Mum's the Word: Resisting the urge to 'fix the problem' of boredom

For children there are some advantages to isolation-induced boredom finds Alison Curtis.

Is boredom always a bad thing? Does it provide opportunities for a child's imagination to develop? File picture.

Boredom is inevitable as we self-isolate, but maybe especially tricky for children, who are used to the social environments of school, play dates, cinemas, parks, toy shops, and everything in between writes Alison Curtis.

For my daughter, Joan, the novelty of FaceTiming with pals has worn off. The same is true of a lot of her friends. They are missing being in each other’s company and playing.

However, is boredom always a bad thing? According to a therapist friend of mine, there are some benefits to being bored.

The main one is that it allows the brain space to use its imagination and to create games and stories. That is essential to everyone’s mental development.

The problem is that we don’t give the children enough chances to be bored. We are always trying to fill their time and we never let them be idle.

Or else, their downtime is spent on a laptop or a tablet, but this doesn’t create the space children so badly need to use their imaginations.

If I ever suggest that Joan go to her room and play by herself, she fights it. I always say, ‘When I was a kid, I did…..’ and list off the many activities that required my imagination.

She always snaps back, ‘You had Karen (my twin) to play with,’ and I have to tell her that, ‘No, we often played by ourselves and we also needed space from one another.’

The other day, when Joan was doing a daily Lego challenge, she gave up after five minutes when I had to take a phone call.

I was annoyed and a bit shocked that the thought of completing an activity on her own was too much for her. I pushed her to just sit down and do it, as she was creating something amazing.

After a few moments, she agreed and almost an hour later had built an incredibly beautiful house.

During these past few weeks, because of the constant threat of boredom, I have thought about my own childhood a lot.

Childhood activities have differed across generations, a lot of the time due to technology. File picture.

I think back to the hours and hours I would focus on one activity as a child: Lego, dolls, cars, building forts, Space Invaders, and realise that Joan hasn’t developed some of these skills, largely because of access to a tablet and Youtube.

Even though we limit her time on tech devices, that usage has crept up, as it has in most families, because our children are with us all the time and we need time to do other things.

So instead of jumping to "fix the problem" of boredom over the past week or so, I have just given Joan some ideas of things she can do and left her to pick one and do it.

Each time we have a battle about it, but, eventually, she will go off and work on something. She is extremely creative and recently started making fill-in-your-own comic books for everyone.

Or she will make some creation out of old food tubs, tape, paper, and markers. Each time she does come up with something creative, it is just getting her to settle and agree to do it.

And I think the key is to praise her every time she does go off on her own, make something, and, ultimately, use her imagination!

It is important for me, as her mother, not to feel the need to constantly entertain her or solve her boredom, but, instead, to accept that it is an inevitable feeling for children and to encourage her to go off and be creative and use her own, brilliant imagination!