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 work in a year 2 class and over half of them have their own iPad/tablet/phone or two of them. I think it's a bit eurgh that children don't have the opportunity to be bored

I agree BUT I can also remember being a 'bored kid' in the early 70s and expressing this in chalk writing "Boredom" a few times on the house.

Yes, I was severely told off and listened to how my mum used to spend her time building little dams in streams, etc, etc, ....and so somethings are a constant...and not to be too muchly worried about.

I like little streams and I haven't chalked my feelings on walls since, so no worries really. Although these things are always subject to change.

Who is “we”? I’m not, thanks very much.

My DD has plenty of time where she is expected to entertain herself or be in the company of adults and not the centre of things.

We do lots of child focused activities and I do play with her of course, but not continuously.

This weekend for example had zero activities (after 2 busy Christmas related weeks that were all about her), I spent most of the weekend doing chores and DD (6) found her own entertainment- partly playing outside with a neighbour but mostly inside on her own. She has been fine. Normally days are a bit more balanced than that but I’ve been ill all week and had so much to catch up on and I wasn’t well enough to take her out for a walk or a swim or a normal weekend physical activity or play date. It’s very useful that she can cope with a “boring weekend” with no drama.

I absolutely refuse to be that person who has to schedule every hour from 7-7 for their little princess. I also haven’t given DD any devices yet, so apart from TV she’s screen free and it shows.

Speak for yourself. There's no "we are all" in this.

Fuck sake the OP is clearly speaking in general terms.

Something which really annoys me is how so many MNers read a post and immediately think it is about them personally!!

Something which really annoys me is how so many MNers read a post and immediately think it is about them personally!!

I find it really annoying when a poster sees something in their lives & extrapolates it to the rest of the population.

It’s not just time-I am gobsmacked how much expense some parents must have on all these paid activities, especially with multiple kids.

Saw Thomas the Tank Engine - the new one, a little while ago it's like cartoon on steroids, not a moments peace for the ears or eyes.

Well it was boring being a kid in the 70s and 80s. I was a bookworm so probably would have been happy with a kindle most of the time but rather than hate screens, I think its great that we can now just watch what we want, when we want and look anything up. I love tv and the Internet and see it as progress.

In the "olden days" (1940s/1950s) children were expected to fit into their parents routine and schedule. Babies were fed, burped, washed and changed at specific times and then put down to sleep. If they cried they were left to cry. Older kids were shooed out of the house to play in the street with their friends and told to come back for tea. They were put to bed at a specific time and that was that.

As a result we made out own entertainment, devised our own games and rules. When there were no companions near we played quietly with our toys, or drew and painted. In all my life I can never recall my parents "playing" with me or doing anything specifically to amuse me. They took us on days out to the seaside and on holidays but again, we mostly amused ourselves. We collected rock and stones and shells. We made sand castles. The idea of parents playing with their children would have been considered odd or eccentric way back then.

It was an adult centered world.

in general id say the human brain is not built to be bored

Really interesting to read this thread. Agree that kids these days are constantly entertained and are given fewer opportunities to entertain themselves. Screens are so good at keeping kids quiet and providing respite for parents that it's very easy to just let them have them. But at what cost? I think it's taking away self regulation and creating anxious and stressed out kids.
My DH definitely takes the easy road and lets kids have far too much screen time, he's usually on his phone too!
When I've taken screens off the kids I've found they will make up their own games. They just need the chance.

I do regularly find myself wishing for a wifi outage.

This is interesting... Certainly in my childhood in the 90s we spent most weekends at home playing without much input from my parents but I must admit I'm guilty of taking my kids out most weekends (3yo and baby). I'm trying to lean in more to the quiet days but it's hard when you live in a small flat with two kids - when we were little my parents had a 4 bed house so we had a bedroom each and a dedicated playroom, whereas I can only dream of affording something like this today! Saying that, my outings tend to be playgroups, the park, the library, swimming, a garden centre, a cafe, etc. We only do soft play or museums a few times a year and bigger outings tend to be when DH and I are on leave. I'm hoping as the children grow up they'll play for longer independently - 3yo is gradually improving in this regard!

@Mischance Precisely about children's TV: full of hype and stimulation. In fact, you could say the same about TV in general, which is one reason of many I hardly watch TV at all now. You used to get a moment of quiet while the credits rolled at the end; but now, it's straight into hyping up the next programme, in the usual "hysterical TV voice". And that any TV programme, from a comedy to a "serious" documentary, will be full of very rapid cuts from one scene to another, with no shot lasting more than a few seconds. It reflects people's attention spans.

You can see it in the way people make Youtube videos: the popular ones always begin with "Hey Guys!!!!" (usually said by several people in unison), the fast way of talking, even when explaining something, the constantly changing background shots.

The "screens are bad for children" thing is nothing new: in the 70s and 80s, television used to have a bad press for entertaining children. Although Roald Dahl is generally disliked on Mumsnet, perhaps he was right when the Oompa-Loompas sing about what television does to children:
It rots the senses in the head!
It kills imagination dead!
The brain becomes as soft as cheese!
His powers of thinking rust and freeze!
He cannot think! He only sees!
"All right!" you'll cry, "all right!" you'll say.
"But if we take the set away,
what shall we do to entertain
our darling children? Please explain!"
It then goes on to say how children used to read books before television was invented, and we should go back to those times.
Fill the shelves with lots of books
Ignoring all the dirty looks
The screams, the yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks.

And that's another point: those Oompa-Loompa rhymes took up several pages each. Do children (or even adults) nowadays have the stamina to read them through? I remember hesitating to read them.

It's swings and roundabouts. I was definitely left to my own devices a lot as a child and remember being left in the car on my own for what felt like hours while my dad chatted to a friend in a shop/garage. And we didn't do much at weekends, my parents got on with the jobs they had to do while my brother & I and other local kids entertained ourselves out and about.

Parents are more involved & interested in their children's lives now which is a good thing. Spending time as a family and going out on trips at weekends is also a good thing.
I don't think the hands off parenting of the past was necessarily brilliant. I suppose the ideal is a bit of both.

With my own kids I probably tried to avoid them feeling "in the way" like I often felt as a child & I probably over-entertained them but they are able to entertain themselves now they are almost adults.

I think its great that we can now just watch what we want, when we want and look anything up. I love tv and the Internet and see it as progress.

Same and imo it is more about what you consume rather than how much.

When I was growing up, I read books, watched tv, and played outside. I would watch a mix of cartoons, mysteries, and documentaries about history, animals, human anatomy, other parts of the world, cultures, etc. It nurtured my love of learning and then when the internet came in that only allowed it to grow more and inspire more learning but also independence. It grew into learning how to do things myself that those around me could not or didn’t have the time to teach me. I’ve learned more from the internet than I have my parents and saved money by doing so. Also, seeing different parts of the world made me want to see them for myself and I eventually did and it inspired other people in my family to do so.

I’m not a no screen person but I do limit and monitor what my children are watching and also stress and explain the difference between pretend and reality. We also look things up together for kids’ homework to add to what they’re learning in school.

The screen is usually a last resort for toddler after I’ve exhausted everything except in the mornings when my toddler wakes up at 6:30 am and I’ve been woken up at least twice before then and need it to distract her from going into her brothers’ room if they’ve not woken up yet or to stop her from trying to get in the middle of them changing because she grabs their clothes and runs off with them.

My middle has said he is bored, but make a suggestion and he’ll run off usually and try that or remember there is something he does want to do. He is on the list for assessment.

I find it really annoying when people are unable to accept that others can see patterns in society. Its not a new take is it?

A lot of people going on about wanting to do better than the previous generation but maybe I'm idealising my childhood but I was brought up in the 90s and I can't think of anything I would have wanted my parents to have done differently and I'd like it to be the same for my kids.

We were always out at a weekend but it was to things like swimming, the park, a forest walk or to friends houses. My parents had friends over in an evening or we went to their house. All the kids were just left to get on with it and play together while the adults socialised. There was no constant supervision or fretting about bed times or routines being missed for one evening. I played with kids in the street (which I see kids do in our street). My parents certainly never entertained me and I would have been told where to go had I followed them to the toilet or from room to room saying I was bored!

I watched an interesting video this morning about how there is really little access for teenagers to do anything recreationally in our society and it rang true - it's something I've been talking about since I was a teenager as there was little for us to do even then, 30 years ago, so things were fairly home-based and probably one of the reasons I read so much. Generally speaking, just in case anyone thinks I'm talking to it about them in particular, hobbies and interests cost money, but also by the time you're a teenager you have to have reached a certain level of expertise to be able to continue. The video mentioned how children can play in group settings and grown men can play in pub leagues but teenagers just don't really have those kinds of things. Thinking about my daughter's main activity, it's quite expensive and very geared around competition - there are very few opportunities to do it in a group setting recreationally. A lot of children drop out by 12/13 and that's probably a big reason why - if you're not hitting a certain level and attending competitions, there's really not a space for you and you will ultimately age out. So there's a bit of a disconnect throughout the teenage years and maybe it's not a surprise they don't necessarily pick things up in early adulthood that they've been squeezed out of through their teenage years.

Maybe that's one of the reasons the gym seems to be increasingly popular among teenagers - you can go with your friends, it's often subsidised for your age group, and it just fills what is ultimately a huge gap in how teenagers are facilitated in public life. They're even treated as pariahs for sitting in a park - I asked for benches in my local small one (for parents to sit on while there with their kids) and they said no, for reason of anti-social behaviour that hadn't even happened. I mean the teenagers are sitting on the swings because there's nowhere else for them to sit - god forbid the council provides seating and leaves the swings for the little kids.

I was an only child, widowed mother who worked full-time (shifts). She was a wonderful loving mother but I don't remember her ever PLAYING with me. My Nan lived with us and she would tell me wonderful stories out of her own head.

Mostly tho I entertained myself:

read voraciously (early reader taught by mother, pointing at words as she read aloud)
climbed trees in the garden
picked out simple tunes on our old piano, sadly this was sold before I became a Kanneh-Mason, although I could do a good Old Macdonald by the time it left us
Played games with myself (I had a toy roulette wheel which amused me a great deal, I even worked out a foolproof system to 'always win in the end' - turned out to be a well known, and completely discredited, idea😝
Used my Spirograph a LOT
Loved Lego, but it was expensive so had to invent my own designs mostly from a big box of bricks, rather than kits with blueprints
Lined up my Matchbox cars (spend my pocket-money on these, I think they were 2 shillings each)

After 10 or so I had a great friend who lived nearby and we amused one another, often out of the house.

I am making a huge, concerted effort NOT to buy my little grandson too many toys (have failed a bit, of course😔) but a truck full of bricks, a playpen with balls in it, baby board books, a Little Tikes rocker, a frame he climbs up, and a baby 'bike' (with help) have all been hits. I did buy a couple of V-Tech things with sounds and lights, but these don't keep his attention half as long as the simple wooden bricks.

I've also given him a basket of 'safe crap' from the kitchen for him to explore and think about while sitting beside him on the floor in case he wants to show me something. I seldom interfere if he's content.

I'm not daft, I know this will change!. (He is already showing an alarming interest in our phones and will always dive for one if he spots someone holding one!) but I'd love him to be resilient in finding his own amusement and entertainment in things!

DC 10 is getting better at entertaining herself after years of hearing me say “I’m not the entertainment staff!” Followed immediately by offering to allow her to clean something 🤣 I have had to loosen up a bit myself to allow this to happen though, I hate messy activities with a passion but she loves them and will craft/bake/paint independently for hours - I was part of the problem by not allowing these activities very often because all I could see was the clean up!
I’ve also eased up on ‘screens are evil’ and allowed apps that teach drawing techniques for example, she also makes mini ‘movies’ by recording acting out scenes with her toys. I’m trying to reframe screens as tools for creation and learning rather than entertainment in their own right.

Not me

What sorts of things do they get upto?

If my children tell me they are bored I just say “it’s okay to be bored” and then suggest they maybe help me with housework 😆.
A lot of parents seem to not actually like their children that much - they’d rather their children are on devices when out for dinner, or stuck in a queue, rather than using it as an opportunity to chat or play I Spy or 20 questions etc. Would rather constant activities. I feel sorry for a lot of kids.