Why a boring vacation is a gift for a child

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Child psychologists believe that parents do not need to come up with entertainment for their child during the summer holidays. Boredom makes children independent.

Child psychologists believe that it is not necessary to schedule a child's summer by the hour so that he is always busy with something. Moreover, this approach to vacation planning prevents the child from making discoveries and doing what really interests him.

The parental mission is to help the child take his place in society. And “being an adult” means being able to occupy yourself and fill your free time with what brings joy and happiness. If the parents decide for the child what to do with every minute of his free time, he himself will never learn to do this.

Lyn Fry Child Psychologist, Educational Specialist

Fry isn't the only one pointing out the benefits of a boring vacation. She is supported by Dr. Teresa Belton, a visiting fellow at the University of East Anglia, who studies the connection between boredom and imagination. In she said that boredom is critical to developing the inner stimulus through which the true ability to create is revealed.

Experts have been debating the importance of doing nothing for decades. In 1993, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips wrote that being bored can be a developmental achievement. Boredom gives a chance to contemplate life, not gallop through it, he writes in his book On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored.

Parents maniacally try to keep their child busy, instead of giving him time to find something that interests him. Boredom is part and parcel of being able to spend your time thoughtfully.

Adam Phillips psychoanalyst

Lin Fry invites parents, together with their children, who are four years old, at the beginning of the holidays, to sit down and jointly make a list of activities for the child to which he can devote his free time. It is worth including in it basic activities: games, reading books, cycling. And also something more complicated: cooking dinner, staging a play, taking photographs.

And when the child comes in complaining of boredom, send him to see the list. This will leave it to your child to decide what they want to do. The child will probably be depressed and bored for a while, but it is important to understand that this is not wasted time.

There is no problem getting bored a little. Children need to learn to get bored because it motivates them to achieve their goals. Boredom makes children independent.

Lin Fry child psychologist

A similar theory was put forward in 1930 by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, who devoted a chapter of his book "The Conquest of Happiness" to the value of boredom. He wrote that imagination and the ability to deal with boredom should be mastered by every child.

A child develops best if, like a young plant, it is left in the same soil and not disturbed. A lot of travel and a variety of experiences is not very good for a child, as he will grow up incapable of long-term fruitful monotony.

Bertrand Russell philosopher