Making the case for summer boredom
As I sit down to write this, we’re standing on the precipice of summer, looking down into that big, yawning canyon. We’re all excited for the openness, but as a parent, I’m a little nervous about how we’re going to fill each non-structured day.
If it were just me, I know exactly how I’d fill my days — writing early in the morning, followed by a long walk before it gets too hot (ha!), then a whole bunch of reading. I haven’t had a wide-open summer like that since, what, college? High school? It feels like forever ago, but deep down, it still feels like that’s what summer should be like: lazy days, beating the heat, gulping down great books.
Obviously, with young kids, it’s a bit different.
“Do you have big plans for the summer?”
That’s what I keep hearing in these weeks before summer begins. From friends, neighbors, the cashier at the grocery store. I’ve even asked it of the people around me. It’s an innocent question, but in the moment, I always feel a little sheepish about our decidedly not-big plans — VBS, the pool, the library, the beach — like I’m falling behind because I don’t have any flashy things planned to keep boredom at bay. Or maybe it’s just that I’m already looking ahead to the kids’ boredom that I know will come.
Our childhoods were different — no iPads to pull out, no phones to piddle around on, and the only video games my friends and I knew about were Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt.
I distinctly remember one summer day as a kid when I was really feeling the summer doldrums. My mom was doing laundry or something in the house, and I was dragging around, moaning about how there was nothing to do. She reminded me we had friends coming over that weekend and that we’d all have fun together, and I moaned some more: “But that doesn’t change today — I’m still bored!”
So kids have always had attacks of boredom in the summer, but is that boredom a bad thing? I read an article recently that said psychologists actually recommend that children be bored in the summer. We all know children need to learn the art of entertaining themselves and that bursts of creativity can come out of good old-fashioned boredom, but child psychologist Lyn Fry links kids’ boredom to learning how to be a productive adult.
“Your role as a parent is to prepare children to take their place in society. Being an adult means occupying yourself and filling up your leisure time in a way that will make you happy … If parents spend all their time filling up their child’s spare time, then the child’s never going to learn to do this for themselves.”
Right now, I’m reading a wonderful book that’s helping me see normal, uneventful days differently. It’s called “Liturgy of the Ordinary,” and it’s about how we can become aware of God’s presence in the mundane moments of our day — and there’s perhaps nothing more mundane and ordinary than a hot summer afternoon with “nothing to do.”
The author, Tish Harrison Warren, talks about how we must be “shaped into people who value that which gives life, not just what’s trendy or loud or exciting.” She says we can begin even our relatively dull days and embrace daily life, “believing that in these small moments, God meets us and brings meaning to our average day.”
My kids likely don’t appreciate how God brings meaning into these long, hot afternoons, but I do. I’m entertaining them a little bit, but also trying to let them figure out ways to entertain themselves, trying to mold them into people who love God and love people and don’t come apart at the first sign of boredom or stillness.
But when they do come apart? The tears, the moaning, the whining? You’ll probably see them sprawled out on the couch watching a movie while I’m happily sprawled out elsewhere with something cold in hand and a stack of books. Because it’s my summer, too.
You can reach me by email me at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website, LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks, Twitter @LaurenKDenton, or on Facebook. My debut novel, “The Hideaway,” is available wherever books are sold.