Representational imageDo you get worried when your child complains about getting bored? Are you really anxious over the matter of not getting enough time to spend with your child? Do you feel that your child should be engaged always and should not allow boredom to overwhelm him?
And finally, for all your problems, do you find a way out through the screens – cartoons, tablets or video games? Above all, the feeling that your child is so engaged with the technologically advanced gadgets are making you happy. Yes, we are talking about that feeling you get thinking he is so super cute in dealing with the electronic gadgets and the relief that you have some space while your kid is happy and engaged.
What does your child gain from boredom?
There is a common belief among the parents in all communities across the world that their children should not be allowed to sit intact doing nothing. People firmly believe that boredom could lead to laziness, inactivity and decreased creativity. But the modern cognitive psychology has an entirely different stream of findings. In an experiment conducted among the high school children in Lancashire University, the researchers found out that those children who were assigned boring tasks scored relatively high on creativity tests. Those were mundane tasks like copying telephone numbers from a telephone directory.
Read: Block the screen, for your child's sake
The University of Texas in the US has come up with a report about the impact of boredom among students. Boredom allows us to channelize our emotional energy in the most fruitful, creative, imaginative and constructive ways. Wandering minds are not always the signs of laziness. Most of the time, day dreaming helps us to improve our emotional energy. They help us to reflect on our thoughts, analyze our problems and give clues to the solutions for the day to day problems.
Boons of boredom
1) Your child learns that enjoyment and happiness should not be always from outside
Your child’s brain is not programmed to be tuned in the “always engaged mode”. Instead of always staring at the flickering screen, let your child look around. Let him see the people around him, let him watch and observe what is going on in the surroundings, the movements of the pets, the emotions of other people, the attributes, and behavior. This enhances free thinking and emotional freedom in your little ones’ mind. He learns to appreciate the beauty of thinking, daydreaming and finally putting his thoughts into action or words.
2) Boredom increases creativity
There is a strong relationship between daydreaming and creativity. When we stay without having anything to do, our mind wanders through the wilderness of frantic thoughts. Giving this kind of emotional exercise would help us in strengthening our creativity.
In a study carried out in Canada in 1980s during the gradual extension of television across the country, it was found that the children in the “no-TV” towns scored significantly higher than the others on divergent thinking skills, a measure of imagination and creativity. Later, when televisions emerged in these towns, their imagination level and creativity dropped to the same level of the children of the TV watching towns.
When you read a book you imagine a lot about the characters, the places and the incidences in it. But when you are watching a movie, you are blindly absorbing the creativity of someone else.
3) Boredom reduces emotional stress
Parents are least aware of the dangers, which their child undergoes when he is delving in the fast moving flickering screens. Your little one’s brain is under constant stress, not to mention about the eyes’ strain. When all these gadgets are removed, his little brain gets an opportunity to relax.
4) Boredom helps us to sleep better
Remove all the gadgets and abstain from the entire screen at least one hour before you go to bed. This applies to both children and adults. The blue light emitting from the screens interferes with and confuses the circadian rhythm of the body and can result in persistent insomnia.
5) All emotions are useful for your child
All types of emotions are necessary for the complete emotional development of your child. Let your child decipher the emotions of his fellow being, the time they are happy, the way people respond and the way they get angry or happy.
World famous psychologist Dr John Gotman says parents who do not allow their children to get bored are allowing them to become emotionally handicapped.
6) Learning the cues of socialization
Humans are hardwired to learn a lot of things from other peoples’ behavior. We take a lot of inputs from the verbal and nonverbal cues of others. The inputs and developments during the first three years of the human brains are crucial as it becomes a permanent foundation upon all the further developments of the brain.
The brain’s frontal lobe, which is the area responsible for decoding and comprehending social interactions, is getting deprived of the cues to learn to how to empathize with others, how to read the hundreds of unspoken signs—facial expression, differentiate between the tones of voices, and the skill to adjust and maintain real-world relationships.
Remember, your child learns a lot when he’s bored. He learns the cues of the real world, he learns to think, he would be forced to ask questions and would develop the urge to explore different things and thereby, develop creativity, patience, and diligence.
Do not give too much attention to your child.
When you give all your attention to your child and when he becomes your only world, there is an obvious danger in that. Your child believes that he is the center of all the attention and happiness of his parents, so he expects the same everywhere. He fails to understand about his real self, his strengths, and weakness. This could make his judgment faulty and he would be dejected at the slightest rejections from others. He would also fail to acquire the golden skill of tolerance.
(The author is a behavioral psychologist and a cyber psychology consultant)
