No Screen Time + Boredom = Creativity
boredom comes from cheap entertainment.
Boredom is cheap, so is some entertainment. Children need active play time. This only happens when we push them to stretch their wings and fly. Children do not stretch their wings when they are coddled and provided with cheap entertainment.
What’s cheap entertainment? Anything that causes no work for the child, no imagination, and no push from the parent. Television, scrolling through your phone, and watching movies hours on end = cheap entertainment.
Boredom is a great catalyst
It is not the responsibility of the parent to provide entertainment for the child. Nor is it their responsibility to provide things and gadgets to keep the kiddos occupied and out of their hair. That’s part of being a child – and learning to entertain oneself.
Granted, toys and things to do help stimulate a child to find his own entertainment. By all means, provide them with things that send them outdoors (weather permitting) to play.
A bored child can become a happy child
A bored child will find things to do when he is allowed to use his mind to pretend in play. He will be more likely to pretend and be creative if he is allowed to make a mess in his play. In addition, he will find things to do when he’s encouraged to use his mind and create his own action, instead of watching others act on a screen.
Yet, when a child is bored, remember that is really his problem, not yours. If he can’t figure out what to do, it is guaranteed he’ll find something if you promise chores in the house to dispel boredom. [That always worked for my kids when I held firm, and they were just like yours.]
Kids are happiest when they create their own fun and pleasure. Really. Coming up with their own design can keep them motivated for hours. I remember the day our boys and their cousins spent hours damming up a creek on the neighbor’s property to make a swimming hole. They used Dave’s discarded PVC pipes to channel the water. Never mind they never got around to swimming that day! Fresh air, exercise, and calculating minds kept them busy the entire afternoon.
The real versus artificial
I call screen time, excessive toys, and endless couch surfing artificial. While it might entertain the child, it does not stimulate his mind or his imagination. This type of entertainment also leaves a child restless and bored, often begging for something to do when he’s lost that privilege.
Our children’s play should be authentic – full of activity, thinking, and working out solutions. This type of play creates a happy child instead of a bored one.
It also prepares him for life: getting along with others, problem solving, play-acting real-life situations, and figuring things out on his own. After all, isn’t that what we want for our kids? We need to start when they’re young.
It works
Call us old-fashioned, but we’d do it the same today. Our home had no television and for many years, we didn’t own a VCR. Our kids played outside because they didn’t want to be corralled into cleaning toilets or mopping floors. The half-dozen we raised were as normal as any other kids. One neighbor boy told his mom he loved to go to the Slabach’s house “because it is so much fun to play with their kids.” We didn’t have a lot of fancy toys or gimmicks – although there was a treehouse with a slide and a sandbox in the back yard. Nor did we own a TV or even a VCR at that point. There’s a reason kids liked to play at our house: our kids had to develop their own fun.
It works – but you, the parent, need to engage in this mindset and allow your child to be bored. It’s the only way he will develop creativity.
Photo credits: pixabay.com
