Adults often dream of sitting on a beach and doing absolutely nothing. Yet somehow, parents of preschoolers tell us at Kids Konnect they feel guilty when their little ones are bored. We say embrace the boredom! Boredom in our modern society has many benefits.
A recent report at Greatist indicates that boredom has many research-supported advantages:
Let your preschooler enjoy boredom in small doses.
At Kids Konnect we sometimes see the unfortunate effects of over-scheduling children. The child who waits for an adult to provide any kind of stimulus — play, make-believe, organized sports, open-ended games — lacks original thinking.
Boredom, says an expert through the BBC, stimulates imagination:
"...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."
Educators, including preschool teachers at Kids Konnect, consider two types of motivation in children:
Children who are constantly rewarded extrinsically will never develop the self-motivation needed to persevere, says Dr. Michael Ungar, Ph.D., at Psychology Today. Says Dr. Ungar, “A motivated child is one who is raised to seek new experiences, not one who is endlessly protected from boredom.”
When you answer your preschooler who whines, “I’m bored,” by immediately stopping your work and proffering a new activity, you take away the child’s opportunity to problem-solve, adapt, and self-motivate.
Many educators have learned to answer the “I’m bored,” complaint with a bit of simple psychology:
Avoid sarcasm, and consider turning boredom into a game:
How have you not only tolerated boredom in your preschooler but encouraged it? Comment below and share your ideas and thoughts with Kids Connect.