Let Your Kids Be Bored

On my last visit to the aquarium, I noticed something strange. The Tennessee Aquarium has installed screens throughout the exhibits. Some of these have relevant information about the animals, but many of these screens are for a different purpose: games. Yes, the games might be educational, teaching kids to build a turtle habitat or clean up litter, but what alarmed me was the attraction these screens presented. There were multiple exhibits where I found kids more entranced by the blue glow of a screen than by the giant fish two feet over. Children, who should be either terrified or in awe of water's many residents, were instead caught up in a virtual turtle coloring sheet. 

"It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen." - A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

This is not to blame the Tennessee Aquarium. I think they are a lovely institution, and I greatly enjoy my membership. In fact, I think they rely far less on flamboyant displays than other aquariums I have visited in the last year, and are focused quite clearly on the welfare of animals. It is, however, to point to a deeper issue. Kids nowadays are just a little bit too safe. 

Distant Thunder 
by Andrew Wyeth

In my 2010's childhood, I did watch TV. Saturday mornings were reserved for WonderPets and VeggieTales, and I watched football games with my parents. However, most of my childhood existed outside of the screen. I played Barbie's, dug in the dirt, drew with chalk, raced around the playground, performed puppet shows and concerts, and wrote songs and stories. Once, I thought it would be a good idea to have a "dirt party," and threw a bucket of mulch in the air, which promptly landed said dirt in my open mouth. I was allowed to be messy and make mistakes, and I learned from those mistakes. 

This freedom to make mistakes is missing in many of today's children. Five-year-olds at summer camp come to me distraught that it has been an entire thirty minutes since they last applied sunscreen. Children do not know how to talk to a relative on the phone or order their own food at restaurants. Discomfort scares them. Given the choice, many kids today would rather stare at a screen all day than socialize, play, or read. 

Raising kids is really difficult. Teaching an entire human how to exist in the world is a mammoth task, and it seems like keeping kids comfortable might ease that burden. There's less crying, less boredom, less headaches for mom and dad. But when kids are cradled by a screen all the time, the real world becomes increasingly foreign, until existing in it is downright unheard of. Children lose their attention span, social skills, and imagination, all of which are vital not only to childhood, but to functioning humanity. 

I'm not saying kids need to go eat miscellaneous flowers they find growing in the yard, or that they need to jump into the neighbor's lake, but maybe they should have the freedom to take risks within bounds. Should they have free rein? Probably not. But children should have enough freedom to read books that are too hard for them, to have conversations and be asked questions they might not know the answers to, to chase after older siblings on a course they might not have the strength to complete. They should be allowed to climb trees and jump off couches, and parents should recognize the fact that raising kids means living with a bit of noise and chaos. Sure, a TV babysitter is fine every once in a while, but sheltering kids in the clutches of personal devices is a scapegoat. 

Kids need the freedom to make mistakes. They need to be able to jump off a swing and bruise their knee, so that they learn how to jump off the swing better. They need to argue with their friends, so that they learn how to be more understanding of other people. They need to be bored so that they learn to entertain themselves and be creative problem-solvers. Parents need to have the patience to live with mess and noise, and need to be wary to intervene only when necessary. Give your kids the freedom to fail, be bored, and make mistakes, and don't try to stop them unless an ER trip is on its way.