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Comment by julianpye | Hacker News Reader

I believe in the creative power of boredom. Boredom and lack of distractions amongst kids create the most creative environment and nurture real interest and exploration.

Today's kids are oversaturated with distractions and their lives are fully planned around activities. So they live according to templates, but not according to their own motivators.

Then again, having a child myself (10 months old) I have noticed many parents have so many activities and things planned themselves that they distract their children (read consume content on iPads) in order to pacify them. It's a circle.

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I have to agree with this. I grew up in a village (pop < 250) in the mountains, and those were some of the most creative years of my life. When the entire town jokes that watching grass grow or paint dry is a fun thing to do in summer, you quickly learn to entertain yourself in novel ways.

As a side note, one other thing I think this has done is make me comfortable with silence. During the summer break when I would do long camping trips, sometimes I could go days without speaking, and I enjoyed it. Now I see people all around who seem to need and want something going on at all times. Since I no longer live in the mountains, meditation outside helps assuage my need for silence and solitude, but I am considering building an isolation tank.

On subject, I agree that freedom begets creativity. I love that I could mark a place on the forest service map, list my supplies, and say "if Im not back by sundown on day 3, then call the forest service". Thats a level of independence and freedom that was encouraged in my family that has served me well in many areas since.

Go rent an isolation tank, as someone who built one. They take up a lot of space, changing water, filling with epson salts, etc is a not fun. But maybe there are better systems nowadays, I built mine in the 80s. I had to move it once, I had a friend who owned a herse and we loaded it on top. Must have looked like we were carrying the coffin of a 1500 pound man.

I posted almost exactly the same comment back in November.

I think boredom and unstructured time without any parents around was one of the most important parts of my own childhood.

Kids are so good at entertaining themselves with basically nothing! Its uncomfortable for kids to be bored but they quickly learn the entertain themselves, especially when around other kids. Its actually kind of amazing.

They never learn this skill if they aren't given the chance.

Scott Adams (Dilbert guy) says that boredom is what gave him his creativity.

We actively did this with our kid from the start. We didn't play with her that much, she figured out how to entertain herself perfectly fine. (We didn't ignore her, before someone reads too much into it.) Just don't "train" the child into expecting that entertainment is produced by a third party at all times and they'll figure out to keep themselves happy.

Now, at age 3, she can be in the back seat for a 1-1.5 hour car trip WITHOUT ANY ENTERTAINMENT WHATSOEVER. Just looking out the window thinking, asking questions about stuff she sees, maybe singing something. No DVD player, books, game consoles, phones or anything.

100% agreement. I can't get over how valuable boredom was for me and my sibilings growing up, and how challenging it is to give my kids any kind of similar value/opportunity.

I'd love to know if anyone has seen research, books, or articles on this (pm me).

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