Children should be allowed to get bored
Jeanwah
Posts: 6,363
Interesting...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21895704
Children should be allowed to get bored so they can develop their innate ability to be creative, an education expert says.
Dr Teresa Belton told the BBC cultural expectations that children should be constantly active could hamper the development of their imagination
She quizzed author Meera Syal and artist Grayson Perry about how boredom had aided their creativity as children.
Syal said boredom made her write, while Perry said it was a "creative state".
The senior researcher at the University of East Anglia's School of Education and Lifelong Learning interviewed a number of authors, artists and scientists in her exploration of the effects of boredom.
She heard Syal's memories of the small mining village, with few distractions, where she grew up.
Dr Belton said: "Lack of things to do spurred her to talk to people she would not otherwise have engaged with and to try activities she would not, under other circumstances, have experienced, such as talking to elderly neighbours and learning to bake cakes.
"Boredom is often associated with solitude and Syal spent hours of her early life staring out of the window across fields and woods, watching the changing weather and seasons.
"But importantly boredom made her write. She kept a diary from a young age, filling it with observations, short stories, poems, and diatribe. And she attributes these early beginnings to becoming a writer late in life."
'Reflection'
The comedienne turned writer said: "Enforced solitude alone with a blank page is a wonderful spur."
While Perry said boredom was also beneficial for adults: "As I get older, I appreciate reflection and boredom. Boredom is a very creative state."
And neuroscientist and expert on brain deterioration Prof Susan Greenfield, who also spoke to the academic, recalled a childhood in a family with little money and no siblings until she was 13.
"She happily entertained herself with making up stories, drawing pictures of her stories and going to the library."
Dr Belton, who is an expert in the impact of emotions on behaviour and learning, said boredom could be an "uncomfortable feeling" and that society had "developed an expectation of being constantly occupied and constantly stimulated".
But she warned that being creative "involves being able to develop internal stimulus".
"Nature abhors a vacuum and we try to fill it," she said. "Some young people who do not have the interior resources or the responses to deal with that boredom creatively then sometimes end up smashing up bus shelters or taking cars out for a joyride."
'Short circuit'
The academic, who has previously studied the impact of television and videos on children's writing, said: "When children have nothing to do now, they immediately switch on the TV, the computer, the phone or some kind of screen. The time they spend on these things has increased.
"But children need to have stand-and-stare time, time imagining and pursuing their own thinking processes or assimilating their experiences through play or just observing the world around them."
It is this sort of thing that stimulates the imagination, she said, while the screen "tends to short circuit that process and the development of creative capacity".
Syal adds: "You begin to write because there is nothing to prove, nothing to lose, nothing else to do.
"It's very freeing being creative for no other reason other than you freewheel and fill time."
Dr Belton concluded: "For the sake of creativity perhaps we need to slow down and stay offline from time to time."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21895704
Children should be allowed to get bored so they can develop their innate ability to be creative, an education expert says.
Dr Teresa Belton told the BBC cultural expectations that children should be constantly active could hamper the development of their imagination
She quizzed author Meera Syal and artist Grayson Perry about how boredom had aided their creativity as children.
Syal said boredom made her write, while Perry said it was a "creative state".
The senior researcher at the University of East Anglia's School of Education and Lifelong Learning interviewed a number of authors, artists and scientists in her exploration of the effects of boredom.
She heard Syal's memories of the small mining village, with few distractions, where she grew up.
Dr Belton said: "Lack of things to do spurred her to talk to people she would not otherwise have engaged with and to try activities she would not, under other circumstances, have experienced, such as talking to elderly neighbours and learning to bake cakes.
"Boredom is often associated with solitude and Syal spent hours of her early life staring out of the window across fields and woods, watching the changing weather and seasons.
"But importantly boredom made her write. She kept a diary from a young age, filling it with observations, short stories, poems, and diatribe. And she attributes these early beginnings to becoming a writer late in life."
'Reflection'
The comedienne turned writer said: "Enforced solitude alone with a blank page is a wonderful spur."
While Perry said boredom was also beneficial for adults: "As I get older, I appreciate reflection and boredom. Boredom is a very creative state."
And neuroscientist and expert on brain deterioration Prof Susan Greenfield, who also spoke to the academic, recalled a childhood in a family with little money and no siblings until she was 13.
"She happily entertained herself with making up stories, drawing pictures of her stories and going to the library."
Dr Belton, who is an expert in the impact of emotions on behaviour and learning, said boredom could be an "uncomfortable feeling" and that society had "developed an expectation of being constantly occupied and constantly stimulated".
But she warned that being creative "involves being able to develop internal stimulus".
"Nature abhors a vacuum and we try to fill it," she said. "Some young people who do not have the interior resources or the responses to deal with that boredom creatively then sometimes end up smashing up bus shelters or taking cars out for a joyride."
'Short circuit'
The academic, who has previously studied the impact of television and videos on children's writing, said: "When children have nothing to do now, they immediately switch on the TV, the computer, the phone or some kind of screen. The time they spend on these things has increased.
"But children need to have stand-and-stare time, time imagining and pursuing their own thinking processes or assimilating their experiences through play or just observing the world around them."
It is this sort of thing that stimulates the imagination, she said, while the screen "tends to short circuit that process and the development of creative capacity".
Syal adds: "You begin to write because there is nothing to prove, nothing to lose, nothing else to do.
"It's very freeing being creative for no other reason other than you freewheel and fill time."
Dr Belton concluded: "For the sake of creativity perhaps we need to slow down and stay offline from time to time."
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Comments
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
I loved, as a kid, having a big pad of paper and watercolors or the 64-crayon box of Crayolas, and just letting loose. Or writing my own stories, or in a journal. It was exercise for the brain and imagination.
People - children included - are so bombarded with images and sounds and "look at me, look at this!" and...the mental therapy of just BEING (something like the stand and stare mentioned in the article) is just so healing and rejuvenating. Allows not just for growth but also problem-solving.
Among my favorite times of day are the early mornings sitting by the balcony, Danny still sleeping, kitties just awakening, watching the city, and just thinking.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
I get that some people have to abide by strict timelines, be it due to work, children, home life, health issues...but if you DON'T have to, why would you?
Free time to do whatever or nothing, is not only a luxury for me, but has become a necessity as well.
A necessary luxury, if you will - or maybe a luxurious necessity.
Whatever...I need it and make sure I get it :P
It'd be interesting to see how the minds/imaginations of the children of today differ from those of earlier generations.
maybe even a cat nap. Boredom is for children. I know few adults who get bored.
I think for us it's peaceful
the other day we were destructive w/ the ninja sword. was awesome
by the way... a muddy & wet & cold kid is a happier than shit kid. fact.
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
Yeah, they get bored in church. That's why they leave the church. And some still leave school.
Then why do idiots keep writing books and articles about it?
Come on Cinci any idiot can write a book about parenting. It is the parents who buy the books that keep said idiots around.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
Very true. Because lazy parents are looking for someone else to parent their kids.
Chadwick you are a master. I love your posts.
This is why a generation of children wondered why their parents were not purple and a dinosaur.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I am not sure what problem you are getting at?
Practive/activity = play, right?
While I agree that kids can become over-routined, just because current kids' daily life is different from ours doesn't mean it is worse.
Scheduled activities are important as is free time. I see the value of a defined and guided experience just as I see the value of a free flowing experience without any adult intervention.
I also think adults are too quick to step in when things go sideays- let the kids work it out. How the hell are they going to be able to work things out later when mom, dad, and the teacher aren't around?
* Along the lines of my last statement... A move in education- which I agree with- is to stop providing the problem for the students and instead have them figure out: (1) what the problem and (2) its perameters are... and then (3) the solution. For example: providing a video or picture of soil erosion... having the kids determine what is happening, why and how it is happening, what the consequences might be from what is happening, and what to do about it.
The future needs thinkers capable of thinking. We need to provide as many opportunites for kids to think on their own instead of us doing it for them all the time.
As to the last part, agreed again.
(and let's hope WE are not having our thinking done for us either - as adults, we need to practice our preachings, otherwise we're just squawkboxes)
Simple reason is because I as the Parent (as most do) have the BEST intrest of my child when making decisions or intervening.
there are ways to do that and also having your child work it out. Kids have a very hard time stepping out of their comforzone without seeing it done or reinforeced at home with out some assistance.
I don't understand how being ACTIVE is somehow BAD now...
There are definitely times when parent/adult intervention is essential... just not at the first sign of trouble as many are apt to do. Guide kids through the experience and have them work through the process versus jumping to the solution for them without having them move through the various steps necessary to deal with the source of conflict appropriately.
I would be so bold as to suggest that any adults who deal with conflict poorly did not have the background that afforded them the opportunity to deal with it in the earlier phases of their life. In short... mother hen always ran in the moment any tension presented itself without allowing the young one to spread their wings and attempt to deal with it on their own.