I am mystified.
6
Growing up in NJ in the late 60's and early 70's I spent a lot of time in the local public library, which had excellent children's and young adult sections. Consequently, when not in school, I had lots of books to read when not watching TV or playing outside with sundry friends and relatives. (Homework and study was done on the bus during the commute from and to school).
I was of course allowed at an early age to walk to the library or be outside unsupervised and this was the norm.
Music lessons were of course mandatory and the Scouts (which I quickly left because it "bored" me).
Otherwise, my brothers and I were left to occupy ourselves.
It seemed to work.
14
The best words from my mother on a summer morning: “Go find something to do. Be home for lunch.” I always found plenty to do.
40
I happen to agree with a lot of the sentiment here, but perhaps, with ADHD diagnoses on a rampant rise, we might entertain the notion that grade school-aged children weren’t meant to, you know, sit in chairs for hours upon hours at a time. Perhaps instead of loading the kids up with drugs we ought to entertain the notion of changing the way schools are structured. Perhaps in between math and civics lessons they ought to be allowed the opportunity to play outside with their peers, free from adult supervision and influence. This is what it means to figure it out on your own.
14
@Josh Martin
Kids move around more than you think during the school day. The disabled and the bright ones will be bored - probably every single DAY - but we can't fine-tune the speed of interactions to suit every skill level.
Grouping students by skill level is out of sync with the heavily political thinking at schools of education, anyway (for better or worse.)
Given the American melting-pot born of the ambitious ones self-selecting themselves away from the old homes and coming here, you have to assume that we will always have the most diverse classrooms and schools of any nation.
Political thinkers yearning for our students to think of themselves as part of a separate tribe, group, or collective are always going to be wrong.
1
Totally agree -- except basically 95 percent of parents don't want their kids to be bored because then they are being bothered. Give them a screen to shut them up. It works. But then, when their kids go to school, they expect screens and entertainment and the world just doesn't work that way. From what I hear, college is a time of newly sharpened focus (forget about high school), when you can't get by on 8 hours of screen time anymore if you want to succeed, and kids are finally faced with real life. My big fear is that when this generation of K-12 students becomes old enough to hire others...what will happen to our society then?
11
@DavePo...
Sorry, college these days is where kids go to undo the mistakes that middle-and high-school made in their educations...
And even then colleges do a pitiful job at educating.
No chance to die of boredom anymore.
Too many quicker ways.
The treadmill has become so steep and fast--we all know there are so many of us fighting for dwindling pie crumbs in a society that funnels almost all resources to a very few at the top--that we don't have the luxury to be bored.
11
@Glenn Ribotsky
Meanwhile, in America - by a great contrast! - every worker has the chance to be the next Steve Jobs or Howard Schultz.
(Or the Howard Stern or rap star of the moment.)
The Trump economic boom is SHRINKING the wealth gap that increased so much under the previous socialist. Our blue-collar wages are increasing FASTER than the managementt class.
You might want to read more about the last few years. (I would NOT start here in the coastal progressive media, tho'.)
1
@L'osservatore Please provide research to support your assertions.
5
luckily, i am very rarely bored. i credit this to my mother who left us siblings to discover our world.
Her "neglect" didn't make me a better student in school but it has made me a more interesting and interested person.
5
Whenever I am bored, I start to count things which makes me sleepy, and then allows me to sleep (time willing) which allows me to dream, which allows me to recharge and wake up refreshed, which allows me to have energy to do the things that I put off - and made me bored in the first place.
I am teaching me kids this secret ....shhh
8
I doubt there is anything more tedious than working in government. And it's easy to see what happens when someone with a short attention span is given a high level position in government.
6
@JR It depends on which branch of government you work in. I worked for a science laboratory, and though there were moments of boredom, it was a satisfying and interesting job, and 31 years went by quickly. I know you're making a (sort of ) joke about someone whose name shall remain unstated at the high(est) levels of government. But that person (happily) is not typical.
7
Ms. Paul’s argument for allowing children to experience and learn to deal with boredom makes philosophical sense. As a former elementary teacher and administrator it is wholly impractical. Technology has made children detached, impersonal learners. Parents are quick to blame their childrens’ “boredom” on teachers who are doing everything required to instill literacy and inquisitiveness.
The real problem is passive learners who aren’t curious. Parents want their children moved from classrooms they perceive to be less than dynamic. Student failure or reluctance to try is caused by teachers who aren’t exciting enough. I spent countless hours trying to convince parents that all teachers were capable of delivering an excellent program, often to no avail.
A simpler solution would be to keep electronic devices out of the hands of children until they reach high school. No video games or cell phones. Children would ten have time to learn to experience more of the natural world, develop sorely lacking social skills, and become resilient adults, unlike their parents.
122
Boredom creates opportunity. To build things out of odds and ends. To dig to the center of the earth. To make houses for ants. After 50 years I can still remember those times when I created things and the satisfaction I received. I always considered that type of play my children's most valuable time.
34
Children running around all the time with not a spare minute for themselves, relegated to mechanistic slavery at the hands of devices they hold in the palms of their hands?
Let them be bored. Boredom will provide them with the greatest gift of all: a life worth living.
Will we be able to figure this out before it's too late?
16
Amen! As an educator making every lesson fun is ridiculous. It is not real life. Teaching delayed gratification has gone out of favor. Often, I wonder how my students will cope in the future? Waiting for me to complete a task gets them irritable; however, they turn in assignments late all the time. Then they want them graded immediately. I cannot imagine any of my students are prepared to earn an advanced degree. They are not capable of paying attention to detail or spending the time that is required to analyze data. Tedious work is necessary and it must be done. Future generations are not prepared for this type of work. But, hey, look who is running our country.
45
A lot of so called "advanced degrees" have already been dumbed down to meet the demands of both instructors and students who no longer hold to higher standards of writing and research that require sustained, tedious, strenuous, and sometimes boring mental effort. Not to worry about your students not being prepared. There's plenty of higher educational institutions willing to accept their and their parents' money and will gladly pat them on the head with paid for A's and B 's. Sad but true from personal experience.
5
Kids learn from their elders how trifling and necessarily avoidable boredom is. Really. Just pay attention (put down your smart phone) and watch...yes, we're all perched in front of the shrill glow of our phones or watches, trying to look occupied...or not bored. I look about like Diogenes, looking not for an honest person, but for a fellow adult who is willing to be bored...and its difficult. The kids are taught be entertained by their elders who immerse themselves in a facade of an always already gotta be plugged-in socialization.
11
So many students when they need a quick answer to their homework just Google in the question and get their work done. It would be a great idea to close down Facebook, and Google one day a week such as Sunday so students would have to do work on their own. Facebook should actually be closed down two days a week, it really serves no upside purpose for society. The decision to allow these dominating internet businesses exist 24 hours a day is just not necessary. Experiment and close them both down on Sundays. It maybe necessary to shut the whole internet down for one day a week unless their was an emergency reason to gain access. Not sure of the benefit to society long term of the existing content.
6
Many decades ago, I took a French class in college and had a teacher who told us about everyday culture, in addition to translating French phrases.
I may not remember it exactly, but my favorite response that a French person gives when asked if they are having a good time at a party is, "Je m'amuse."
In other words, the burden for being entertained falls on the guest--not the hostess.
9
Bravo! When my kids were young and complained they were bored, I told them that I was their father, not their entertainment director. And then they went and found things to do!
18
Boredom has always struck me as a sort of loneliness. Yes, downtime is needed for all sorts of reasons, but downtime can be spent in quiet, interesting, and rewarding ways: working on getting better at something you love but aren't terribly good at, learning something new, writing letters. To each his or her own where all that is concerned.
Additionally, I don't think most high school students are given the credit they deserve here (I've taught high school math for 30 years); I think most expect to be bored from time to time and that's okay, but they also understand the bigger picture of why it is they are being asked to learn the things they are learning whether they are bored or not.
8
Idleness...without feeling guilty, is a virtue to behold. And a pause to unravel our imagination and creativity, especially when detached from monetary gain or any other 'obligation' to perform.
14
Excellent article. Meditation, immersion in nature, thoughtful discourse, digital disconnect, all of these are necessary in the Age of Endless Distractions. I have personally picked up the habit of turning off my phone and putting it in a drawer for one day of the week. I have removed myself from Facebook and I'm working on cutting Twitter out of my daily life, only posting 3 to 4 times a week. I do think we need a comprehensive disconnect movement, bringing parents, educators, psychologists, children and - perhaps - monks and neuroscientists together to bring down the level of digital interaction. And to make the interaction we have more meaningful.
12
Well put, I pity the over-scheduled, modern children with their parents always helicoptering around. Kids need down time, alone in order to be kids and then eventually adults.
39
This reminds me of my theory of how church was good for me. It taught me to stay still and quiet for long periods of time on uncomfortable wooden pews under physical threat of my father. Like Herman Hesse's Siddhartha learning how to think, wait, and fast (we'd hit the Italian deli on the way home).
26
I grew up at a time when mother's didn't work, but my mother did. I was alone a lot and I still remember long days playing by myself. I had a rich fantasy life, that was populated with imaginary friends. Is do not have many memories of playing with friends, but I remember be intensely happy playing alone, when I had managed to invent a great game, which could be as simple as grocery store. My kids grew up with phones and iPads. Still, several times a summer, we would rent a cottage that had no tv and a family cabin owned by their father with no electricity. To this day, their favorite activity when they see me, is a hike, or a museum, or playing a board game. Both eschew social media and tell me it's a waste of time. Frankly, I use it more than them. They still devour books. We live in a time, when we have access to massive amounts of information. I must look something up on Google 50 times a day, mostly policing my friends who post things online before even looking to see if it is accurate. I don't remember my kids being bored, if there was downtime (and like all kids in the suburbs, they had plenty of sports and lessons) a fort would go up in the den, or they would start a collection of different kinds of moss, they would volunteer to help out the old lady next door. The best thing you can encourage in kids is curiosity, if they're curious, they'll never run out of things to do, because they'll wonder about something and it will take them down a new path of adventure.
34
My son learned young not to say "I'm bored." I helped him make a list (he was too young to spell everything) of all the things there were to do on his own at our house. It was on a 3 X 5 card in the pencil drawer of the big rolltop desk whenever he needed it. And if that didn't please, I told him to take a nap, because it's impossible to be bored when he's asleep. As he got older he argued that he might dream of being bored. But, I pointed out, it would only be a dream! Not real life.
My kids were raised in the 80's, and they had sports, music lessons and practice, 4-H projects and homework, but also plenty of time for running around, Legos, and reading.
My son knows every inch of our rugged 5 acres and spent a lot of time exploring there and on neighbor's property and building forts with his friends and sister who has disabilities but also dealt with her own boredom, but mostly on his own. He now works as a web designer for a midwestern city from his home in WA and knows how to allocate his work time to allow for his gardening, reading, woodworking, outdoor activities, and dog walking. He doesn't get bored for long and neither does his sister, who lives with us but doesn't depend on us for entertainment.
22
I long have said a primary goal of education is to both learn how to learn and learn how to entertain oneself. I remember saying "I'm bored" as a kid. All but one mother was stay-at-home but they stayed out of our activities.
13
Boredom for me in the 1960's meant going to the library for books, or riding my bike through town and into the woods with my neighbor Trudy. We'd take a sheet from my mother's closet and drape it over the picnic table to play jacks under the shade, or Careers, or paper dolls, or play with Colorforms.
We'd jump rope, play Twister, chase each other and play tag, catch bugs in jars, and just dream in the yard. I was sent outside to build snowmen in the winter or shovel the walkway. I was paid a few quarters to put my father's socks together if I was really bored, or handed some rags with a can of Pledge to dust.
I miss those idle minutes to my days.
270
@mainesummers
Maybe it is not too late to reclaim idle time in our days. Take an eraser to some of the stuff on our calendars. Maybe that time spent simply "pondering" would be of more value.
8
@mainesummers. Hey, you must have lived down the street from me. Add to your list: go swimming, or fishing, or play tennis, or sandlot baseball or football, or stare at trees or watch ants build anthills, or tease the cat, or help in the garden, or climb the aforementioned trees, or write a letter, or walk down to the telephone booth with a dime and talk to your girlfriend for an hour or two, or collect old pop bottles to buy penny candy, or . . . God it was all so boring! So many vast stretches of absolute ennui it boggles the mind. It's called life.
8
Very insightful column , I thought. And in a childhood in the 40s and 50s, I cannot remember, ever, being bored!!
For that matter, I do not remember our own children (5 of them) ever complaining that they were bored! If it had, the response would have been to go read, or clean your room, or practice your music, or do your chores.
Grandchildren, however, may be a different story. Nonetheless, I’d still offer or give the same response to them! Why current/modern parents don’t do that is a complete mystery to me!
6
I liked the idea of thinking about how the current phobic trend to avoid states of boredom impacts creativity, self-esteem, and self-regulation. As the author suggests boredom is something children should be taught to tolerate because it can lead to constructing creative activities. Tolerating boredom can lead to encouraging independence and the ability to be alone with oneself and lead to more imaginative play. I know how restlessness is so difficult for many of my generation and this may be increasing our anxiety.
9
Gee, nothing like a stern lecture on how to be bored so that you learn to play on your own to make my creative juices flow.
I grew up without a TV or a phone until I was a teenager and as an only child I had an excellent time playing with my imaginary friends. Staring at walls: check. Dreaming in in the daytime: check. Doodling in lectures: check.
However, this uncharitable opinion reflects class anxiety more than sage advice. It's only an urban intellectual with no connection to the natural world who thinks that agricultural labor is mind-numbing and without intellectual merit.
Combine that with the increasing realization that creativity and innovation are the only things that will save us from automation (until a robot out-designs you of course) and what you have isn't a discourse on free time or innocent play but a reflection of the deepest anxieties of a certain class of people.
18
Amen! You might also want to let modern parents know that drinking from the garden hose is safe, in home cameras are creepy and letting them play and even - GASP - fight while unsupervised is not only okay but recommended...
79
Excellent piece. Right on target.
14
Kids are not bored when they have nothing to do. They are bored because they have nothing to think about. The children of the Silicon Age are a generation dumbed down and numbed by instant everything. They have little patience or persistence which eliminates an awful lot of life's opportunities and activities.
53
@rab
I'm pretty sure that kids got bored long before the Silicon Age. And it wasn't for lack of stuff to think about. I know. I was a kid in the 60s.
2
@rab
This is plain rubbish. I have three of these kids and they are educated, erudite and thinking beings. They learn constantly from the Internet, they are creators, bloggers, artists, dancers, poets... Just because their ways are different from ours does not mean they are worse. Stop judging others by our yardstick... Open your eyes to what is really going on.
2
"Despite the lesson most adults learned growing up — boredom is for boring people..."
Did most adults learn this lesson? This is the first I've heard it. Boring people bore other people, they may or may not be bored themselves.
11
The biggest reason I take my kids to church is because I want them to have a ritual in their life that is best summed up as being bored for an hour. Helps clear the mind.
34
Some of my best memories as a child of the 50s was being bored. Laying on my back looking at the clouds, wandering around in the fields next to my home, walking home from school.
I can't imagine ever telling my parents "I'm bored." I think they would have looked at me like I was some type of space alien.
19
I was a nanny for 10 years and there would be occasions that I am not able to come up with activities for the kids anymore - especially when they are on spring/winter breaks. They would complain that they are bored because there is nothing else to do. I would respond that it is alright to be bored, that that is when creativity will hit them. It works (worked), they start going through their other toys - drawing, playing pretend, etc. I am happy I let those kids get bored.
53
I know of many parents who over program their kids - 4H, sports, etc. in an attempt to keep them from getting bored and getting into drugs.
Parents aren't allowed to let their kids get bored and explore the world on their own. Cop and CPS have been called on parents who let their kids walk to school alone.
23
Boredom is a deep and fruitful well, but most people feel it do be an existential threat. (What am I if I'm not doing, moving, acting, feeling engaged?) It's a plausible, visceral pause, that beckons us to listen within and without, and to actually feel our environment and the seeming poverty of the immediate circumstance... It's a direct invite to observe, listen, and grow in the moment, and the moments as they unfold. We can expand into it and be curious, or just say okay, so what I'm a bored that's okay (which requires an internal ease). Personally, I find hyper stimulation boring, where's the authenticity in that? Boredom is a beautiful gateway to imagination and insight.
12
It depends where you are at - in life. In subsaharan Africa where am proudly from, everything is life, live and directly mesmerizing.Call it energy.In the west, well "everything" is here and lively as long as it's expected to be there always.Ever turned on the faucet and water doesn't come out, for days...years?Trying living in a blackout daily? Smile.
12
True, Sartre was bored as a child (cf "Situations" I think). That said, a lot of addicts have blamed boredom for getting hooked.
Perhaps it depends on the environment. Remember, a lot of children used to grow up with TV as their companion because their parents were too busy or exhausted to take care of them. Now, parents thought they would be good parents to fill their children's resume starting before 1st Garden by driving them to soccer and swim meets etc.After all, being book worms is not enough to get into Ivies.
Meditation is about being bored mindfully. Yet, in order to entice people to mindfulness training, a lot of organizers try to glamorize it. I don't know what enlightenment is but my guess is a lot of people might be disappointed because they had the illusion of the brain lighting up!
5
When I was growing up, it never even occurred to me to expect my parents to entertain me.
"If you can't find something to do, I'll find something for you to do" -- our mother's standard when we'd whine about not having anything to do-- and she meant a cleaning chore.
Needless to say, we quickly found something to do on our own.
738
@SLBvt
That was my mom's line too. There was always a chore to be done if I was bored. So like you, we never whined about boredom after getting chores to alleviate boredom. I loved exploring outside, played sports & games with friends, read books (TV was not exciting except Saturday mornings when I grew up in the late '60s and '70s) and built stuff with my dad's tools. I was never bored. Life has too much going on the be bored.
38
@SLBvt That's the way it was for me, too, growing up in VT in the 50s and 60s. Plus, we had nuns in Catholic schools, whose motto was, "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop." So, they loaded on the homework, such that there was NO TIME to do anything else but homework. I don't ever remember telling my mother that I was bored. I DO remember asking, "What can I make?", and that was her clue that I wanted to be artistic in some way. That part could have been better, because we had very little means to work with at that time. So, I did learn to sew, knit,crochet, and garden, as forms of being creative.
14
@SLBvt
Even as young as 6 and 7 years old, my friends as I would spend long afternoons running through backyards, building forts in the woods, playing stickball in the street, and throwing snowballs in the park. As long as we came through the door by dinner time, everything was fine. That was most of my childhood.
After school activities? What were those?
We all turned out well.
50
Excellent observations. I'll add a pearl of wisdom someone once gave me about feeling bored at a social event or just in a conversation with someone: "If you're bored, you're being boring." And I've found it's true. It always means I'm being passive and then feeling irritated at what's happening (or not). Once I become active and do something (change the conversation or activity, etc.), my feeling of boredom goes away.
5
@Nelle Engoron I used to say this to my kids. A short 20 years ago.
3
@Nelle Engoron as if a child could do this at a party full of adults, for example.
1
Spot-on!
I was recently thinking about my two children, now in their 30's, and how, when they were young, they would often be "bored." They would be in their rooms with "nothing to do" except figuring out on their own how to keep themselves amused. One of those two children, who makes more money than I do, informed us the other day that she received a major promotion. The other one, who graduated Yale eight years ago, is in the middle of a Ph.D. program in clinical psychology. Let's hear it for "boredom!"
25
Hamlet said "...for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Likewise, what we experience as engaging or boring is mostly a function of our thoughts and cultural conditioning. "Boring" is in the mind of the bored.
I'm glad to read this essay, because I believe a lack of "boredom" in our culture has become a serious issue. We have generations of children who can't imagine a day without constant auditory and visual stimuli. One reason for this is that our software applications are designed to be addictive, because our attention makes those companies (and their advertisers) money. I worry that if we don't reclaim our attention for creativity and reflection, our culture will become further addicted to ever increasing amounts of stimulation (like any addition). We need to be able to hear our own thoughts and ideas, as Lin-Manuel Miranda can attest.
If we wish to teach our children the value of boredom, adults first need to set an example. Parents can put away their own phones and iPads, stop checking email while with family, and turn off the television for a while. This may not be easy, given our modern busy lives. But then again, one of those bored children may grow up to write the next "Hamilton."
46
@jrinsc
Not only "our software applications are designed to be addictive," but now our constant "breaking news" format in news sources is also addictive. Those people I know who watch Fox news, for example, not only watch it, they are addicted to it. It has the threatening format much like that during a local tornado alert on the news, you dare not turn away.
1
What a great piece. Some might call it controversial. I found it conversational and wonderfully put.
12
Thank You for this article!
I'm of the mind that boredom is quite useful to all of us, adults as well as children.
When we are bored, we actually USE our brain and figure out a way out of being bored.
Imagination.
Creativity.
Curiosity.
Maybe exploring unknown objects or subjects.
Completely agree with Lin-Manuel Miranda. And look at him now!
12
When my children (now in their late 40's) would complain of boredom, I would tell them that only boring people were ever bored. It was not my job as a parent to also be an entertainer. I had quite enough to do running a household and all the work that entailed.
My son once had a new employee (well paid!) that did not complete an assigned project he had given her. Her excuse? It was boring and did not "interest her". Really? Needless to say, she is now a FORMER employee.
I am a 75 year old widow with mobility issues caused by a chronic disease. That means, I have a lot of time on my hands as I can no longer be the active woman I once was and liked being. But having been an only child prepared me well for this life. I learned to be a "fanciful" dreamer and can still do that. I can entertain myself for hours that way. And I do enjoy the internet. I read one article, find something interesting in it and look that up, which leads to something else interesting and before I know it, it's 4 hours later. Not a bad thing at my age!
Too many activities, too many working mothers believing that only by entertaining their children are they "engaging" with them. It's very sad.
34
@India Congratulations!
If you have time and a favorite book or TV show, how about writing fan fiction? Authors create new stories involving much-loved characters in various settings -- harsh "reviews" are gently discouraged, length is up to the writer, and best of all: It's FREE!
Fanfic is an opportunity for adults (even those with physical disabilities) to recreate the make-believe adventures we loved as kids. Check out archiveofourown.org for thousands of examples.
It's true: Only boring people are bored, and boredom is the parent of creativity!
To castigate/judge the teaching profession for using technology to reach students is just plain wrong. The teachers aren't trying to "entertain" the students - curriculum demands from kindergarten on are intense and some children need a different kind of approach. Technology can help students who need more exposure to concepts, study habits, background, those who haven't come from upper middle class households. I applaud the recognition of teaching to the child and not to the class.
4
I think you underestimate people's capacity to be entertained into imbecility. Think about how many folks spend a mind-numbing day at the office, anxiously eyeing the escape hatch every five seconds, and then come home and watch TV shows all evening about offices. As Frank Zappa said in the fabulous song "Brown Shoes Don't Make It": "Be a loyal plastic robot for a world that doesn't care." Many people have bought into that existence and will not be rising in rebellion any time soon.
14
Kids need time to be themselves, yes. But when I was a kid, time when I was on my own was never boring! I could always find interesting, fun things to do.
It was the programmed activities, like the relentlessly unchallenging classes at school, that were boring.
If a child is bored when left to his own devices, he is missing something very important -- the ability to engage with the world in an active, satisfying way.
14
I always told my kids it wasn't my fault if they were bored and to use their imagination to "unbore" themselves or I can find some extra chores for them. The oldest is now a known and respected author, another a private research chemist, and the youngest with severe dyslexia is a genius mechanic.....he was the one who never said he was bored, he just kept moving, doing and inventing.
28
When I was a kid, if I was bored, my mother would say, why don't you make something?
A macaroni necklace, a "machine" out of old boxes, greeting cards, the list was endless.
But I also had a lot more freedom. I rode my bike all over the place. Between 4th and 5th grade, I started riding to the library--air conditioned paradise on a hot summer day.
There was always a gang of kids doing something. Somebody's dad had hung up a swinging rope. Let's sled down the big hill until our feet go numb.
Playgrounds were more dangerous and more fun. See how high you can swing. How long you can hang upside down.
Kids were allowed to be bored because there was plenty to do without a parent. Those days are long gone.
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@Talbot--Those days live on out here in the sticks.
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@Talbot
My favorite was getting a pile of blankets to use to make a fort or castle or cave under the dining room table. Mom didn't light it up with Christmas lights, it didn't have miniature chairs, and it didn't look like a blanket fort that you see on tv. But it was enormously fun and comfortable, maybe because the possibilities for imagining a new world were endless--and all mine. I had control over who entered: the dog, yes; baby sister, no.
26
Most children who complain of boredom have not learned the pleasures (let alone the values) of things like reading books or just daydreaming. Parents and schools should be playing major roles in promoting alone time and nothing can serves their intellectual and emotional needs better than books. Bored child? Encourage her/him to read. It's blissfully addictive once you get hooked.
84
And so we reject candidates for public office who respect us by discussing the details of thoughtful policy proposals ( calling them “poor” candidates... booooring) in favor of those with snappy slogans who entertain us on TV
380
And if polls are to be believed, these voters are people who were raised during that time when children were supposed to use their brain to amuse themselves. So what happened to using your brain when picking a candidate to vote for?
9
I think it's good for people of all ages but especially kids to have time that has nothing planned other than to not use electronics. In the often hyper competitive world many people feel they have to have their kids in structured sports or activities all the time.
Another thing is that parents should not be doing their kids homework or school projects. In my kids school you could see which parents either did the work or helped excessively on the build a mission assignment. The ones that we're to good to be build by an elementary school kid were most likely to have too much parent involvement.
5
One thing left out of here is that both parents work more often now than when many Times readers grew up. Anything that lets someone else deal with the kids instead of having to be home with them makes the parents life easier. Some program managing the child leaves more time for the parents work or for them to be on their own device waiting for their kids to finish the programmed activity,
4
I'm no great writer of science fiction, but I've sold a few stories over the years and sold a bunch more nonfiction. Guess what? I started my writing when I was a bored kid, inventing entire worlds in my head. Out of those quiet moments came imaginative leaps.
I fear that my students today are so stressed in part because they never have any down time. They are whipped up a ladder by well intentioned parents and a culture where it is cool to be stressed out. Then they have that electronic dispenser of nothing special in their hands. So do many of elders.
How can we get back to just...daydreaming?
23
I think Paul did a great job highlighting the issues associated with the way we raise kids in this age, but she did not emphasize some of the more serious side effects of caving into kids. She raises excellent points as to why we should make sure children experience boredom and not alleviate the feeling right away, as seems to be the trend nowadays.
Other serious consequences of always alleviating feelings of boredom will be a struggle with delayed gratification and a sense of entitlement. As Paul states, “boredom leads to flights of fancy. But ultimately, to self-discipline. To resourcefulness.” I can already see this pattern amongst my generation of not being able to “adult” and control themselves when it comes to many things, anything from money management to skipping class. There seems to be a pressing urge to make everything fun, a discomfort with boredom and feeling anything other than happiness. This leads to the fact that giving into children and their expectations gives rise to a sense of entitlement as well as a lack of empathy. As kids are naturally selfish if those feelings are not dissuaded as they grow up then they will remain as such forever. This is also prevalent today where people are not as concerned with the wellbeing of others but are rather self-absorbed. There is no longer much self-discipline but rather a constant need for instant gratification even if it is at the cost of another person's wellbeing or feelings.
72
Yes this observation is spot on. That is how entirely too many kids in the 5-20 years age group do seem to be growing up. Maybe one answer to I’m bored is to say go find somebody else to help—volunteer, for example. Might be helpful for everyone!
10
I was an elementary school teacher for thirty years. I taught the whole collection of grades and ages.
Without exception, the smartest kids in my classes never said, "I'm bored," and certainly never acted bored. They were able to self-engage and find interest in any number of things.
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@Chauncey Gardner--I taught for 35 years, and in my experience is was not necessarily the smartest in terms of IQ but the most creative and resourceful who were not bored. Kids being able to entertain themselves is usually, but not always a good thing--"Why is it so quiet in there?"
8
@Chauncey Gardner
I banned the term from my classroom and my own family. I encouraged children to use and develop an imagination. The most creative and inquisitive kids always found something in which to engage.
4
@Chauncey Gardner
When I taught 4th grade, my first read aloud of the year was always The Phantom Tollbooth. It set the precedent of putting the responsibility back onto the students if they or their parents ever declared they were bored in class as a way of insinuating I was somehow not upholding my end of the bargain (which didn't come up very often anyway - the story stimulated soooo many marvelous creative teaching projects all year long - what does the letter 'a' taste like anyway???).
2
“For if life . . . possessed in itself a positive value and real content, there would be no such thing as boredom: mere existence would fulfill and satisfy us. As things are, we take no pleasure in existence except when we are striving after something”
Schopenhauer
17
This article only mentions the expected duties of parents to keep their children entertained. It's worse for teachers and college professors who are expected to entertain students so that they don't get bored in class. And when students get bored in class, they give professors a bad evaluation. Administrators then use these evaluations to get rid of faculty since their main concern is that students register and pay tuition. Professors and K12 teachers that remain are the ones who don't teach anything, and do not demand anything. But they are very popular with the students when they let them use their cellphones during class. Students have to learn during their school years that even when they get a job they have a passion for, they will have to perform duties that will be boring and not exciting. And worse, they will have to put up and tolerate co-workers they don't like and who are boring.
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@ART I get your point, and even agree that teachers and professors shouldn't have their work evaluated as if they were entertainers. Students need to understand that they're responsible for their own achievements without blaming the educator for being boring. Got it.
However, to state that the only ones who remain are popular because they're not actually teaching something of substance is a pretty harsh judgement. Its a poor teacher who blames his students when they don't learn.
33
@ART
Students get upset and bored the most when they take courses that are required and that are not part of their major. Then they take it out on their professors by misbehaving in class, being disrespectful, and submitting negative evaluations. Many professors, or instructors with temporary positions who then want to keep their jobs have to submit to downgrading expectations and dumbing down of material to prevent complaints. This is very common in the humanities students view as useless and administrators want to get rid of based on low enrollments. However, these courses are the ones that teach students language skills and critical thinking (history, foreign languages, literature, art, etc.). Students expect these courses to be easy and get angry when challenged because they think they are a waste of time. Even students who are attracted to the humanities opt out in favor of the sciences.
50
@ART
I taught community college for over a decade. No faculty member would be respected by other faculty for allowing students to play with their phones during class. No faculty member would be respected by other faculty for not teaching what they're supposed to be teaching. Faculty are expected to bring energy to the classroom, to engage students, and to be creative. Faculty are expected to be prepared for class, to return assignments on time, and (within reason) to be available for students. Meeting these expectations results in positive reviews from other faculty and from students. I know because I was reviewed and reviewed other faculty. I thought student reviews were generally quite fair (e.g., RateMyProfessors in my case). Are you an educator? I find your generalizations farfetched.
16
When I was growing up in the late 70s (as far back as I can remember) and the 80s, things were distinctly different on my suburban street in a canyon, with small hills (the walls of the canyon) on each side. Adults would complain about having to slow down for the make-shift baseball and broom-hockey games on the street. But hey, kids were bored. Up on the hills the once-bored younger kids were building forts and defending them against the kids who were attacking them. Other kids were in "Africa" looking for the buried treasure before the time ran out. Some even figured out how to build a treehouse in a large California oak. I almost feel tempted to go in search of the ruins of one of those forts I defended.
Of course, some found places to smoke, take drugs, vandalize, get pregnant, and I remember, in the late 80's, finding graffiti on a drainage pipe with 666 and the like.
Today one could be forgiven for thinking that street runs through a retirement community. You hardly see any kids anymore. But they are there, and I imagine there are as many as there were in the 70s. It's just that when you do see them, they are walking to their parents car staring at the iPhone, because Heaven forbid they get bored on the walk from the door. And I imagine they are going to all sorts of after-school events so they don't get bored and, Heaven forbid, think of building a fort on the hill.
146
I read that with kids missing from streets now that coyotes and wildlife moving in to claim territory is a real thing.
1
@Kay Johnson
Coyotes & wolves don't eat people. Just keep your cats & dogs with you.
1
@Robert W. -- Amen...I remember the dirt clod fights and the fake tale to parents when one had a knot on the head.
7
This is all very well, but it's only possible if you can wrestle the electronic devices away. The omnipresence of the devices is the number one hassle in parenting right now.
219
@someone Who bought these devices for the children? I'm assuming they don't have access to a trust fund. No parent MUST buy these things! Wait until the child actually needs the device for what it is, not for its entertainment value.
68
@someone--You set limits on these devices, like anything else in life. And they work great as disciplinary measures. I remember years ago saying to my son, "Do you know the only reason I'm happy you bought this Game Boy?" And he said, "Yes, so you can take it away if I mess up." Bingo!
34
@someone
And let's not forget the parents who are too busy on their own devices to parent.
38
Unfortunately I think this is a losing battle. Today kids have a long school day, followed by afternoon activities, sports, music lessons, etc., then homework. My grandchildren have sports practices in the evening. No time for anything except occasional momentary diversions on their electronic devices. No time for boredom that can lead to creativity or absorption in a book not assigned by the teacher.
My children had lots of time to read or ride bikes or go to the park in the 1980s. Their children are super programmed. They are accomplished at sports and piano, they are always on the go. I think some time to be bored would be fruitful, but that’s not the current culture. I think they are missing out.
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@Barbara ~
While the school day may be a bit longer, they have, but don't HAVE to have, do everything else.
Although we had the advantage with our kids in the 80's that it was before "smart" phones and such, so they actually learned the patience and joy [and necessary tolerance] of reading something on paper in 4th grade.
27
@Barbara
And all this ceaseless preparation, checking off every box on the college entry form starting practically in-utero, will do do no good at all. Parents rightly understand that their kids will be fighting over the crumbs, but what if there are not even enough crumbs? That is what we should start planning for.
34
@stan continople.....maybe more well off parents tend to program their kids' days with activities, music lessons, sports, homework, etc.
But likely the working class parents don't have the time or energy to supervise their kids constantly, and the kids have to depend on their own resources.
20
Not only that, we drive kids places! Let’s go back to making them walk! Preferably uphill, both ways, in the snow.
There are two things getting conflated here. The boredom of necessary but repetitive work and the boredom of not knowing how to fill one’s leisure time are very, very different. In either case it’s hard to tell if you want the kids to build life skills or just be unhappy because it builds character.
69
Boredom is different from idleness.
Some things we just do in life are boring, and there's no need to pretend otherwise. Washing dishes, vacuuming, folding laundry, sweeping, to name a few, are dull, yet they need to be done. It's okay to let kids know that some of our time will inevitably be filled with things that are less than stimulating.
But having nothing pressing? Letting one's imagination take them where they will, should it be coming up with a project, picking up a book just for fun, playing a game, or just daydreaming? Well, that is more of a luxury that we will see less and less of the older we get. Kids should know this is an opportunity they will one day miss!
47
@NM Shared from Craigslist: "Outside of a dog, a good book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." ---Groucho Marx
20
In this age of constantly available diversions, people's thoughts are, virtually, always being directed by external factors courtesy of electronic devices.
People can't eat, drive, take a walk, spend time with kids and pets without having their minds trained on their omnipresent hand-held devices. We've become a society of phone zombies.
Simple pondering has become a lost art. The un-diverted mind almost seems to a thing a fear.
And that's a shame because the great discoveries of the classical world were the result of pondering by people like Da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Copernicus and Einstein. The Age of Enlightenment was fueled by pondering and aided by, gasp, boredom.
299
@James.... I admit-- I have a habit of eating while I read, and reading while I eat. Helps concentrate on long NYT op eds and articles.
The long sweep of history opens our eyes---Da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Copernicus and Einstein. The Age of Enlightenment. And now Donald Trump, tweeting to the masses, in power over the USA---which was once a great leap forward in democracy.
8
@James J
Well-written. The lost art of pondering. Seem I'm happier when I ponder, and feel more awe at the natural world and the sounds it offers, which is a positive emotion. I think that I shall never see, a Tweet as lovely as a tree.
20
@Not All Docs Play Golf
Or, perhaps, we could (re)learn to enjoy hearing actual "tweets" rather than reading their namesake.
5