Boredom - Friend or Foe

 

Boredom – Friend or Foe? 

When was the last time you heard your child telling that she is getting bored and you allowed her to remain in that state and experience it the way she/he experiences other emotional states. While raising my children I encountered many parents who enrolled their children in too many extracurricular activities, to keep them busy and to avoid the one existential question “I am getting bored, what should I do now?” Children getting bored is seen as the most evil thing and leads to the conclusion that your parenting is not up to the mark if you can't keep your children engaged in some activity. This often poses a challenge to parents - how to handle this situation?. I had a similar perception till in a discussion with my supervisor I heard him saying that boredom always conveys something, try understanding it. It may be worth it to experience it. It’s the way we see which makes it negative. This roused my curiosity and I started reading studies and researches done towards understanding the role of “boredom” in a child’s life. I found very little but based on whatever readings I could get and on my own experiences, I am including  in this article. 

Boredom- meaning & significance:It is a state of transition between something which has happened and something which is about to happen without knowing what that actually is. It is a state in which a person continues exploring the environment without knowing what is desirable until something catches his/her attention. The environment is suggesting cues and not imposing. It is giving liberty to the person to hold her/his interest till she/he finds an object or activity which satisfies her/his desire. In the absence of any forceful stimulation, this state gives chance to the person to turn her/his focus inward and experience the self as an object of attention or desire. It helps the person to meet the self by discovering personal likes or dislikes, without being bothered about what others will think about her/him. It is an aversive state which makes the person aware of the ways she/he wants to engage with the environment. It is analogous to pain. The manner in which pain tells us the actions to be taken or not to avoid its experience, boredom tells us the way a child is connecting or wants to connect with the surroundings in a desired manner.

Boredom is a state, just like any other state of emotion. It will continue coming and going instead of being constantly there. Therefore, avoidance may be temporary or for a longer duration but it will not be forever because every time a task will be mastered, there will be a search for new tasks, to be mastered. 

It may be expressed by getting irritated, restlessness, throwing tantrums, sometimes being aggressive, disinterest in the tasks at hand etc., an overall feeling of missing something – a void.These are some of the feelings which I experience or which I observed in my children. 

Think about your experiences of boredom and how do you express it?

What does boredom do:  Usually  the child’s boredom is often seen as incapacity, it is hardly seen as an opportunity. It conveys that the child is ready for self-discovery, to focus inside and see how to fill this emptiness, in her/his own ways. It is a set situation where the child has, either an  absence of opportunities for engagement or presence of many too many opportunities, waiting for one of them to catch the child's attention. There is an absence of opportunities for self-expression. It’s like a child sitting in a garden without being involved in any activity, waiting for a butterfly to catch its attention. The moment the butterfly catches its attention, self-expression takes place and the child becomes aware of what she/he desired, independent of other influences. It is important to provide the space to the child for complete experience of this state, by allowing the environment to suggest things without imposing, without preventing it by forceful fulfilment of child’s desire (without letting him/her discover what does he/she actually desires) and put a stop to distractions by continuous stimulations. It represents a child's desire of independent exploration of the surroundings, the moment he/she starts experiencing it in the presence of parents or siblings.

The state of boredom provides an opportunity to the brain to go into an autopilot mode, being free to think without  external stimulation. Being an unpleasant state, it fosters creative thinking and encourages problem solving skills of the child because the child doesn’t want to stay in it and starts thinking ways to move out from this.The child may discover new ways of interacting with the environment like playing with the old toys in new ways or may uncover new areas of interest. In a boring lecture the child may learn new ways of understanding the familiar concepts or maybe start reading more about them or may come up with an entirely different theory itself. Important is that it shall come from the child and not from others.

Facilitating movement out from boredom: Boredom doesn’t solve problems by itself. It needs direction and a kind of know-how that allows using boredom in the right way. Ergo, it is important for parents to understand what this is conveying. It may convey that the child wants attention from parents, or that the work given to the child is not serving the purpose of connecting with the environment in the desired way, or if the child thinks that her/his life or  surrounding is not in her/his control or if the child finds the task very repetitive etc. Understanding is important because then only work can be done in the direction to let the child move out from it. Only changing the tasks may not be very helpful as it may make the child move from one boring task to another. Along with understanding it is also helpful to present some prompts or to introduce new activities for the child and let the child make the choice and just let the child find her own way out. It is important to set the child free to choose instead of just keeping her busy. Busy is not the solution. Being overly busy may also turn to be boring.

Beware of too much boredom: it is important to keep a check on the frequency and duration with which the child stays in this state. Too much boredom may lead to involvement in risky behaviours, which provide stimulation for a small time but don’t help in the long run. The risky behaviour may be like engaging in harmful physical activities or spending too much of time on screen. Sometimes it may be difficult to find what interests the child. it is advisable to take professional help in such situations. 

I understand that keeping children engaged is a challenging task, keeping in mind their short span of attention but it is not always helpful to provide continuous external stimulation to the child. It blocks the focus on stimulation which the child can derive internally. It is tedious but in the long run it may prepare the child for future challenges. So the next time your child says she is getting bored, allow her to be bored and wait patiently for what comes next.

Saumya Nigam