LET KIDS BE BORED

We are at kampung and my daughter hasnt watched TV in 4 days (because there is no TV here).

She played bowling with used bottles, watered the plants outside, made up her own songs, and now set up her own "shop" using her toys.

She hasn't asked for TV yet.

When kids are bored, they become creative. When they stop receiving stimulation from screens, their brains start going to work, in an effort to stimulate themselves.

So they "create" entertainment. Thats when they start thinking and become creative.

Everything they've learned, every observation, every conversation will be recalled & applied to whatever entertainment they wish to create.

They'll play w their vocabulary to create dialogues, they'll pretend to be someone they saw, or they'll recreate a scene from observation.

Some parents are either afraid too busy to let their kids become bored. So they stimulate them as much as possible with screens.

They dont realize that they're getting in the way of their kids development.

Unfortunately letting kids become bored is actually a lot of work for parents. It means parents actually have to be present, and help kids explore their creativity.

In modern parenting, most parents are too occupied with work that they barely have time and energy to do this.

We have to understand that kids who spend a lot of time w screens have a tendency to have speech delays, and they tend to grow up unable to process their emotions, thus having higher risk of being depressed.

So i hope this thread will encourage more parents to let their child embrace boredom. Its a lot of work on our end, but it will be worth it insyaAllah.

Let kids be bored. They will thank you later.

Just want to point out a hipocrisy: while my kids have been screen-free for a few days, I have not.

Tried to get rid of the twitter app to finish a book but these past couple sexual harrasment cases have been on my mind a lot, thus here I am.

Smh.