‘I’m bored’: Let the kids deal with it

Long road trips. Longer plane rides.

Quiet afternoons on a hot summer day.

Camping without all your toys.

Jen Parkes’ kids are used to long car trips because of her job as a travel photographer.

Jen Parkes

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Promoting boredom has become a thing among some millennial parents who long for the sentimental days before smartphones and social media could fill any downtime with doom scrolling. But boredom was also once seen as a huge negative. Teenagers got into trouble – drugs, anti-social behaviour – because they were bored was the old adage that has some truth to it.

So what is the right amount of boredom for a kid?

“I think the main thing from my view is… it’s about having balance,” says Nicole Lovegrove, an educational psychologist based in Rotorua. “A bit of boredom is good, and it can be an opportunity to spark that creativity and curiosity.”

Depending on your child’s age, parents can offer various levels of support to help their child make the most out of a boring moment, Lovegrove adds.

Nicole Lovegrove, an educational psychologist based in Rotorua.

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Play is protected by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and a key trigger for play is being bored, says Shyrel Burt, the chair of Play Aotearoa, an organisation dedicated to the importance of play.

“It’s such a fundamental part of brain development, boredom, and for children to kind of be creative and be independent…”

Why is boredom good for kids (and adults)?

Boredom gives our brain the space to process our learning, according to Zhenlin Wang, an associate professor of early learning at Massey University.

“Going out for a walk is really good for your learning, because when you are doing that, your brain has the space and time to process the information previously acquired and consolidate it into long-term memory.

“And sometimes insights or the ‘aha’ moments come with being bored, right?”

That’s why if you’re stuck on a problem, do a low-key activity that frees up your brain, like taking a shower or going for a walk to help generate that light bulb moment, Wang adds.

“I think in the discussion about children’s boredom, a lot of times parents are worried about, you know, ‘I’m not scheduling enough activities or events during the school holidays, during weekends for my children.’

“That is not necessary, actually. You can, you know, feel a little bit better if you give your child time to rest and be bored.”

How can it be bad for us?

There’s boredom and then there is trait boredom, the latter being related to a personality type, according to Wang. Trait boredom is associated with some people who experience boredom more than others or don’t have the coping skills to tolerate it. Research links trait boredom to poor mental health and behavioural issues such as substance abuse.

“While state boredom might be beneficial in certain circumstances, trait boredom does not benefit children and needs to be addressed. Trait boredom intervention is a relatively new research area.

“We know children and youth with ADHD tend to have higher levels of trait boredom.”

Wang also points to the extreme end of the scale, research that showed the ongoing impact of children who lived in Romanian orphanages at the end of the Cold War. Research showed how a void of human interaction and stimulation led to abnormal development in the circuitry areas in the brain, impacting a child’s ability to bond with other people, among other struggles.

How to help your kids handle boredom?

It takes practice

Jen Parkes is a travel photographer who often brings her three kids, aged seven, 10, and 13, along for the ride. That means she – and kids – have a lot of experience with boredom, such as waiting in airports and long road trips. It has given them time to work on strengthening their boredom-handling abilities, she says.

Jen Parkes, travel photographer, often brings her three kids, aged seven, 10 and 13, along for the ride.

Jen Parkes

“I think the kids have to get used to being bored and looking out the window and being happy in their own thoughts or actually just having a conversation.”

On a recent trip, the kids asked how mortgages and business work, and there was ample time to chat about interest rates and payroll.

Limit devices

Easier said than done. When Parkes is bringing her lot on a long road trip, her general rule is no devices, including podcasts, until the last third of the drive.

“Podcasts are a cool thing to chill out, at least they don’t have a device in front of them, but [it is about] just being in their own little thoughts.”

“…they need to learn how to fight and get through some of those things without us interfering.”

Wang has a 13-year-old, and the family has spent years developing health habits around screen use. When it’s the school holidays, she makes sure her child spends time outside every day and away from technology.

Unschedule

Between screen time, afterschool activities, and homework, kids’ schedules are packed – too packed, says Burt.

Shyrel Burt, the chair of Play Aotearoa, an organisation dedicated to the importance of play.

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“You can think of any sport or activity, and children have very structured lives with lots of scheduled activities, and it’s maybe about dialling back those activities, maybe not as much…

“If you provide them with the time and space to play, they will use that space.”

Wanaka-based counsellor Meg Bryant from MindSense says many families find it hard to sit with the discomfort of downtime — especially when kids are involved.

Bryant points to the work of Dan Siegel, Professor Emeritus of psychiatry at UCLA, who believes our obsession with being busy has made us uncomfortable with simply being.

“If you have nothing to do, that’s great, because that’s how you go into your internal world and think about what you might imagine or make believe and what you might do creatively.

“So, when our brain is in the safe mode, we can access parts of our brain that are in our frontal lobes and our creative areas around who we really are.”

Parents as role models

Parents need to model how to be bored even if it means cutting activities or forgoing a chore, says Lovegrove, the educational psychologist.

“We don’t really have time for boredom, but I think it’s important for children to see, sit down, relax, do nothing, or be playful with [our kids], connect with them, come up with some random out-of-the-box activity together as a way of connecting as well.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand