Source: The Telegraph >> Read Full Article and Comment
Over-stimulation is the enemy of imagination – we should give our children the gift of boredom
Are children losing the ability to cope with boredom? The question is prompted by a scattering of letters in The Daily Telegraph in recent days, in which readers compared notes on how many hours, and even minutes, into the Christmas holidays it was before their children and grandchildren declared themselves bored.
It seems perverse, and not just because there was some snow to play in this year. Children nowadays have more toys to distract them than ever before – toys that are more sophisticated. This suggests they are bored because they are over- rather than under-stimulated. For with choice comes restlessness, a nagging feeling that there might be something better to play with, or something on television they are missing, if only they were not wasting their precious time playing with toys. But when they turn the television on, they hop constantly between the hundreds of channels available, so there is no rest for their minds there either.
Where has it left them? Unable to hold their own attention, I suspect. The more stimulation and choice children have been given, the less patient they have become, and the less capable of concentration. How can a jigsaw puzzle that might take hours to solve compete with a PlayStation game that has the synapses fizzing within seconds? So far we have managed to resist buying one for our children, though they use them often enough whenever they go to “play” with friends.
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