\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boredom Builds Friendships<\/strong><\/p>\n If you do an Internet search for \u201cboredom\u201d and \u201ckids,\u201d you will get the distinct impression that these two entities should not coexist, that kids should never be bored. That explains the Pinterest articles, such as \u201c200 Boredom Busters for Kids\u201d and \u201c25 Ways to Keep Kids Entertained.\u201d Well, I call bluff. We\u2019ve talked about the individual gifts that boredom brings to a developing soul. But there\u2019s more! I say letting a slew of kids get good and bored together, without pacifying, distracting, or occupying them, is a profound gift to them all, because it allows real friendships to build.<\/p>\n I am of a generation whose childhood did not have much technology and an adulthood that is inundated with it. I went to college during what was still kind of the technological dark ages. I wish I could go back to this college life for just one day for the freedom we had to enjoy friendship, undistracted.<\/p>\n Yesterday I passed eight kids waiting for the middle school bus. Every single one of them was completely absorbed in his or her phone. Each of these kids was passing this \u201cboring\u201d moment waiting at a stoplight by entertaining him or herself with scrolling apps or playing games.<\/p>\n I think we\u2019ve forgotten that friends – technology = a profound gift.<\/p>\n I know this is true for two reasons.<\/p>\n First, statistics prove it. Loneliness, depression, and anxiety are skyrocketing in the uber-busy, highly connected generation. Our teenagers are highly entertained and occupied but deeply unfulfilled. Our kids are telling us over and over again that they are lonely, that there is a friendship deficit.<\/p>\n Second, you can see it anecdotally. A friend of mine shared her insights after chaperoning an eighth-grade overnight field trip. The first day, all devices were confiscated. As you may imagine, there was weeping and withdrawal. The kids had no idea how to function. The chaperones did allow the kids to have their phones for 10 minutes at the end of each day, in which they could check in with parents, keep their \u201cSnapchat stream\u201d active, whatever. My friend observed that on the first day most students retrieved their phones for the allowed period. The second day, she noted, only about 10 students wanted the phones. On the third day, maybe one or two did. On the way home the kids begged, \u201cNo! Don\u2019t give us back our phones! It\u2019s way more fun without them!\u201d<\/p>\n I think this incident is incredibly telling. And also sad. When you get rid of boredom, one casualty is friendship. A lot of stuff, meaningful stuff, happens in that unplanned, unfilled down time.<\/p>\n I will go a step further and say I really don\u2019t think you can be a good friend without learning to be comfortable with boredom. Here is why: to be a true friend requires patience. It requires the ability to listen through a long story, to troubleshoot a problem that is not yours, to push through dislike of things you don\u2019t feel like doing because someone you love does enjoy it. I agree that technology is incredible. But we must not forget that patience is a gift, because no true friendship exists without it.<\/p>\n So what do we do with this?<\/p>\n There is one wonderful step we can take, and that is to put screens away when we\u2019re spending time with one another. If your kids are having a party, collect all the devices at the door. If the neighbor kids are playing together, make them ride bikes or make cookies instead of watching TV or playing video games. And if you\u2019re playing a game as a family, put the devices away. If you go out to dinner, put the phones away. If you\u2019re on a long car trip, I repeat, put the phones away. Be bored together! It\u2019s painful and annoying and absolutely precious.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Taken from\u00a0<\/em>Let Them Be Kids<\/a>\u00a0by Jessica Smartt. Copyright 2020 by Jessica Smartt. Used with permission from\u00a0<\/em>www.thomasnelson.com.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Jessica Smartt<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0is the author of\u00a0Memory-Making Mom<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Let Them Be Kids<\/em>. She is a former English teacher turned homeschooling mama of three. A week after her first baby was born, she began her motherhood blog\u00a0\u201cSmartter\u201d Each Day<\/a>. Jessica and her husband live in beautiful North Carolina, where she loves hiking with kids (mostly), steaming coffee in the afternoon, family bike rides, and anything that\u2019s ever been done to a potato.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":454,"featured_media":10542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"I am of a generation whose childhood did not have much technology and an adulthood that is inundated with it. Friends - technology = a profound gift.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"boredom in our kids builds friendships","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2853,675,32,2096,169,2155,830,738,210],"class_list":["post-10536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun","tag-boredom","tag-friends","tag-friendship","tag-gift","tag-kids","tag-middle-school","tag-patience","tag-relationship","tag-technology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n