Let Children Experience Boredom to Encourage Creativity

An academic says children should be permitted to get bored every once in a while to stimulate their creativity. The expert warns that too much activity could hamper the development of children's imagination.

Northampton, United Kingdom (prHWY.com) March 27, 2013 - Dr. Teresa Belton, in a recent interview with BBC, says parents should allow children to stand still in order to tap their innate creative abilities. This is because compelling them to be active all the time, could keep their imagination from developing.

Dr. Belton, a senior researcher at The University of East Anglia's School of Education and Lifelong Learning, comes up with this observation after interviewing scores of artists, writers, and scientists regarding boredom.

Author Meera Syal, for one, notes that boredom made her write. "Enforced solitude alone with a blank page is a wonderful spur," she confirms.

For his part, artist Grayson Perry cites, "As I get older, I appreciate reflection and boredom. Boredom is a very creative state."

Prof. Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist, told Dr. Belton about growing up in a family with little money and no siblings. "She happily entertained herself with making up stories, drawing pictures of her stories and going to the library," Dr. Belton says of Prof. Greenfield.

She also noted that society's standards that one should be constantly active and stimulated result to the "uncomfortable feeling" when bored. She, however, clarified that creativity "involves being able to develop internal stimulus."

She further observes that children nowadays resort to watching TV, or turning on their computers, phones, and other gadgets when they have nothing else to do, noting that the time spent on those things has increased.

"But children need to have stand-and-stare time, time imagining and pursuing their own thinking processes or assimilating their experiences through play or just observing the world around them".

Dr. Belton states that switching on the computer screens may short circuit that process and the development of creative capacity. "For the sake of creativity perhaps we need to slow down and stay offline from time to time," she adds.

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