As the Lock Down in SA loomed near, there has been an influx of activity packs, daily lock down ‘schedules’ and online lessons for all ages offered by a variety of organizations and private tutors.
Each activity pack and schedule is jam-packed with amazing homeschool activities and crafts to put the best school mom to shame. Timetables! I’ve seen minute-to-minute itineraries with a laughable 60 minutes given for ‘free play’. Some, more ‘flexible’, packs encourage parents to ‘allow the child to choose’ which craft to do at that time. How noble!
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What has happened to allowing children to just be children? What has happened to boredom? We expect the next generation to be creative problem-solving leaders, but instead we ‘train’ them to be passive followers. Parents these days try much too hard to have a variety of actitivies on offer lest, God forbid, their precious darlings become bored. What they fail to consider is that boredom feeds the mind with imagination. Boredom is the key to creativity.
Being bored allows the brain to create new neural pathways which strengthen the connection between the left (logical) and right (creative) hemispheres of the brain. I assure you they won’t be bored for long! Hobbies emerge, your child’s true potential will begin to shine through. They will learn resilience. They will learn to make decisions. They will learn to choose right from wrong. They will learn to be themselves, free from judgment and bias.
By all means, take the boardgames out of storage, stock up the bookshelf and keep your craft stash handy. Then, turn off the wifi and wait…
Let them be And they will shine, Let them be Ignore the whine; And soon you’ll see What comes to be – Independence and resiliency.
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