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MY SIBLINGS AND I can be held accountable for a lot of misdemeanours during our childhood. Using our mother’s priceless vinyl Beatles singles as plates in our makeshift café immediately springs to mind.
Disappearing for hours at a time, without informing anyone, to explore abandoned farmhouses was another regular infraction. Half feral, we were also held responsible for lighting the odd campfire in the back garden.
If our only crime was doing dangerous things carefully, then we were guilty as charged. But being bored during the school summer break was something we could never have been accused of. In retrospect, this was largely because we were left to our own devices. The lucky benefactors of a generation who grew up under the hands-off parenting model, we thrived on benign neglect. The unspoken directive of “don’t come home unless there is something wrong or it’s time for dinner,” was hardwired into us and our contemporaries alike.
Unburdened with the dystopia of smartphones and, indeed, a simple watch, we relied on our bellies to inform us when it was dinner time. But that was “back then”, and this is the here and now, complete with a very different way of doing things.
In a few short weeks, schools will be out for summer. Those of us with young people attending post-primary education will already have clocked up almost one month of zero school runs, lunches, homework and washing of the uniforms.
However, along with the joy of not having to go to school for eight weeks comes the “what will we do with them” conundrum.
Sure, there are summer camps galore, but they only solve the problem for a few hours each day, plus they are only for a limited time. They can also be quite expensive, particularly for two or more children.
Perhaps you’ve lucked out, and the older teens already have part-time work for the summer. And with any luck, there is a lovely family holiday to look forward to. But ultimately, parents worry and stress about how to fill the long summer holidays for their young charges.
I have a deranged suggestion.
Leave them be.
Bear with me. Our kids are micromanaged and over-subscribed every other month of the year, so why not give them July and August to just be little kids?
Don’t parents need some downtime too? Surely we do enough for our smallies, driving them hither and tither, cooking the endless meals, reminding them to brush their teeth and, in general, keeping them alive all of the live long day without signing up for the thankless task of summer social director as well?
I say this with much love: It’s not our job to regale them every second of the day.
During the height of my time in the parenting trenches, I had one pair of hands, four small humans under the age of six and a very tired brain. It just wasn’t possible for me to cater to all of their entertainment needs.
Although, full disclosure. I did avail of a family membership to the swimming pool for the two months and frog marched them there, if only to ensure I got my money’s worth. But that was it. After that, they were on their own. Not for this family, early morning alarms set for Cúl Camp, forest adventures or athletics.
I don’t have childcare dilemmas, and so I fully accept it’s easy for me to declare “let them be bored” but there is a lot to be said for it. Even The New York Times said so.
Boredom can be a gift. When was the last time you were bored? Properly bored. Can you remember what you did to alleviate that? Snacking, scrolling or online shopping doesn’t count.
The act of being bored doesn’t miraculously endow our youngsters (or us) with incredible skills. It’s what they do when they are at a frustrating loose end that reaps dividends.
Being idle often leads to creativity. Present them with a large cardboard box and free rein to go to town on it. Ask them to write about a dream they had, but change the ending. Watch how a small patch of ground and a packet of seeds have the potential to cultivate an interest that might last for weeks, simply waiting for the things to germinate and life to appear.
Here’s a really good one. Lack of something to do helps our successors build tolerance of less-than-ideal experiences. That one caught my attention too. What does it mean exactly? In a nutshell, when life isn’t going the way they want it to, and our kids are being fed micro annoyances, it’s believed boredom is the gateway skill to helping them regulate their emotions and manage frustrations.
If it’s of any help at all, eventually the older gang will police the younger ones, but long before that, they will become each other’s amusement, whether they realise it or not.
Look, I don’t know either. My lot went through a phase where they purloined knives and teaspoons to dig holes in the garden. And I let them. They were outside, getting along and having fun.
How did we move so very far away from kids having the freedom to being let roam wild and free? A rhetorical question. We only have to pick up the paper, any paper, to understand why.
Nonetheless, a lovely acquaintance once said that it’s OK to be a little bit blind and a little bit deaf when you have kids. I’d like to add it’s good to be bored onto that. Just maybe keep an eye on your cutlery.
Gwen Loughman is gatekeeper of four boys, one husband and watcher over two dogs.
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