Whether it’s the summer holidays or time for the back-to-school routines: As we are filling our children’s calendars with activities all week long, we may be forgetting that having time to do “nothing” matters.
When was it that you planned nothing for the weekend, and you just lingered around giving yourself and to your children time just to BE?
Do you feel guilty when doing nothing? In the society oriented on the results and achievements, it may seem that it is not enough to have free time with no planned activities. However, we are missing the point. Many of us still remember long summer holidays spent not in the fancy hotels or seaside resorts but in a countryside house of our grandparents with no specific programme for the day. The long summer days just went by, and we had plenty of time to think, create our own stories or games to play, watch the sunset, get lost in the forest or write a diary. There were moments of boredom, but these moments were the moments of self-discovery.
Nowadays, when we are bombarded with information, social media notifications and we generally feel overwhelmed, many parents call for the slow parenting approach (or simplicity parenting) in which few activities are organised for children. Instead of a busy agenda, children are allowed to explore the world at their own pace.[1] Kids often complain about being bored. But boredom can actually help them to develop new skills, such as creativity or problem-solving skills and support their self-esteem. Both little kids and older ones often need some help coming up with things to do with unstructured time.[2]
It may not be easy at first. Constant reactivity caused by social media leads to the feeling that we need to react and receive everything immediately and we may feel upset if we don’t. And it is very tempting to give our children a tablet or let them watch TV, so they stop crying or complaining. I remember reading a story from the founder of the International Plum Village Thich Nhat Hanh about a boy coming for a family mindfulness retreat with his parents from Paris for the first time and screaming the whole journey in the car without having a tablet to play with. The boy then returned every summer to the Village, but smiling and without thinking that he needed a tablet to entertain himself. Sometimes, creating moments of silence can be a first step.[3] And we do not need to go on retreat to change our habits. My recent problem with my ear and hearing reminded me how precious it is to have silence with no music, no ear plugs or TV sound around. And we can give these silent moments to our children as well.
Learning as adults to do nothing is a challenge as we have at least our phone nearby when an “empty” moment comes. It seems difficult to just sit and watch the sky or connect to the present moment in any other way than “being busy”. We are so proud to have full agenda and the same goes for our children and we never want to miss a thing. There are birthday parties to go to, long shopping lists to finish and homework to be done, there is time for playing games or doing sport etc., it is time without a break! As a kids’ yoga teacher working with children, I sometimes hear from parents that their children cannot go to sleep in the evening as they had such a busy day that it is difficult to lie down and fall asleep. No wonder, they have too much to process!
Maybe, we could take a break, for example on Sunday with nothing planned for once, to create a bit of space and slow down. To feel OK not to plan for our children any programme but let them play on their own. Be there when they ask questions and support them in their creativity by suggesting at first what they could do. The simpler, the better. Objects from nature or a paper box can become their ‘toys’ or you could create a story together. Seeing things around us that we have not noticed before. Finding the time to connect to each other.
In such moments, I try to encourage my own children to discover new books, draw a picture of something they saw or just lie down in the grass and watch the clouds. It can also be a moment for you to stop and just ‘be’.
“Guarding kids from ever feeling bored is misguided in the same way that guarding kids from ever feeling sad, or ever feeling frustrated, or ever feeling angry is misguided”, says Dr. Westgate[4], whose research focuses on what boredom is, why people experience it and what happens when they do. “Boredom is telling you that what you’re doing right now isn’t working.” Usually that means the task you are doing is too easy or too difficult, she said, or that it lacks meaning. “Boredom is really important because it signals to us when we’re not meaningfully engaged in the world, and it gives us an opportunity to fix it”, Dr. Westgate says.
If we do not give our children space and time to dream and just have a moment to think and be with themselves, we may risk that they will not discover who they are and what they want in life. To let them to find out what is fun in the “real” world, as the on-line world can be only an illusion. If something doesn’t work out like they wanted, we can encourage children to keep trying, and give them a helping hand if necessary. Boredom can teach us how to handle frustrations and maybe find another way how to spend the time. We need to help our children to discover that a new toy will not bring them more joy if they are not content with themselves. We can teach them that less is more and that we can find joy in little things as well.
The art of doing nothing means that we allow ourselves and our children to stop and explore, to dream and let go of the need to make our children happy all the time as they can find their own way. To use the quote from the ‘The Idle Parent’ book by Tom Hodgkinson “leave them alone” to effectively raise happy, self-sufficient children.
Our brain needs time off, so we can have new ideas, or realise what we need right now, maybe to rest, to sleep more or drink a glass of water and concentrate on one thing at a time.
Boredom can be the best gift we can get!
Let go of your expectations and observe and be present is another challenge.
Learn to follow children’s rhythm when you walk together, enjoy meals all together at one table, do real work together (such as cooking, cleaning the table, tidying up) and let them be “bored”, let them be in a state of not knowing what to do, as it is a moment to go into the process of inner creativity without adult intervention.
Giving children enough time to grow and learn at their own speed and accepting that every child is different is something that we can be aware of. Finally, if we dedicate the time to our children now, we can have better relationships with them when they are grown-ups and find more harmony in our lives.
“I have three children who are 29, 26, and 23 and now I can harvest the 25 years of hard dedicated work with my children, and it is so fantastic, because they don´t need me anymore but they like me and they like to be with me and also their friends”, says Helle Heckmann, who works as a Waldorf kindergarten teacher in Denmark, “and this is, I think, the highest thing we wish as parents, that when our children are adults, they actually, by their own free choice, choose to be with us at certain moments.” Beautiful, isn’t it? Take our time with children as a precious gift (and slow down).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_parenting
[2] https://childmind.org/article/the-benefits-of-boredom/
[3] https://plumvillage.org/retreats/visiting-us/programs-for-children-and-teens
[4] An assistant professor of psychology at the University of Florida, where she studies boredom, interest, and why some thoughts are more engaging than others.
By Veronika Hulka
This article was first published in the 2024 spring edition of the BCT’s Small Talk magazine.
