
Children should be allowed to get bored - equilibrium
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21895704
======
abalone
The other day I was reading a lamentation about the rise of team sports for
kids. Little league, etc. Before that you could just put a group of kids in a
park and they would _make up their own game_. It was a creative process.

Now you tell them exactly what to do -- and it's totally rigid and even a bit
jingoistic.

~~~
up_and_up
Another related issue is the lack of safe open public space in which children
can play. With the rise of subdivisions and a general downturn in
neighborliness the only way to get access to open play space is to join a
'team' or club sport of some kind.

As a parent I also fear sending my kid down to the park on their own honestly,
even in my relatively safe neighborhood. Which is sad.

~~~
hilko
Are public spaces really that unsafe though? Or, at least, less safe than they
have been in the past? Honest question.

I've read a bunch of articles (that I cannot look up right now) that argue
that this decrease in safety is mostly perception, and I'm inclined to agree.

I grew up in the 'ghetto' of my hometown, and then from 8 tot 17 I lived in
what was considered a dangerous, third-world country. Still, my parents mostly
raised me as any kid in earlier times: be home before dark, don't go too far,
but do whatever you want the rest of the time outside of school.

By and large, my experience has not been too different from other kids I know
in safer environments, and I've had few 'scary' experiences involving other
people. Most 'dangers' involved general kids-being-stupid things: crossing
streets without looking, or climbing things at the risk of falling down on the
pavement head-first, egging each other on to do something stupid, etc.

My point is, I can't really see the danger, and would like to know what you
consider 'lacking'. Kidnapping is rare, sexual harassment is vastly more
common in family circles, playgrounds have mostly become safer (and less fun,
IMO), and violence of any kind by adults to children is (I think) relatively
uncommon too. Even in dangerous areas.

Of course, I am no parent. And I admit I present no actual supporting evidence
(right now) other than my own experience. But I'm not really trying to prove
something, just interested in your take on this. Maybe I'm missing something
important that I would be aware of with some context, or with the experience
of being a parent

~~~
lifeisstillgood
A park with no other people in it is / sensibly percieved to be unsafe.

Yet put a regular soccer game there, add in seats so that lunchtime workers
sit down for a sandwich, encourage adults to take lengthy actions that simply
involve _bein there_ and the place both becomes safer and feels safer.

It's human nature to feel safer in a well lit, public space

The space is rarely the issues - it's the lack of other people

Blame the car culture firstly, blame bad architects next, blame atrocious town
planners mostly

If we want to feel safe we know how - have adults outside.

~~~
hilko
Interesting. I can see how architecture plays a role in this.

My experiences were mostly in large towns and cities, where the architecture
was sufficiently 'open' and 'organic' to perhaps make the areas safer than the
ones you mean (even despite the 70s / 80s ugly and depressing concrete-
everywhere approach that needs little more than some graffiti to look like a
ghetto.)

~~~
mapt
One important aspect is density; Another is to have relatively mixed usage
blocks with lively things like storefronts or entrances near the sidewalk as
often as possible, rather than a street-facing brick wall on three sides, or
expanses of lawn or parking lots.

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narrator
I recently was on a long solo hike and my smartphone ran out of batteries.
With no music or anyone to talk to I had to find something to think about for
the 2 hours it would take to complete the hike. I ended up going through each
year of my life and thinking about where I lived and what I was doing at the
time and memories associated with each time and place. It was actually quite
entertaining.

~~~
gbog
Sorry but I think you missed something. You should have let the emptiness and
the boredom fill your self instead of proactively and orderly going through
the years of your life.

~~~
speeder
The point of the article is that boredom spurs stuff like this guy mentioning,
it is you that missed the point.

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nhebb
When I was a kid we were somewhere that was boring as hell, so I laid on a
bench and stared up at the tiled ceiling. I noticed that for a square (n x n)
block of tiles that n^2 = sum(1..n) + sum(1..n-1). From playing with the
numbers in my head, I was able to derive the formula the sum(1..n) = n(n+1)/2.
Later when I learned Gauss' formula in school for the sum if integers, I was
like "Hey, I invented that!". Those kinds of thought experiments just don't
happen if you're staring at an Xbox all day.

~~~
taejo
Nice. I figured out sum(1..n) = n(n+1)/2 in a slightly way (well, sum(0..n-1)
= n(n-1)/2). My grandfather played chess in a club, and he had these sheets of
game results where everybody played everybody else once. I wondered how many
blocks there were in the table. Well, it looks like a right triangle of height
n and base n (which has area nn/2) but with n little triangles notched out
(total area n/2). So the area of the blocks is (nn-n)/2, and each has area 1,
so there are n(n-1)/2 of them.

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iuguy
I recently spent some time in hospital fighting pneumonia. Hospitals are
exceptionally boring places. I loved it. I loved not having to do anything,
not having to make decisions, not having to constantly think. The highest
priority of my day at one point was moving things from my table to my drawer.
It was awesome.

I think we fill our lives with so much stuff that there's so little space for
little things, but when I was rearranging things on my table I hadn't felt so
free of responsibilities and decisions in years.

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tokenadult
I thought about this among my Facebook friends before replying here. I agree
with the premise that children need plenty of time in their youth that isn't
overly structured by adults. That's one of the reasons that my family
homeschools rather than sending our children to our fine local public school
system (which draws in students from all over the state through open
enrollment). By test, and by verification through conversation with other
adults who know our children, our children have no problem learning the
essential information that children need to learn in childhood for independent
adult life. But they learn more efficiently, because of the flexibility of
homeschooling, and they thus have more time to pursue personal interests and
creative activities. (The creative activities include short story writing for
all our children, programming in a variety of languages for our oldest, and
visual art for all the younger children.)

We do have our children in some external programs that structure some of their
time. We particularly like our local youth soccer association because its
coaching philosophy strongly emphasizes letting the young players make their
own decisions on the field and not coaching from the sidelines. I never knew
that there was such a thing as "creativity" in soccer until I watched dozens
of games over several years and saw how each of our children expresses a
different personality on the soccer field, all while coordinating effort with
teammates. Soccer truly is a beautiful game when played by players who have
played together for a decade and who know one another.

AFTER EDIT: I beg to differ with the comment quoted below,

 _There are great rockers from places nobody would remotely associate with
great music (Bob Dylan and Prince are both from Minnesota, for instance)._

from another top-level comment in this thread. I associate Minnesota with
great music, because I live here. (Dylan and Prince are all right, but I'm not
sure I'd even agree that they are the peak of what Minnesota has to offer in
music. And Minnesota is by no means the most boring state in the United
States, as my mother who moved here from elsewhere is glad to let people
know.)

~~~
jennyjenjen
It's not that Minnesota is boring. It's that a lot of people think it is.

Have you ever lived in California? I'm from Colorado. A lot of people I know
in California think of the rest of the US aside from New York as boring. There
is a reason behind the phrase "flyover state."

It's not that it's boring. It's that a lot of people don't know any better
simply because they come from the coasts.

~~~
rdouble
Except that Minnesota actually is boring.

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non-sense
Boredom is when we let our mind run free, in search of things that would be
interesting to us. If our mind is occupied with distractions, it becomes
harder to focus.

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untothebreach
My parents came up with a great way to make sure my brother and I always found
ways to entertain ourselves: saying "I'm bored" to my parents was the same as
saying "I need a chore to do around the house."

~~~
tehwalrus
me too - equally, sitting staring into space was an invitation to a "you look
like you have time to..." from my Dad.

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teekert
I think "getting bored" is the wrong term, she is talking about the fact that
children should learn to find things to battle their boredom themselves. Was
she still bored when she had a piece of blank paper and nothing to do?

Her conclusion seems to be that only letting the brain consume is numbing but
that creation and creativity come when the media that lets you mindlessly
consume is not available. This media is acting as a drug, numbing creativity.
I agree with that notion.

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dogface
Less focus on "boredom", more focus on unstructured time. Boredom implies the
child's own attempts at entertaining themselves has failed.

Then again, I consider myself a pretty creative person, even though I insist
on plenty of instructions when it comes to work -- but that may come from
needing to deal with other people's expectations vs. my own.

"Creativity" does not win out over pre-existing brand guidelines.

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jennyjenjen
Some amazing artists come from boring places. There are great rockers from
places nobody would remotely associate with great music (Bob Dylan and Prince
are both from Minnesota, for instance).

~~~
LargeWu
I'm not sure where this reputation that Minnesota is some sort of cultural
wasteland comes from. If you ask people associated with the arts, many of them
will tell you that Minneapolis has an exceptionally vibrant arts community.
Outstanding music scene for both local and national artists, highly regarded
theatres, excellent museums, etc.

~~~
jennyjenjen
I didn't call it a wasteland. I'm from Greeley, CO; that's a wasteland. I
think that broadly it isn't reputed as an exciting place.

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scotty79
When I was bored as a child I was miserable. Jumping from one idea of what to
do to another, one by one verifying that they will not bring me joy I seek.
The only way out of boredom was just wait till I get physically tired of
sobbing and feeling horibble, and then having a nap.

~~~
cycojesus
Depression in a nutshell.

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ibrow
My mother always used to tell me "only boring people get bored".

Now with a small child and business to run, some days I would love to be bored
and have nothing to do!

~~~
jennyjenjen
Ha, well I first heard that one on Mad Men.

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grose
School gives plenty of time for children to be bored.

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kris121
Not Every children but children should be allowed to get bored.

Run everyone on same track never make anything better. Like People do a single
kind of work. When Someone get bored with something they come with a beautiful
solution.

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lifeisstillgood
Old Jasper Carrot joke:

Straight man - There's a report that children are bored 3/4 of the time at
school. This means they are not being prepared for working life

Jasper - really? That sounds like _excellent_ preparation for working life

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n2dasun
I completely agree with this writeup, but I believe it depends on the child.
Some people feed off of the energy and creativity of outside influences. As an
introvert, however, I get overwhelmed over time of being unable to quiet my
mind. There are times when listening to my radio will make me feel I'll, and
I'll shut it off for weeks as a result, until a time comes along when I want
to drown out the chaos rolling around up there. Also, having someone
constantly talk to me to try and help me stay awake on a road trip actually
has the effect of putting me to sleep, because my brain starts to idle when
it's being fed constant stimulation. Imagine explaining that to a loved one
who thinks they're helping you out. Definitely an arduous learning experience
for all parties involved.

I now spend my 6+ hour road trips in complete silence (radio turned off and
everyone else asleep), and it's infinitely helpful time to reconnect with
myself and my ideas and aspirations.

When I got bored as a kid or young adult, I'd do things like: learn orgami,
draw something, learn a programming language, start and commit to a workout
plan, create something interesting. Now my life doesn't really allow time for
boredom. That's why I needed to get into grad school: to force myself to set
aside time to learn and create. I would love a stimuli drought right about
now.

~~~
hilko
I'm still trying to figure this one out, and should probably dive into the
literature on the subject for some more enlightenment (or perhaps someone with
more knowledge can share something?)

Here's the thing. I consider my huge lack of formal education one of the best
things that happened to me. I was home-schooled from 8 to 18, and the last
five years or so I didn't even really have a teacher. I think for a full year
I'd just 'phone in' the bare minimum of work, about two hours a day in the
study room in our house, and pass the required tests.

I feel like the boredom got out of my system really quickly because of this,
and my natural inclination to explore and learn took over, with nobody to tell
me learning was dumb or stupid or uncool.

So I read every book I could find, learned programming, and had and developed
an active imagination. Two more years of high school and six years of
university got a long way to beat this out of me, but it's still mostly there,
and I feel it's one of the primary reasons that I feel like I'm 'doing ok'.

Is this just me specifically, or can it be applied to most children/young
adults?

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hexagonc
Before I leave the house, I always try to line up a set of topics to think
about while I'm in transit to where I'm going. Usually, these are design
challenges in the projects I am working on or plans for the next thing to work
on. Sometimes, I even allow myself to think about blue-sky type applications
as a reward for getting more down to earth work done. Yes, I am a nerd,
through and through!

Many times I have wondered what I would do if I were confined in prison or
became blind. I think, so long as I was mentally okay and had access to a
computer to write software, I would be fine. I even considered that if I
didn't have a computer, I would be able to entertain myself by implementing
the rules of a game that exhibited computational ideas. After all, John
Conway's Game of Life[1] was originally played by hand on a board.

[1]<http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html>

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strongvigilance
It's slightly sad when science journalism relies on "an expert says", without
feeling the need to reference any data.

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zobzu
getting myself bored is actually the only way i know to feel like "resetting"
and getting fresh idea, views, etc. suppressing hn would be a good idea for
this to happen more often tho...

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general_failure
From where I come from, it's normal to let children get bored :)

~~~
gbog
And where do you come from?

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p6v53as
Isn't boredom just response of a body that what he is doing is not effective?
So it encourages going doing something that's more effective, efficient and
productive.

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middayc
my take on this subject a year or two ago :P <http://jankom.posterous.com/kid>

