:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/grupoclarin/Y4BY6Q4V2JHKFHZZAOHHLG6IRU.jpg "It is not the duty of parents to entertain bored children.")
Getting bored is, say specialists, one of the most important formative experiences in a person’s life. The ability to deal with boredom is an unmistakable sign of good mental health, and experiencing it forces the little ones to learn to deal with loneliness and develop internal resources to do so.
At a time when many parents spend the day looking for and sharing resources to entertain their children at home, some experts claim the right of the little ones to be bored.
Why boredom and frustration are good for children
Psychologist Rüdiger Maas, director of the Institute for Generational Research, advises parents to relax and wait. Boredom is very important, because children become creative out of it and can learn to help shape their environment.
However, today many parents have the impulse to entertain them, especially when the child is bored. In the long run, this leads children to expect their environment to play with them. If you don’t, they get frustrated more quickly and blame their environment.
Frustration in principle is something negative. But parents do well if they let children manage it for themselves from time to time, because that’s how they learn that they can do it. If you never had frustrating experiences, later, when you run into bigger things, you have no training. Because that’s what will happen.
“Today, for example, we are seeing how young people break down in the face of love sorrows. For something over which parents or the environment no longer have an influence ”, warns the specialist.
Experts explain why boredom and frustration are actually good for kids. (dpa)
How to manage boredom and frustration in children
When the child gets bored, the parents must first understand: this is the child’s problem and not theirs. They are not responsible for taking away the boredom of the child. Actually, parents have to be patient for five to ten minutes, and then the child usually finds a way to overcome the boredom. Many times the fact that parents make proposals or become active only deepens their dissatisfaction.
Parents must be able to trust their children. For example, it is not necessary to drive them to school right away in bad weather. Because that way the children may receive the message: I don’t have to put up with anything or suffer anything, because there will always be someone who will avoid me. In the same way it is the task of parents to sometimes say “no”.
Many parents have the idea that the more they invest in the child, for example, in time and training, the more results there will be. Or on the weekend they want to make up for everything they didn’t have time for during the week. But children often cannot process that abundance and the constant changes of course.
And a little more of everything doesn’t automatically make kids happier. “Even though our world works like this today, that everything always becomes more and also has to be immediately available. There are hardly any situations where you have to exercise patience and wait for certain periods of time. And that especially in the first years it is very important to train that ”, says Maas.
boys have to get bored
For the psychologist, parents have to allow children to spend time being bored. They don’t have to make up for everything. Instead, it’s better to be observant and let your kids figure something out entirely for themselves. “Try not to organize the best children’s birthday with schoolmates. Eight-year-olds can also play on their own from time to time. It is not necessary for parents to be constantly intervening ”, he clarifies.
“This may sound extreme, but my advice to parents is: relax, it’s not so much that can go wrong if you ever just do nothing. Kids can entertain themselves and it’s okay for them to learn how to do it,” she adds.
What is important, explains the specialist, is that parents need time with their children free of work and mobile phones to be able to fully concentrate on them.
A structured daily life can help with that. For example, turn off the phone when you get home and eat together. Instead of going digital, read to children at night in the classic way. Adults also need structures to stop. “If you constantly stimulate yourself, that pressure is transferred to the children,” she concludes.