To think that the current vogue for allowing kids to be "bored" is a bit misguided

[Thepeopleversuswork]

Have been thinking about this a lot recently, prompted by posts on here and things in the media. It's become very fashionable for people to talk about how important it is for children to be allowed to "be bored" sometimes.

I totally understand and support the principle of this: which is that overzealous scheduling and helicopter parenting is not great for many kids. I think there is a place for not having your entire life planned out from dawn to dusk and for learning to entertain yourself.

But in reality I think this "leave them to get bored" is often quite unworkable. Once kids get "bored" these days they invariably reach for screens. Now, obviously it's up to us as parents to manage this. But there's a limit to how much you can police this, short of removing all devices. It would be great if "being bored" always meant directing kids out to rough and tumble play in the hayfields or making dens in the living room or finger painting, but that usually isn't what it means. It either means screen time or it means getting into things they shouldn't. Stopping this happening means endless policing of what they do. So, forgive me but given the choice I'd rather my kid was doing an after-school club than playing four hours of Minecraft (sorry Minecraft) or watching TV or being bullied by me to be "creatively bored".

"Constructive" boredom as its preached is one of these lovely ideas (a bit like "free range" parenting) that's much much easier to achieve if you have a huge five-bedroom pile in the home counties than if you live in a cramped two bed flat (from which you also work). It's pretty unworkable for most parents and I'm starting to find it increasingly irritating when people parrot this as if it were a solution to all parenting dilemmas.

I disagree with you.

When I want my 3 children to do something to occupy themselves, the first thing I do is remove all screens, including the TV. It's a simple 'find something to do that doesn't involve a screen'. I don't care if they just lay around.

What usually ends up happening is they make up a game, find a project, get into the garden, or cook! They're 15, 11, and 9. I absolutely see the value in them being 'bored'.

I suppose, they do use screens to socialise, so if she's on her own she'll want to chat to her friends that way. If it was me, I'd probably let her, but just try to mix it up a bit.

I always thought that the 'let them be bored' included no screens so children start playing more creatively.

Totally agree with you OP, everything you've described reflects how I feel.

Personally I didn't have a problem when the kids were all primary age because I was around more (only working school hours) and felt very confident in my decision that it was my job to limit their screen time. It;s something I'd done from an early age so didn't get pushback.

I find it MUCH harder now they are tweens/teens. As you say, I'm not sure how healthy or helpful it is for me to police how they spend their spare time once basic homework is done. I don't want to make it a battlefield, especially because it feels never ending and I won't win anyway, especially now both DH and I work FT. But I absolutely hate how screens suck them in and definitely encourage/push more structured activities than I might do otherwise, especially for the 11 year old.

I don't know what the answer it.

Depending on were you live. The places I went on bike rides are now housing estates and the swimming baths are gone, as are the ice rink and local cinemas.

You aren’t wrong that bored teens don’t always use their time very well!

lack of stimulation can be really good for children, but by the time they are 12 I think they benefit from being stretched with interesting things to do. Also, they want to move towards independence.

Often when my kids come home from school/activities they then want to go on the iPad. If I say no they then whine ‘but what can I dooooooooooooooo’ . So I let them whine and I may make a few suggestions. Eventually they will find something to do, read a book, make some Lego, do some arts and crafts, kick a football around the garden, or just Chas each other around the house. It’s Nice to see them making their own entertainment, and I always end up thinking that I should say ‘no’ more often!!

That's not being bored - that's being facilitated to do multiple self directed social, physical and intellectual activities.

Those would have been the highlight of my childhood had they been permitted. Which they weren't.

You take the phones and screens off them for this.
The idea is to let their brains work on their own account. Figure out what to do. Think about random things in life. They do not get to do that while playing video games or watching youtube.
We used to. My parents did not play with us, so we came up with our own games. Our own hobbies. Also, spent endless hours in the countryside in summer with nothing to do. I know that is not possible for many, but taking them to the park after work is available to most people.

Oh, and yes, I agree.
This is good gor children.
Teens and young adults need exploring society, so activities are better for them. Hopefully, something they managed to organise.

I've not heard of this. Kids often say they are bored and perhaps up to them to come up with ideas of what to do?

Yes and she does see friends a lot.

Should have been clearer probably. I did have a policy of no screens during the way at weekends and only half an hour in the week until she turned 11. It’s unsustainable now due to homework and friendships relying a lot on devices for contact and scheduling.

Even before this though she would constantly mither me to do stuff with her. I ended up being incapable of doing anything else.

I have always felt like a complete failure as a parent and now I feel like my failure to police screen more zealously has damaged her.

During the week, not way

You're not a failure OP. Most teens are like this.

I never think of it in relation to doing activities (which my kids do a lot of). It's more about downtime. And during the week if I'm working and they've already done school and an activity I'm fairly relaxed about screen time.

However, I hide the controls to the TV, the keyboard for the desktop and all the phones and tablets and laptops in the house on a Saturday morning to facilitate this. The kids grumble but usually after about half an hour to an hour they find something to amuse themselves. My teenagers get more leeway than the 10yo (e.g. they are allowed their phone to organise meeting up with their friends that day or for homework).

I'm a childminder we don't have screens or devices as a regular thing when older children start I always hear I'm bored, it lasts about 3 days then they start playing and being creative. Children are bored because they have devices at home, ditch them and they play with the toys you threw out last year.

Sorry to spam this thread! It's just close to my heart because I've got teens at home this week.

I just wanted to add, there's screens and screens. If they're socialising or looking stuff up, doing homework or designing something on screen, to me that's different fron mindless scrolling or cookie clicker style games. A lot of life just is on screens nowadays so especially from 12 onwards, a more balanced approach is needed imo.

Yes it does

I think it’s different if you have an only child versus 2 or more children. I know some only children will occupy themselves well and some siblings will argue but it’s hard to withdraw phones when you can hear them chatting with friends ( and they would otherwise be solitary ). We have screen free Mondays which are much loathed but definitely show me that my DD11 CAN entertain herself when need be.

When I was a kid, we had the TV show "Why Don't You ...?"

[...Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead]

Same thing. Nothing new.

I leave them to be bored, and obviously that means no screens. But screen wise they only have the TV anyway - so that’s not hard to remove. We do have an ipad that me and DH use for work, and they go on that the odd hour at the weekends, but it’s not theirs, so no need to “remove” it.

not sure what’s wrong with clubs though, surely a mix of both clubs and boredom is good!

I just wanted to add, there's screens and screens. If they're socialising or looking stuff up, doing homework or designing something on screen, to me that's different fron mindless scrolling or cookie clicker style games. A lot of life just is on screens nowadays so especially from 12 onwards, a more balanced approach is needed imo.

I agree with this, but how to police it?

I agree with you OP, back in the day my mum was a big advocate of 'find something to do' and that wasn't allowed to be tv. We lived no where near any of my friends and I didn't get on with my sister at all. I had some pretty miserable summer holidays being bored and lonely.

No there isn't. They are called rules and in our house we have them. There's no tablets/computers/phone games mon - fri in our house (primary aged kids) and fixed, short slots on weekends. There's no free access to screens whatsoever and they know it. The whole point is not to allow screens as a quick fix for boredom.
Agree with this. I don't get the idea that if children aren't entertained and ferried to a million activities then your only options are screens or policing children to check they behave.

That said, I also think it starts young and it requires time to build resilience and creativity and family rhythms where it's ok to have periods of downtime and free time.

It amazes me on threads where countless parents claim they won't allow their toddlers to be a little bit bored or their young children "have" to have endless activities, or they "can't" have a cup of tea in a 10 hour day because the children will apparently cause world war 3 if a parent is in the room with them doing something other than focusing on them.

I definitely found the toddler stage more challenging than some people I know, but when mine got older it was nice to be able to read a chapter of a book whilst they play in the same room as me. I'd have found it much harder trying to introduce the downtime and self-structured play now.

Yep. We allow more screens than lots of parents I know but we are very inflexible on when they are and aren't allowed. There are passcodes on the devices for the times they're not allowed but TBH the kids don't even ask. They know the rules, they know the sanctions for breaking the rules.

I think OP is right and unless you have those sort of really clear boundaries they'll always default to screens, that's definitely what we found before we put these rules in place.

Same goes for other behaviour. They know what's acceptable and what's not. There are clear consequences for unacceptable behaviour and yeah, they still do daft things sometimes, they still bicker, they still need parenting! But TBH because they're forced to encounter situations when they're bored and have to learn how to fill the time themselves, they get better at figuring out ways to fill the time that won't get them into trouble and that will be more enjoyable for them, both individually and together.

I want to make sure they're building the skills to be able to deal with boredom without automatically reaching for the dopamine hit of a screen while they're still young. I'm sure that as we hit the teenage years I might relax the rules a bit but they're currently serving us well.