It's GOOD for children to experience boredom...

Jbf. I was simply agreeing with someone who expressed exactly what I feel, but expressed it.much better than I would have done. I get quite cross with DD1 who spends all her spare time taking my grandson to rugby, football, swimming club, and he's not a muscular teenager, he's just 2 yrs and 10 months. Their garden is littered with every imaginable fixed plaything, and their living room, plus his bedroom, are spilling over with toys. Apart from the above-mentioned stimulants he is always being taken to playgrounds, children's events, e.g. Thomas, and Peppa Pig world. When I do get to see him I sit him down quietly and read to him, or teach him songs with funny actions and he just loves that. I get him to tell me a story in his limited vocabulary and we look at flowers and butterflies and everyday things. So I think his mum does overstimulate him and he seems to love quiet time with his gran and grandad.
Elegran is not my mate ! We've never met, but I do enjoy reading her intelligent posts as opposed to the rather more rude and wind-up ones, although I think they are posted to get a reaction jbf, which they usually do! I know you have a kind heart though!

Time to get this lazy arse moving methinks.

! I forgot the soz

You are my mate too soon.

But you have been on here longer than me, so perhaps you see things that I dont see.

You are my mate Elegran.

There are many households who dont have a garden, few books, and sometimes not that many objects in it either.

They probably do have electronic gadgets and tvs.
[I am generalising I know].

It is not so easy to occupy yourself if you are a child in a flat or bedsit like that, without resorting to the gadgets.

[jingl, I dont think that the site is all that cliquey really. And it is obvious when it starts to head that way.]

It's the 'same old, same old'.

Oooooh! I am someone's mate! News to me, but so exciting!

Oh come on, jings. Can't anyone agree with a post without being shot down for it? People do praise your posts from time to time, you know.

Oh God! Make some contribution yourself! Don't just come on to applaud your mates.

Well, this doting granny is a firm believer in kids having it all to hand. Why not, if you can? Most (un-deprived) children's bedrooms are stuffed full of a wide range of interesting things. Long may it continue.

What wise words Elegran and beautifully put.

It is good for children to be able to take steps themselves to avoid boredom, and not to be entertained every waking hour by doting parents/grandparents or electronic games invented for the sole purpose of entertaining them (or perhaps for the sole purpose of selling to them). The world is bigger than that.

With a house full of objects and books and a garden full of plants, earth and beasts, they don't need wall-to-wall bottle-fed artificiality. A little goes a long way.

Electronic games are stimulating and entertaining, and have their place, but they don't match books for adding subtle characters, word-play, different styles and ideas from different authors, knowledge of cultures and customs outside a child's own experience - and that is just fiction. Non-fiction has facts about everything in the world, and a page can be returned to again and again to identify an insect found in the garden, or find out more about a topic that has engaged interest.

I like your name Grannyeggs.

I think a child's 'boredom' is more likely to be down to the lack of a playmate. And that's human nature. We all like some sort of company.

I can't see anything wrong with helping a child avoid boredom, even if it's just a trip to the library to take out the box set of Harry Potter. I know a certain young feller who happily spent a day or two building his Minecraft Lego whilst listening to just that.

(The reading of library books happens at bedtimes - he's a boy)

I agree with you Jingle, boredom is mind numbing and tedious, I think the " experts" say it triggers off imagination and creativity. But I don't think just being quiet for a moment and having nothing particularly stimulating to do is true boredom. When children say they are bored, I just think they want someone to entertain them, it passes quickly and they move on to the next thing.

What the 'experts' say

I especially remember being told 'Bored are you? Well There's potatoes here waiting to be peeled' - I certainly took myself off PDQ.

But isn't that part of the problem? We could and did take ourselves off (all day) armed only with a jelly piece, and only reappeared when hunger or night drawing in drove us home?

Oh!!! I thought this was going to be some sort of interesting research.

Why should it be actively 'good' for children? I hope my grandkids are always able to avoid it. It's not good for anyone.

Exactly what I am thinking*rosesarered*.Children have so many organised activities these day that they don't have time to get bored but hopefully they will get bored with all the electronic games at some point.

I agree that boredom now and then is good for children, but see very little chance of that happening now that they always have a device in their hands to play whenever they like ( and most seem to) or are being entertained by tv, or parents/grandparents.

There are some children's programmes on NZ free television but you need Sky, which I don't have or want, for Nickelodeon, Disney and other dedicated children's channels. Consequently, when the children are at my house, they don't watch the television. I do have a limited number of suitable DVDs which we occasionally put on. I can't buy any more at the moment because my DVD player is English and won't play DVDs bought in a different zone. (That's nothing to do with technology and everything to do with pricing.) Only the oldest two grandchildren are allowed to use my computer (occasionally for homework and the odd game or two) and they are also the only two with cell phones. One of the younger ones has a tablet but he is only allowed to bring it here if he is having a sleepover. Consequently, we do gardening – talk about the blind leading the blind – play bizarre ball games in the garden (I still don't understand the rules), do puzzles, treasure hunts, board games, baking, drawing and painting, stories, both reading from books and making them up sequentially, rather like playing consequences. The three-year-old loves doing that and is still talking about the chocolate sheep that lived on the side of a volcano that featured last time we played that game.

When the eight-year-old is feeling sassy she announces that she's bored and wants to go home. I usually suggest a couple of things she might like to do and then ignore her. They do all tend to feel that I have to be part of what they are doing, even if it is only snakes and ladders, but, as a rule, I don't really mind joining in. (Admit it, absent, you love it!)

I also, to their parents' delight, insist that homework is tackled when they get here, as soon as they have had a drink and a snack.

This is the house of fun – no time for real boredom here.

My DGC tell me they watch DVDs and play on ipad, xbox etc when they are with mum. When they are with me and DS they play on the slide in my garden, plant seeds/plants, monitor the tadpoles or worms in the compost bin, search for mini beasts, or generally just occupy themselves. Indoors they do puzzles, draw, colour, write, bake cakes or cookies, help prepare meals and play endless imaginary games. They play 'out the front' on bikes, playing kick/throw ball, kerbie, running/hopping/skipping races, hide and seek or just make up more imaginary games.
They love 'adventures' aka walks in the woods, pond dipping, picnics wet welly walks in the rain, paddling in streams, throwing stones collecting stones/twigs /leaves/assorted rubbish!
Today we looked at clouds and saw lots of different creatures and shapes in the sky, while on our picnic in a local river valley (as well as finding, frogs crickets, butterflies and other unknown insects in the grass).
I could go on and on (and often do), including local free events, library activities, play areas. I hope when they look back they don't remember being bored and pass it on to their own children.

Yes, it's a judgement I agree Lucky