[jungler]

The more I think about the "boredom is good" concept, the more I suspect it's flawed. Bored kids get into trouble, especially as they get older. By 18, a very bored kid left to chance will have found an unhealthy outlet like drinking or property theft.

We have a lot of screens now. But it's what one sees and does with the screen that matters. There is an element of media as pollution in this, but it's contrasted against our notion of "the classics". We always end up with a youth that is a mixture of the misspent and the classics.

[NeedMoreTea]

Bored kids who are always bored and have no outlets to stem that boredom often get into trouble. I think that's pretty well known and correlated. It's a picture that's been seen in countless deprived areas. Some will make their own outlets that might include drink or crime. Others will make their own constructive outlets.

I doubt that degree of chance is what anyone is advocating. Instead a little dead time, or space to be bored every day or two is often the spark for something creative. Make a Lego model, draw a picture, go out on bikes for an hour, kick a football round the back garden, etc etc.

[mmmmpancakes]

“By 18, a very bored kid left to chance will have found an unhealthy outlet like drinking or property theft.”

Do you have some statistics to back up this claim, along with a comparison against teens who are not bored?

[marcell]

You’re trying to analyze raising children scientifically, and I think that’s impossible.

You can never measure bored teens against non-bored teens in any meaningful way. No parent will want to, or be able to participate in a scientific study to tests the effects of boredom on their teens. What would that even look like? Randomize parents in two groups, and have them change their parenting in prescribed ways? No parent would agree to that.

Even if you did that study, and parents didn’t fail to follow the instructions, the results wouldn’t be applicable. Humans are different. What works for one teen may be counterproductive for another. You could get an average impact of 0, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t impact on a per-teen basis.

And of course, you don’t even know what outcome you want to optimize for. Is it grades? Number of friends? Salary at age 35?

Raising kids is (for better or worse) completely unscientific. Discussions are based in anecdotes and personal experience, not statistics.

[mmmmpancakes]

“You’re trying to analyze raising children scientifically, and I think that’s impossible.”

You lost me already. You are flippantly dismissing everyone in developmental psychology and related fields with no justification.

[Nasrudith]

The point is that they are individuals and one size fits all is doomed to failure. Any findings will be coarse and easy to confuse cause and effect. Just because children active in sports and music programs may be healthier and happier doesn't mean forcing the kid into both will improve things - by all means expose the kids to it, encourage them and let them pursue it but forcing a square peg into a round hole is good for no one.

There were worries that powerlines were harming children because children with homes near power lines had worse performance in schools. Analysis found that the mechanism for the "harm" was lowered property values - parents who lived near powerlines considered unsightly had fewer resources and it reflected in their children's academic performance.

A pure statistical approach on an individual level is like trying to have a full term baby in one month. Trying to actually raise children involves small N numbers with divergent starting states and control is impossible. You won't raise your second child in the same environment as the first - the year is different, you are different and there is the addition of an older sibling.

You can figure out great harms and benefits but anything else is shrouded in enough noise that attempting it at that level is practically superstition.

[mmmmpancakes]

I am not advocating for a pure statistical approach.

The parent of my first comment was making broad claims about the effects of boredom without justification. I dont think the assertion has any value without some good evidence. I was therefore providing the parent comment an opportunity to Contribute something more substantive than armchair speculation.

[marcell]

I don't think I was being flippant. That's the thesis of my comment, and the rest of it is supporting points.

[Nasrudith]

It also isn't new at all - the puritans had similar ideas that took them from ruling England after ousting the king to what may be snarkily summarized "We prefer nobility over these self-rightious fundamentalists wankers."

It is a toxic "your misery is good for you because it flatters my ego" attitude mixed in with nostalgia for a past that never was.

Being able to deal with boredom productively is useful but that doesn't make boredom a virtue or a good way to promote it any more than being able to stay sane in maximum security with only a library makes isolation a virtue and solitary confinement a good way to promote sanity and literacy.