We are filling our kid's time with all these structured activities to "enrich" their lives. To give them a leg up in the adult world. To make them smarter and well rounded. We fill our houses with a whole bunch of "enriching" toys.
This is extremely misguided.
The majority of a child's free time should be self directed. They need to experience boredom for proper development. Only in boredom do kids learn to be creative and process their thoughts in a meaningful way. They learn to live with the anxiety boredom creates and channel it into new ideas.
Micromanaging their lives leads to very poorly adjusted and anxious adults. I am very sad when I see car trip filled with iPads and TVs. Kids need to learn how to deal with the boredom of car rides and sit quietly with their thoughts.
Structured activities are great in moderation.
*Adults actually require boredom as well but it is especially valuable for the rapidly developing brains that kids have.
We are filling our kid's time with all these structured activities to "enrich" their lives. To give them a leg up in the adult world. To make them smarter and well rounded. We fill our houses with a whole bunch of "enriching" toys.
Yup, that was my life.
Yet, I had plenty of free time. What gives? The missing variable is schoolwork. The schools that I attended assigned very little homework, and it was generally easy to finish, during class time, plus a few hours maximum, per week at home. Indeed, even with my structured activities, I still watched TV, played outside, and pursued my own interests. Today, our leaders tell us that kids should learn how to code. I taught myself programming and electronics when I wasn't doing homework.
Today, the kids have hours of inane homework every evening, and much of it is configured to practically require using the computer, with all of its distractions and productivity pitfalls. We still want them to have enriching activities -- my kids are as involved in music as I was. Yes, free time gets squeezed out, but I don't think parents are entirely to blame. A normal childhood should have plenty of time for both structured and unstructured activity.
There is no right or wrong here.
The point I was trying to make was just that my generation seem to be more impatient in general which is a shame as we do need people who understand things in depth.
Believing that a child will improve themselves and realize their potential without guidance and an appropriate amount of forcing is, in my opinion, misguided.
http://www.bbc.com/news/education-21895704
http://greatist.com/happiness/benefits-of-boredom
Nobody said you shouldn't guide your child sometimes but sometimes your child needs to guide themselves too. We are taking away the latter in the modern world.
I should also note that I wasn't supposed to be doing any of that stuff, and I would have gotten in trouble with the teacher if they caught me doing it and "not paying attention".
Based on my anecdotal experience, I do believe that there's something to the 'boredom leads to children developing their creativity' assertion, as stated in that bbc article.
Boredom is very very important early on.
It's something you have to internalize and become familiar with and not fear. Way too many adults try and make sure their kids aren't bored IMO and thus the kids start fearing it because they never learned what a powerful engine for reflection and thinking it actually become.
Thats something you have to train.
This year, I won the timetabling lottery and got classes with fine art, graphics, fashion and media students.
Usual distractions (phones: Facebook, various instant messaging services &c). I gave each student a simple cardboard document wallet to keep finished work in and suggested that they put their name on the wallet and 'customise' it.
Silence: focussed activity for 15mins. I carry a box with a couple of sets of Sharpies of various colours plus Muji pens and pencils. Grabbed and distributed in a coordinated Mexican wave. Seriously, the full Csikszentmihalyi flow.
Now I have to find a way of channelling that into Maths... I'm taking Tufte's books in next week to see what happens.
TD;LR Digital natives can concentrate when they want to.
"I carry a box with a couple of sets of Sharpies of various colours plus Muji pens and pencils. Grabbed and distributed in a coordinated Mexican wave. Seriously, the full Csikszentmihalyi flow."
Sharpies: 2mm thick permanent marker pens in bright colours
Muji: Japanese stationery shop with a good stock of fine nib gel and ink pens
Mihali Csikszentmihalyi is a philosopher who has articulated the concept of flow-state. The relevant Wikipedia page is a good basic guide [1]
"While my students normally exhibited a substantial amount of distraction in our class, I was pleased to discover that since they were all artistically-oriented students, an impromptu art activity was able to occupy their full undivided attention for an extended period of time."
You're welcome.
I was using the term as a metaphor for the way that particular group of students just all went for the chance to draw something.
Thankyou for engaging.
True, although on the other hand that's the best time to experiment what you'll potentially like and perhaps even base your interests and/or career on.
It is up to the parent to give direction to their child, not pressure them into something that they don't want but show them what is possible and out there.
Giving a child the freedom to do what it wants is probably not going to end up well in majority of cases.
I have never told my son he should learn skateboarding, be a scientist or play music.
I didn't come out of a musical family and ended up playing music professionally for a couple of years.
No one is talk about giving them freedom to do what they want.
Sure. They don't, but when they are just starting school they still don't know much about what is possible, and out there.
> No one is talk about giving them freedom to do what they want.
Little bit of guidance won't hurt. There is nothing intrinsic in child's wishes. No one is blocking their inner genius by guiding them to pay attention to learning maths instead of painting, or dancing, or vice versa.
Nobody is saying guidance is bad. The point is when the guidance become constant. It's not about some innner genius, it's not even about finding what you are are good at. It's about finding the engine that will allow you to become good at something which is a combination between many factors including parents guidance.
But it's completely lacking when parent's start pushing the kids to try out may different things almost as chores.
There is a big difference between finding an interest and then finding a career.
I remember reading about this expert - he spent 20 years becoming an expert on blade design for aircraft engines.
We need more people like that but its hard to think what incentives we provide to people to chug through grad school. Its only in countries like germany where such incentives exists - in the anglosphere - its up to the parents.
There are obvious problems with that model - the thing is you need both - a lot of generalists and an equally large number of specialists for society to function.
But given how centrally we try to control everything its always one or the other rather a mixed bag.
The point I was trying to make is that if you just learn a little bit of music, a little bit of football, a little bit of french you are still only learning the same and getting the same perspective no matter how many different things you learn.
The trick IMO is to dig deep into something as this will teach you how to dig deep into other things later. I.e. you are actually gaining perspective on other areas even before you learn about them.
By exposing a wide range of activities to kids, they gain breadth. They can then choose what to explore in depth - that is their call.
"Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death."
You can specialize in playing a sweeping technique on your guitar that does not make you a good musician.
And again. No I simply don't believe you gain breadth by being exposed to many different things. It's the other way around. Learning a lot of different things superficially is not going to teach you the real lessons.
It's not about acquiring a specific set of skills it's about acquiring an ability to learn how to learn.
Reminds me of this Rich Hickey piece:
I don't think the "social disparagement of professional athletes" is with regard to a lack of skill at "what they do", but the sacrifice of what they don't, coupled with a view that what they've sacrificed for isn't actually important.
My views on the matter are mixed.
You can master something without taking it into extremes. It's more going through the ups and downs of learning and experiencing progress and lack thereof.
I recently realized that one of the unfortunate consequences of this is the way many in my generation (I'm 41) brings up our kids.
Instead of teaching them one thing in depth we are forcing them through a million different subjects way before they even turn 10.
It's not unusual in my circles that kids are both playing football, taking piano lessons, learning french on top of their school and homework.
I believe this is fundamentally the wrong approach as it only teaches kids to skate over a subject rather than master one in full.
The difference is huge because learning to master something takes you through several ups and downs which you don't learn if you only have to learn something on an superficial level. So you spend a lot of time becoming good at only the initial challenges of a subject not the much deeper levels of mastering something. Ironically learning to master something is going to make you much better at learning to master more than one thing. Where as learning a lot of things aren't going to teach you how to master any of them.
So I am now trying let my kids just find their ways instead of forcing them into all sorts of subjects.