To think a lot of young kids are over stimulated?

[jennymanara]

A lot of parents seem to worry about their young kids being stimulated, but I think a lot of young kids are over stimulated. Babies, toddlers and young kids need time to play alone and need quiet. For babies that might mean playing with their toes happily, or just sitting there burbling away happily to themselves. For toddlers playing with a toy, or looking at things on a walk. You also see it in parents who talk constantly. Toddlers being followed around by usually mums as the mum constantly talks to their child, asks questions and comments on what the child is doing. There is no silence, no chance for the child just to bumble about doing nothing much.

I agree with the op.

I agree, OP. DH and I clash a bit over this. If he has the kids, he has to be doing something with them.

When we go on holiday he'll take a pile of toys and stuff for them "in case they get bored". When we try to go sightseeing, say something like a stately home with big gardens, he'll say "oh, but that sounds really boring for the kids". In reality they're fine somewhere like that, as long as they can run about - they'll collect sticks and play with each other etc. I wouldn't take them on the tour of the house, or go somewhere where they couldn't run on the grass, but otherwise they're fine.

I'm a part-time SAHP, and DH is always surprised if I say that the kids and I had a day in the house, and they just played while I did housework or read or something.

I see so many kids who are constantly entertained and have no clue how to find something to do with their time, and I wonder how it will work out when they're adults.

My youngest dd is 6 she does a fair few after school clubs, but come the weekend she loves nothing more than sitting in her playroom with all her animals going on adventures. Some of the places they go sound amazing and I'm always so astounded by her imagination, she loves to play by herself in her own world and only occasionally wants someone else to play with her.
But in contrast my nephew absolutely cannot spend a single second on his own. Since he was born my sil has constantly played with him and as a result at 8 he is now incapable of playing alone and has zero imagination. It's really sad to see. But of course we get the passive aggressive comments of 'lucky you never playing with your child' 'my child always wants to play with me because he know I want to play with him' plus dozens more.

I agree. Spent most of my childhood quietly entertaining myself or playing with friends with no adult in sight.

YANBU.

It's recently hit DH and I that our children don't know how to be bored.

So we're in a queue or we have to stop so I can't talk on the phone etc is life ending. Its ridiculous.

We've stripped back screen time for a week to see if anything improves.
They are both brilliant at playing by themselves in the house. At 5 & 3 I can easily go an hour plus with them playing in their rooms with their toys so I am grateful for that.

@CameraTime - yes! We did lots of stately homes and castles. To us kids, it just translated as 'big old space to muck around in whilst out of the car'.

I also think that ire at TV time is slightly misdirected. My sister and I were obsessed with operas, David Attenborough and I loved Horizon as a kid. They were the only things my parents would have on TV, basically, as well as crime dramas or period dramas.

Kids are bloody sponges for anything you put on TV in my experience, it didn't matter that it wasn't cartoons - we absorbed so much that now my sister was inspected by Ofsted and they assumed she had an expensive private education. Nope, just a NT membership, documentaries, and kid-level encyclopedias that we were allowed free range over.

SerenDippitty
I agree. Spent most of my childhood quietly entertaining myself or playing with friends with no adult in sight.

Same for me and in the summer all the children in the street were out playing from dawn to dusk - only appearing home for lunch and dinner. If my sister or I ever dared say we were bored we would be given chores to do in the house so we always managed to find something to keep us amused.

Every year you see threads on here from women pulling their hair out, not knowing how to amuse their children 24/7. The answer is don't, they need to create their own play and use their imagination.

Do you think it could have anything also to do with the long lists and questionnaires we are given now to check development.
They are ridiculous, while I understand a developmental check is probably a good thing, does it really need to involve so much and have parents answering that amount of questions on a 2 year old, so parents are scared there child is not hitting milestones, so constantly trying to teach and "develop" them ?

I was thinking about this as a friend with a 5 month old was saying how she has to go to a baby class at least once a day as otherwise her baby gets bored. I have other friends who’ve said they go to lots of things to get out of the house and keep themselves sane with adult company, and while I love doing nothing I completely understand that approach. But this friend is exhausted from all the doing and it must cost a fortune. She’s said there’s nothing she’d like more than time at home in her pjs (my approach ) but the baby has to be entertained. What she’d do if they couldn’t afford it or there weren’t a million different baby groups on the doorstep I don’t know.

I took DD to a group and she wasn’t that bothered, seeming much happier back at home that afternoon playing with her feet and a rattle on a blanket on the sofa while I pottered and chatted off and on. She’s learning from a very young age to find excitement for yourself and I might be lucky she’s low maintenance and I don’t need a lot of company but she’d be strung out and exhausted if we had much organised fun in our days.

With my older DSC we take a similar approach and they’re great at finding things to do, books to read, taking their scooters off out the front and finding random kids to play with. We bake, watch tv together, have some nice days out too, but they don’t need an audience or much entertaining and towards the end of term or when they have too many things on you can see they get tired and ratty so a quiet weekend with chunks of nothing much going on is what they need to recharge. We’re the same and I don’t have the inclination or energy to be a one woman entertainment system for any of the children!