Boredomtunity: The Summer of No TV, or How Boredom Leads to Creativity Part 2

I walked into the dark room and was almost hit by a multicolored LED bouncy ball. My son had named this ball on a string Sir Barks-a-lot and claimed it was his pet dog. Now he said, “Mom, you’re ruining the experience.” I had brought the light of the open door. But my other son ran over to hug me goodbye before I left for work. Then they declared in unison, “Mom, you’ve got to go. The room needs to be dark.” As I closed the door I heard them discussing what sounded like a very elaborate play scenario.

Yet only 30 minutes before they had been aggressively whining about being bored and begging for their tablets.

What is boredom anyway?

Boredom can be defined as “the aversive experience of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity.” [Eastwood et al., “The Unengaged Mind” (Perspectives on Psychological Science, Sept. 2012)]

You know it: the restless feeling you get waiting in line that makes you reach for your phone...before you consciously realize you did it. Then you feel that dissatisfaction when you scroll through your phone and what’s on there wasn’t actually interesting after all.

Jude Stewart does a great job of breaking it down in her piece for The Atlantic. There are studies showing the negatives of boredom: bored people may snack mindlessly, drive poorly, or engage in risky behaviors. Many of us hate boredom more than physical pain.

But there are intriguing positives to boredom: “By encouraging contemplation and daydreaming, it can spur creativity,” writes Stewart. In a couple of different studies people who were bored before being given a creative task did better on the task.

Photo by Hunter Johnson on Unsplash

Is boredom good for kids?

It depends on what happens when they are bored. Do they plug in? Then no. Or does it spur them to creative play? Then yes. Do they get frustrated and have to figure it out? Then also, yes.

Creating a Boredomtunity.

One idea is having enough things in the environment that they can find an outlet. Some parents bring art supplies or homework to my office so they are prepared if they have a wait. One of my favorite things is to walk into an exam room and find that the kids have drawn all over the disposable exam table paper. Or even better, finding a rousing family game of hang man in progress.

The truth is that kids usually do find a way to manage boredom themselves. In past generations kids did not have that many toys, but they made up games with sticks. They dug for worms. They also had more chores to occupy them. The difference was that parents then believed that kids were responsible for managing themselves, but now we seem to believe that parents are responsible for managing kids.

Let’s go back to the doctors office: kids have lots of creative ways to deal with boredom if they are not plugged in. They sing to themselves, get a parent to read them a book, spin in circles, climb on the exam table, or annoy their parent. Yes. Creating mischief is a way to deal with boredom.

Making Space for Boredom

Sometimes we have to make space in our kids busy lives to allow them to experience boredom. If they are too scheduled or too plugged in to their screens to stare at the wall, they are too busy to experience creativity.

We need to let them know that it’s their responsibility to find something “constructive” to do. Did you ever hear that one growing up? If we let them believe that it is our job to entertain them constantly then they will bug us until we give them a tablet or a snack to get them to be quiet.

We take responsibility for their entertainment in little ways all the time, without realizing it. When we were growing up children who interrupted their mothers got a raised finger or the “look of death.” I rarely see that now. Instead we make sounds of annoyance or hand them something to entertain them. I do this too. We also tend to confuse our kids’ boredom or frustration with the kind of emotions that really need tending. We need to learn to differentiate genuine emotional need from boredomtunities; if our kid doesn’t need help with emotional regulation like anger or sadness, we can give them their boredom and let them own it. I suspect they’ll come up with something interesting.

How my mother created Boredomtunities: Back to the Summer of No TV.

If you read Part 1, you know that my brothers and I didn’t think she meant it when she said she was unplugging the TV for the summer. But after a lot of frustration and boredom we became more inventive, and we had adventures like our dragon hunt.

What I remember most vividly about the week we wrote the play was the heat and hot sticky feeling. Usually in the mornings we had swim lessons, but then there was nothing to do in the heat of the day. We would always go to the community pool in the evening so my mom could swim laps and we could go at the best time for sunburn avoidance. It was a great way to cool off before bed.

We had a screened in porch on the side of the house and we sat around the table in shorts, sticking to the chairs, and expressed our irritation and boredom. My brothers and I were pretty miserable. We knew better than to bug our mom about it. So we just sat out there. It was too hot to go outside or move and we were hoping not to annoy mom because then she might send us outside.

My younger brother thought of it. When I heard his idea I ran to find a pen and notebook, while our youngest brother celebrated. Before our mother had turned off the TV for the summer, we had watched a VHS from the library. It was full of Ernie and Bert skits from Sesame Street, and that was when we had realized how hilarious Ernie and Bert really were. “Those aren’t for little kids, they’re really funny.” My brother had wondered if we could do something like that.

It was the best kind of creative collaboration. We threw out ideas, we argued, we put it together. I think we might’ve spent 4-5 straight hours on the porch working on our play. I wrote it all down and crossed things out. After a few days we created the final draft. Then we began rehearsals. And sure, the whole process from writing to rehearsing involved lots of bickering. But it also involved lots of fun.

When we finally put on the show for our parents the feeling of satisfaction was wonderful. And we talked about that play for years. We even did that sort of thing a few more times over the years.

What I remember most is the laughter. How much we laughed and how much we had fun together. I remember the feeling of connection with my brothers, as we put our brains together to do this totally unnecessary project.

What will your child do with their Boredomtunity?

I always remember stories of my uncles and stuff they used to do. One of them was really into model trains. The other one was constantly building with erector sets. My dad used to organize the kids in his neighborhood to play outside. Creativity doesn’t have to be artistic. It’s just doing something interesting. Finding a way to transform boredom into something.

Boredom Leads to Creativity

We hear so much these days about how the push to drill kids so they do well on standardized test has suppressed a lot of the ways our schools used to foster creativity. And there’s something to that. But our schools are also working hard to create interesting projects and maker spaces.

What’s funny to me is that while I do remember my schools giving us creative writing assignments and interesting projects, the biggest way I recall them fostering creativity in the elementary schools was having a lengthy recess. It seems that one of the best ways to get our kids to use their boredom creatively is to throw a bunch of kids together without any adults hovering. We got bored during recess, and then we organized games. Play dates can be a great way to give your kids these moments.

When Your Kids Get Used to Boredom

When I got serious about deliberately creating boredomtunities for my kids, it was hard. They were really annoying about it; constantly begging me for their iPads and being generally disruptive. Slowly, as they began to realize mom really meant it about the limits on screen time, they started to find ways to entertain themselves.

It has definitely strengthened their friendship with each other, which was not necessarily what I expected. I knew it would lead to more bickering between them, but it turned out it has actually reduced their bickering. They are very different in personalities and interests, yet being thrown together without their screens forced them to work together to solve their boredom problem. They have developed greater friendship and harmony with each other. I just wanted to give them a chance for more creativity, but they ended up developing conflict resolution skills. It’s super cute to hear them negotiating solutions when they bicker. (Again, parents of 2 and 3 year olds, it’s going to get better. But you can begin to hold this attitude with them now, at least a little bit.)

Yes, my kids get screen time. Yes, I give them fun toys and games. What has changed is that I have gone retro and made it clear that they are responsible to solve their own boredom.

I would love it if you left a comment with a time you dealt with a boredomtunity as a parent. Did you miss The Summer of No TV, part 1? Interested in more? Subscribe Here.

Disclaimer: This article represents general education and does not constitute medical advice. My ideas are mine alone.