Why Boredom Is Good for Teenagers, and Why We Don't Let Them Have It
As a parent, I hear "but I'm bored" quite a bit. I reckon most parents can relate.
It gets me thinking about my own childhood. We were allowed to be bored. The answer was pretty simple: you might as well go outside and do something.
If I was inside and said I was bored, I'd automatically be told to get outside and play with my Matchbox cars or whatever I could find.
Looking back, that was a really important part of my childhood. It shaped me.
I was constantly using my imagination. I built roads. I played in the soil. We made forts out of whatever we had around the backyard. There wasn't always something organised for us to do. We just had to figure it out.
I think that's something that's missing these days.
How we fill every gap
Screen time has a lot to do with it, but it's not the whole story.
Parents want to do their very best by their kids. We want them to have all these different experiences: sport, dancing, swimming, music, all sorts of activities after school.
We're trying to give our kids the opportunities we might not have had ourselves.
But sometimes, in trying to give them everything, we're loading them up with more and more. There's less and less space for them to simply be.
And there's less opportunity for them to explore their own interests, follow their imagination and discover what happens when nobody tells them what to do next.
What happens when a young person sits with themselves
Here's what I find.
When we allow young people to sit with themselves, in a space we'd probably call boredom, they get the opportunity to start really getting to know themselves.
They have to work out what they want to do. They have to use their imagination. They have to become more comfortable with their own thoughts.
I think we're robbing kids of some of that experience.
Being constantly stimulated can make it really difficult to sit still. I know that myself. Sitting still is something I have to consciously work on and practise.
And I think that's important because being comfortable with yourself is a skill.
It's not about expecting young people to sit in silence all day or suggesting that every moment of boredom needs to be embraced. It's about giving them the opportunity to work through that initial discomfort and discover what they might do with the space.
Sometimes, the best ideas come when we're not trying to force them.
Where it comes from
A lot of this is conditioning.
We go through school, we take on a value system, and our self-worth can become attached to productivity.
What did you achieve? What did you get done? How well did you perform?
That narrative can lead people towards overachieving and constantly comparing themselves to others.
I see it a lot with men. They're burnt out, but they don't know how to stop.
I wonder whether, if we'd had more exposure to boredom as kids, we'd be better equipped to sit in that space as adults.
Because when you're able to sit with yourself, something interesting starts to happen.
You start to question some of the things you've been chasing.
You can chase the next achievement, the next purchase, the next experience, the next hit of dopamine, and still feel empty inside. Never quite fulfilled.
Sometimes the real gold is found when we stop chasing and simply sit with ourselves for a while.
Our kids are growing up in a world of constant stimulation
I feel like young people are being pulled into this more and more.
Social media platforms and digital communities are designed to keep us engaged. There's always another video, another notification, another thing to look at.
And when you're constantly being stimulated, being bored can start to feel uncomfortable.
I'm seeing more young people struggle to put the phone down, sit still or simply spend time by themselves.
That's concerning to me.
Not because technology is all bad. It isn't.
But because young people also need opportunities to experience what it's like when there is nothing competing for their attention.
They need time away from the noise, without feeling like they have to fill every moment with something.
And they need the freedom to discover what interests them, rather than always being directed towards the next thing.
Where possibility starts
For me, it comes down to providing a space that's safe enough to sit down in.
To sit with your own thoughts.
To remove the distractions.
That's where we can start uncovering the beauty in the landscape, but also the beauty we have inside ourselves.
When we start to understand our own value, and realise it isn't attached to certain outcomes or productivity levels, we begin to view things through a different lens.
We start seeing possibilities that we couldn't see before.
The limitations we once thought we had around who we are, what we're capable of and what our future might look like can start to lift.
That's part of what I want to create on the farm.
A place where young men can step away from the noise, spend time outdoors, try new things and discover what they're capable of without constantly comparing themselves to everyone else.
Sometimes, when you take away the distractions, you give yourself the opportunity to see things differently.
That's what Possibility means to me.
It's the last of our seven pillars, and I think it starts much earlier than people realise.
It starts with a young person being given enough space to sit still, get comfortable with themselves and discover what might be possible.
So next time you hear, "but I'm bored", maybe don't rush to fix it.
Maybe boredom is giving them something they actually need.
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