They say that memory is faulty — we rehash and make up somewhere between 20–70% according to emerging research and study — be that as it may, memory indicates I had a pretty spectacular childhood.
What stands out the most is the countless hours of outside and imaginative play shared with my younger sister on the 2.5-acres that was our romping grounds. We were fortunate indeed to have each other, a (relatively) safe outdoor space, and parents who encouraged imagination, creativity and outside play over the TV screen.
In particular, our mother repeatedly told us ‘boredom is a choice’ and this taught us to shift our perspective and use our minds to see what else we could come up with. Turns out she was on to something. Though “unstructured time” may not have been forefront in her conscious parenting vocabulary, her instincts were on point.
Attention spans are shrinking. This includes our children who are growing up in an electronics- and stimulation-saturated society. But as parents we have choices, and research shows there are significant developmental benefits to unstructured time and allowing a long enough lull in stimulation for your child to become bored.
Turns out, it is important to have gaps in activity and entertainment, rather than rushing to fill them and relying on adult-led activities or electronics.
The Value of Boredom
Socially we’ve been shaped to think of boredom as a bad thing and keeping your kids constantly entertained is conflated with being a ‘good parent.’ However, boredom is not simply a lack of activity, but a mental state that fosters creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills. It’s like having a blank canvas for the mind, rather than a color-by-numbers sheet.
When given the space with a blank canvas, children will turn to imaginative play, invent new games, explore their surroundings, and come up with their own interests, i.e. long summer afternoons of playing dress up on the deck and subjecting our cats to our antics.
Dr. Teresa Belton speaks to the connection between boredom and imagination, noting that the mental quietude of boredom is crucial to turn up the volume on the internal stimuli that support creativity and imagination.
Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips opines “It is one of the most oppressive demands of adults that the child should be interested, rather than take time to find what interests him. Boredom is integral to the process of taking one’s time.”
And child psychologist Lyn Fry says “Children need to learn how to be bored in order to motivate themselves to get things done. Being bored is a way to make children self-reliant.”
To this end, sometimes less is more — fewer toys in the playpen, simple objects over battery-powered toys or being told to rough it and “go play outside” can help inspire this type of growth opportunity.
“A child develops best when, like a young plant, he is left undisturbed in the same soil. Too much travel, too much variety of impressions, are not good for the young, and cause them as they grow up to become incapable of enduring fruitful monotony.” — Bertrand Russell, philosopher
7 Benefits of Unstructured Play
Unstructured play — that which is improvised and child-led — offers a whole host of benefits that day camps and after-school activities can’t best. So while it may be tempting to book their time, fill their summer holidays and keep them predictably busy so that you can finish your work, make dinner, clean house and all the rest, there’s an argument for resisting this temptation to champion your child’s development.
Free play, on their own or with your interaction, can help support the development of many important skills:
1.Creativity
Given the open landscape for their brains to wander, children will create images, stories, new functions, and all sorts of fun. Allowing for some mess, chaos and tolerable risk will help their creativity flow and allow for their unique self-expression.
2. Problem Solving
In free play, children will face and overcome challenges, such as where to start, what rules to play by, or how to make something work to meet their needs. This encourages problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.
3. Social Skills
Especially when engaging with other children, unstructured play offers all sorts of opportunities for developing social skills. Children will learn to navigate without scripts or adult instruction and explore teamwork, sharing, communication and making friends.
4. Emotional Development
With unstructured play, children will encounter situations that challenge them, and invite them to push themselves which builds confidence, curiosity, and courage to try new things. It’s a healthy way to support appropriate independence and to learn how to self-regulate their emotions.
5. Self-Reliance
“If parents spend all their time filling up their child’s spare time, then the child’s never going to learn to do this for themselves,” says Lyn Fry, a child psychologist with a focus on education. Having the opportunity to independently entertain themselves, children figure out how to meet their own entertainment needs and to lead and rely on themselves. This allows them to make decisions, learn by doing, and realize how to comfort and engage themselves.
6. Negotiation and Decision-Making Skills
Unstructured play can often include other children, which means teamwork and negotiation skills come into play. Learning to play effectively with others teaches communication and listening, compromising, and empathy and understanding for others. Making decisions and experiencing the cause and effect of those decisions is an important developmental benchmark, such as choosing what to do, what they like, etc.
7. Exercising Motor Function
Free play allows children to expend their abundant energy in ways that match their physical needs and allows them the opportunity for repeated motor activity — fine and gross — to practice and master new functions: coordination, balance, dexterity and more.
Actionable Tips for Parents
So how do you encourage free play in your busy, already-taxed waking hours with your children? Here are some simple ideas to try out and see what works for your family:
- Set aside dedicated ‘boredom time’ each day. Help give them a ‘blank slate’ to allow for creative play.
Provide open-ended materials like blocks, art supplies, or dress-up clothes. - Take them to nature parks or playgrounds where they can explore freely, especially if you don’t have a yard.
- Have a box full of odd things that they can make stuff out of when they get bored. You might just be encouraging the next great inventor of our time!
- Resist the urge to micromanage play or provide solutions to every problem. Let them figure things out.
- Model boredom-embracing behavior yourself. Show that it’s okay to be still and introspective, and even meditate.
- Sit down with them and together write out a list of everything they might enjoy doing. Keep this as a reference to point them to whenever they feel bored.
- Start a “Yes Day” tradition. One day a month, say yes to all their (safe!) requests, no matter how outlandish.
- Join or create a local “unstructured play” group. Connect with other parents who value imaginative play and organize playdates in parks, gardens, or even empty parking lots. The possibilities are endless!
- Reduce and limit screen time and, as tempting as it is, avoid screens and electronics as babysitters.
- Summer camps and co-curriculars are great, but don’t schedule and structure every bit of free time. Leave room for stillness and spontaneous play and exploration.
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Key Take Aways
Breaking routines and cutting back on activities can seem daunting, may give you FOMO or initially lead to increased complaints and meltdowns, but the proven benefits to your child’s development make it worth the growing pains.
Embracing boredom is giving a gift to your child and helping to cultivate and unleash their creativity, imagination, critical thinking, and other aspects of cognitive development.
Encouraging unstructured free play that is child-led and open-ended helps to equip them with important skills for living a capable, happy and well-balanced life.
Remember, the key is to spark curiosity and allow children to explore, experiment, and learn through their own self-directed play. Let them get dirty, make mistakes, take a tumble and discover the joy of using their imaginations. You might be surprised at the little geniuses they become!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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