To think we’re raising kids terrified of boredom?

[BoredomIsHealthy]

Kids seem unable to sit with boredom - everything must be entertaining, instant, stimulating.

AIBU to think boredom builds resilience and creativity, and we’re avoiding it?

I think it's the adults who are terrified of boredom and so we raise kids who have never experienced it. They're either being actively entertained or babysat by a screen.

I agree that boredom and the resulting ability to entertain yourself is crucial for resilience, creativity and general development.

I totally agree with you. Lots of kids now don’t seem to know how just to be at home without screens. They always want to be watching tv or if they do go out, they expect to do an expensive child centred activity. Their parents could never tolerate being at home with their babies and toddlers so went out all of the time and it’s just extended as they’ve got older. Then the kids just come to expect constant entertainment and stimulation and why wouldn’t they- they don’t know any different.

Then they can’t cope with normal things like grocery shopping because they aren’t interesting enough, which is why you see kids on screens all the time in shops and restaurants.

One of my friends has a child who struggles with school a lot, and IMO part of the problem is she is taken on constant holidays (literally every single school holiday involves going somewhere), and in the rare times they’re not on holiday they are out doing an activity. They are never just at home. It’s not real life tbh and it’s actually quite disruptive. Of course school is dull in comparison.

Mine isn’t like that. They are very content at having time at home too and entertaining themselves.

Thanks for this. I always get in a cycle of thinking "why cant my child be happy entertaining themselves" when we are at home but this has given me food for thought. I think you have hit the nail on the head. I was always going out with my baby/toddler because staying in seemed like torture. Any tips for struggling with boredom as an adult ? I would love to change

I completely agree. I was recently in hospital and there was constant phone noise, music, tictocs, chatting from wake up to lights out. It nearly drove me demented.

I had this conversation with a friend recently. She was stressed about keeping her son constantly entertained during the Christmas break. I told her children need to learn how to entertain themselves and it's not the end of the world if hes bored sometimes.

I dont think the kids are the problem, it's the parents. I grew up in the 80's and 90's and our parents never entertained us. We were left to our own devices.

Its not just screens in themselves, it's the pressure on parents - mainly mothers - to have eyes on their children every minute of every day and provide them with endless entertaining activities if you're not interacting with them every single second. We also have absolutely no tolerance in society for bored children entertaining themselves by doing child like things in public space.

I'm a childminder and have noticed a massive change in how children play over the last few years.
They lack creativity, imagination and motivation. They mooch about, not knowing what to do with themselves. I provide interesting, engaging activities and interact with them part of the time- I ask questions such as " how can you make that bigger?" or " what can you add to that?" etc and they look at me like I've got 2 heads .And here's why......
When they're with their family they're constantly kept busy with day trips to farms, zoo's, soft play, pottery painting, theme parks, farms, playdates.......and then when they're at home,it's tablets or TV. They don't have to think what to do , it's done for them. So they struggle in childcare and get bored because they don't have to use their imagination at home so don't know how to use it elsewhere. Just the other day,I got a big box of bricks out and literally said to the children ( aged 20 months, 2.5 and 3.5 ) "see what you can do with those". All 3 of them just sat in the floor,banging two bricks together...

It's nice that parents want their children to experience different things and environments, but sometimes they just need to be left to their own devices and just 'be'

I was just going to post this exact comment.

Parents seem to need to fill all their children's spare time with activities.

Same, but only after and because I made a conscious decision to allow her to be bored and find ways to occupy herself once I realised what was happening. It wasn't exactly easy at first and there were a lot of huffs and complaining about being bored but I just made sure there were things she could potter around with. She spent a good hour playing with post-it notes yesterday which is exactly the kind of thing I would have done at her age. Children aren't different, our attitudes to them is - and we're often mistaken in thinking that automatically means better.

My mum made sure we were up and about doing things - Saturday jobs, paper rounds etc. To the extent that when I had my first baby in hospital, I got up, made my bed and got dressed in the morning 😂 This isn’t a sob story, but it made me think - I DID go into a creative profession, but very fast-moving and stressful. There was no way they’d entertain anything like fine art. Now I’m nearly 60, find it hard to relax, I have trouble with any hobby which doesn’t fit into a specific amount of time - so I could do dressmaking but not painting. I am a weird mix of a lot of patience, but needing to get to a certain stage in a given time - years of deadlines I suppose. I’ve never really thought about all of this together before!

Exactly this! Even with my 10 month old I feel like I have to bring toys out even to go to church or the supermarket. I'd actually rather let him explore with my supervision, use his voice or hand him objects from the shop

Edit: also I keep reading about parents constantly on their phones and start worrying if I'm not talking to him because I'm concentrating on some other task that that's holding him back - quite ridiculous isn't it

I’m always reminded of a rather magnificent former colleague of mine on the phone to her daughter. “Juliet - you are nine years old. Nobody of nine years old can possibly be bored in this world. Go and read one of the many books in the house.”

There’s more than a grain of truth in that - so much interesting stuff about for all ages if we are prepared to invest a bit of time and effort to find out about it. And not a bad skill for kids to learn in itself.

This rang true for me today. It's a rare day where nobody is working and we have no plans.
My first thought was...ooh..let's look online and book something, some Xmas activity, zoo, cinema, "winter wonderland" Xmas markets etc...

Nobody genuinely wanted to go anywhere it's just a feeling of we "should" be doing something fun. Also money is low due to ridiculous costs of December!

So we do nothing..

In reality there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing nothing!

(In the end, the kids are upstairs playing together and I'm chilling on netmums!! Lovely stuff)

I agree we constantly feel the need to entertain our kids and it probably does them no good in the long run. A lot of it is seeing what others are up to on social media/watsapp. (This is ultimately what made me feel like booking something today!)

As a child, I remember so many Sundays at home where we didn't go anywhere and my parents didn't plan anything. I was expected to entertain myself - with books, toys, games, puzzles, colouring - and I was an only child, so no siblings involved.

My parents might have played the odd board game or done some baking with me for an hour or so, but otherwise I was left to my own devices.

I read threads on here from parents who seem to fill every single second of time with "stuff" - baking, activities, sports, shopping, films, the cinema, meals, "games nights", trips - it all sounds absolutely exhausting!

Agree with this.

You even see it on here where there is always some OP starting a thread, moaning about parents (always a mum being on her phone ) and judging them on a snapshot of their day as if the mum hadn’t possibly communicated with their child before that.

Many mums are on their phones because about everything to keep things running is on the phone.

Plus, young children can also want some quiet time and don’t need to be constantly engaged.

Can state for a fact my parents were nowhere near as engaged as I am with mine nor were they expected to when they were raising children.

I think one of the big changes is that parents were not expected to have to entertain their dc or supervise them all the time. I played out with neighbours for much of my childhood which prevented boredom, fostered creativity & gave our parents a break. This doesn’t really happen now days.

@usedtobeaylis exactly

I was a child in the 60s/70s and I don't remember my parents entertaining us all the time. Maybe when we were on holiday but even then it would probably be going to the beach in all weathers.

I remember spending a lot of my time reading, cutting up Mum's old Littlewoods catalogues and making up stories about the figures.

We did have days out, we might go for a picnic to the river and play or occasionally to a museum. These were not all the time though. I also remember my Mum taking us to the supermarket and leaving me to look after my brother and sister in the cafe while she did the shopping.

I feel my age more and more when I'm on Mumsnet these days.

Totally agree - my parents never played with me. If I had a game, I found another kid to play it with. There are people on here who actively denounce mums - and of course it's mums - if they're not hovering around their child with arms under them at a park or softplay, despite the fact children are perfectly capable of playing alone and with other children. So that judgement is always there. So maybe it's not just an intolerance of children being children, but a real intolerance of the perception of parents - mums - having any time not exclusively focused on their children.

Exactly the same when I was a child too. As an 80s kids I find it bizarre how some parents now think they have to have a whole schedule of entertainment for the kids.

So that judgement is always there. So maybe it's not just an intolerance of children being children, but a real intolerance of the perception of parents - mums - having any time not exclusively focused on their children

This, whenever something happens to a dc some of the responses will be “why weren’t you watching him”, etc.

I also remember my Mum taking us to the supermarket and leaving me to look after my brother and sister in the cafe while she did the shopping

Can you imagine a thread where a parent suggests this now?

You’re so right op, I think if I set my kids a task to stand somewhere and wait/ count to 1000 etc etc they’d fall apart. Even getting them to not put on earphones in the car is a huge challenge!!

Honestly I’m afraid of boredom! I often look back at past generations in horror and think what did people DO?! (I don’t mean in living history, more the bit slightly before!)