Wisdom in Being Bored

Last weekend we piled our kids and mounds of stuff into our van and drove to the Rocky Mountains. Whenever mentioning a road trip like this, the first question people ask, even before inquiring about your travel plans, is “Do you have a DVD player in your car?”

Car DVD players are to road trips what a nap is to a new mother. Heaven. They break up long trips, help pass time more quickly, soothe restless kids and give parents time to talk and reconnect. My parents really could have used one back in the ‘60s when they packed 7 kids in a station wagon and traveled from Williston to California for a month in a popup camper. (What were they thinking?)

Car DVDs are among a long line of tools and trends that help us pacify, occupy and entertain our kids from the second they take their first breath. Newborn babies lie in vibrating seats, go to sleep to ocean noises and watch cleverly named videos we think will make them smart. TV, video games, organized sports, activities and all-day kindergarten are creating much more structure and stimulation for kids at increasingly young ages.

Between the shuffle of these schedules and the irresistible appeal of electronic media, children can go for days without any real downtime. A number of psychologists, educators and parents believe this hyper-stimulating environment is causing kids to be more restless and agitated, to have lower attention spans, to be dependent on instant gratification and less able to solve problems or complete projects on their own. These experts are actually exploring the benefits of boredom.

A private elementary school on the East Coast has incorporated a radical solution into their curriculum. The entire school, kindergarteners and all, starts the morning with 30 minutes of silence. The principle argues that kids need uninterrupted time to think in order to learn how to solve problems.

Our recent trek to western Montana was a case study on this theory of boredom and problem solving. We don’t have a DVD player for our car. If we thought our kids could handle one in moderation, we might relent. But moderation is not in their vocabulary. We would be dogged with requests for “Sponge Bob” before we reached the end of the driveway.

So, on our latest journey, they faced one big problem: What to do for 10 hours while confined to a car seat. They did a fair amount of typical car activities – coloring, listening to music and stories, snacking, tormenting each other and asking if we were almost there. But they also concocted some intricate games involving dinosaurs, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, multiple imaginary dams and a bookstore.

We counted freight trains, sang Yankee Doodle Dandy (no fewer than 39 times), and saw five bald eagles. And we talked. A few movies could have been in the mix of activities, but no one suffered much without it. I enjoyed seeing them immersed in a make-believe world of their own design rather than being pacified by the product of someone else’s imagination.

Ultimately, those hours on the road were a nice break for our family from all the noise, gadgets and distractions of the everyday world.

I’m not sure how long we’ll maintain our DVD-free travel policy, but I do know this. If a little downtime is good for my kids, “boredom” is one craft project even I can handle. Next time my kids say, “Mom, I’m bored.” I can say cheerfully, “Excellent! That’s good for your brain.”