Raising Kids Who Don't Get Bored

One of the most important goals of any parent is to raise a child who is an independent and productive member of society. Self-sufficiency is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children, and giving it to them is a process that begins in infancy and lasts until the day they leave our household.

One of the earliest forms of self-sufficiency children need to learn is the ability to entertain themselves. Play is a nearly universal behavior in the animal kingdom, and scientists have discovered in recent decades how tremendously important it is for improving brain development and skills of all kind.

Infants are almost totally dependent on their parents for entertainment, and everything else, but as they get older, they become increasingly capable of amusing themselves, and should be encouraged to do so in a safe environment for longer and longer periods of time.

Unfortunately, modern society is losing the skill of raising children who can entertain themselves.

It starts in infancy, with an endless parade of "educational" toys that flash, bleep, play music, and move of their own accord. Soon toddlers are spending long hours in front of the bright images and loud noises of the television set, later they take up computer and video games, cell phones, portable DVD players, and more.

Now, I'm not going to argue that these items are universally bad for children. On the contrary.

However, for too many children, such electronic baubles become the be-all-and-end-all of entertainment and amusement. Take them away, and they don't know what to do with themselves. Cries of "I'm bored!" ring through the house.

What's worse, many parents hear regular complaints of "I'm bored!" even in houses stuffed with expensive toys and electronic games. The cure, for too long, has been running out to get another toy, another DVD, another video game that will be played for awhile, then added to the "Old and Boring" pile with all the others.

Obviously, this is not a real cure, but a desperate stop-gap measure, a single finger plugged into a dike riddled with thousands of holes. The sad results of this strategy have become increasingly obvious in recent months as the economy has tanked and families have been left struggling to pay for their most basic needs.

So what is the secret to raising kids who don't get bored? It's self-sufficiency. Kids who can amuse themselves without flashy electronics or constant attention from parents and peers have a lifelong booster shot against boredom.

Children, especially young children, need time to learn how to amuse themselves. A baby that goes from a crib bedecked with a mechanical, musical mobile to a carseat festooned with rattles, to a bouncy chair with flashing lights and beeps, to a baby sign language class where flash cards are waved around in her face, to dinner with Mom while she watches her programs is going to be a lot slower to learn how to amuse herself than a similar baby who is occasionally left by herself on a blanket on the floor with a cloth book or a plain rattle while Mom loads the dishwasher or sits down to read the newspaper.

Likewise, an older child rushed from school to band to baseball to his sister's gymnastics class to bed is going to have a harder time knowing what to do with himself in his down time than one who comes home, does his homework, and heads outside to muck around in the backyard until dinner.

Of course, there's a huge difference between giving them space to amuse themselves and ignoring them. Young children, in particular, should be closely supervised even during quiet play sessions. Almost as important, they should be acknowledged for their self-sufficiency. My mother always taught me to "catch kids being good," because if they learn that they need to be bad in order to get your attention, they'll be bad more and more. Negative attention is better than no attention in the curious minds of young children.

To avoid this, stop what you're doing to go kneel by your toddler every now and then when she's playing happily by herself and thank her for playing so nicely, or praise the tower she's built with her blocks. Give her a pat on the back and be on your way, only to come back in a little while to check out her progress.

Make yourself available if your kids need you, and take the time to teach them the skills they need to entertain themselves. Half an hour showing your kids how to juggle a soccer ball can pay off in hours and hours of peace and quiet as they practice!

Another trick I learned from my own mother. "If you're bored," she used to say if me or my two siblings complained, "I'll find something for you to do." Needless to say, her "something" usually involved cleaning our rooms, or extra chores, and needless to say, we didn't complain of being bored very often!

Today, I use the same trick on my own kids. It's amazing how effective it is!

Make it a tradition to read out loud to your kids every night, even if you hate reading out loud. (I do!) This is one parental sacrifice that will pay off many times over in the long run. No children entertain themselves more easily or more quietly than avid readers.

Thanks to public library cards, few children entertain themselves more cheaply as well! Many libraries also offer regular or continuous book sales where you can find lightly used books very cheaply to expand your little bookworm's library. My local library offers children's paperbacks for 25 cents! Used bookstores are also good resources.

Television and computers can be a great learning tool - kids who spend some time with them have higher grades than kids who spend either too much time or none at all -, but more often than not, they serve more as a kind of pacifier for the brain: easy entertainment that prevents us from developing the skills we need to entertain ourselves. There is some evidence that television and video games literally change the structure of our brains, encouraging shorter attention spans and more dependence on outside stimuli.

Not only that, but they are expensive, and their costs tend to escalate rather than stay steady. Start with a television and DVD player, end with XBoxes, Wiis, Playstations, and more. The more electronics you have, the more different kinds of games and other media you have to buy to use on them, and the higher your electricity bill, not to mention the time you have to spend dusting!

There are many curious correlations between the amount of time a child (or adult!) spends outside in natural settings and his or her mental health and general well-being. Coincidence? Possibly. But my personal experience, as someone who's struggled on and off with depression, is that fresh air, sunshine, and exercise is the single most reliable cure when I'm feeling blue.

With depression, attention deficit disorder, and other mental health problems on the rise among children, as well as childhood obesity, the disease formerly known as "adult onset" diabetes (now striking children as well), and other health problems associated with sedentary lifestyles, it seems all the more prudent to increase our children's exposure to nature.

Natural environments also provide great sources of self-sufficient entertainment and amusement for children. When I was a child, I spent hours mucking around in my parents' huge vegetable garden, turning over bricks to check out the bug population, making daisy chains, and watching the birds at their feeders. For my mom, that meant a lot of free time to pursue her own interests; for me, it resulted in a lifelong love and appreciation for nature.

And by "hobby" of course, I don't mean playing video games, though designing video games would be another matter. Hobbies should be fun, but they should also develop skills or knowledge and be productive.

For example, old fashioned hobbies such as coin or stamp collecting teach kids about history, geography, and culture. Building models develops design, spatial reasoning, and engineering skills. Woodworking and pottery are valuable skills dating back to the dawn of human history - they can also be converted into careers! Writing can lead to better grades in the short term, and a wide variety of careers in the long.

Many hobbies are considerably less expensive than the video game addiction of the average modern preteen. Some can be more so, and it is up to parents to decide how far to encourage a child's hobby and to what degree he or she should personally earn the money to pursue it. In the early stages of a hobby, it is probably best for parents to cover the bulk of costs, but as the hobby grows more serious, making the child wholly or partially responsible for earning the money to buy an expensive piece of equipment encourages him or her to take the purchase seriously.

Encouraging your child to start a small business of his or her own is a great way not only to avoid complaints of "I'm bored!" but to teach valuable skills such as money management, salesmanship, and responsibility.

There are many ways even for relatively young children to earn a little extra cash for themselves. A few common examples include:

• lemonade stands
• selling baked goods
• selling art or crafts
• lawn care
• snow shovelling
  
• selling vegetables or other produce
• selling houseplants
  
• raising livestock for meat, eggs, or milk
• repairing bikes
• writing stories, poems, or articles for publication
  
• breeding fish or other pets
• pet-sitting
• baby-sitting
• tutoring other students