When I was a kid, summer stretched on like an endless road. There were no schedules, no camps, no curated activities. We rode bikes, invented games, stared at clouds. Sometimes we were bored out of our minds. And yet, those long empty hours are where the real stuff of childhood lived.
Boredom is supposed to be a problem. Parents today try to solve it the way companies solve inefficiency: optimize it away. They fill kids’ days with enrichment, lessons, sports, screens, anything to keep the engine humming. The implicit assumption is that a child’s value is maximized when they’re busy. But in practice, the opposite is often true.
Unstructured time is what gives a child’s mind space to wander. It’s in boredom that a kid first learns to make something from nothing. To turn a stick into a sword, a cardboard box into a rocket, or silence into conversation. Those are the seeds of creativity. They can’t be taught in a class. They emerge in the gaps between things.
The irony is that we adults secretly crave the same thing. We block out “focus time” on our calendars, go on long walks, or retreat into hobbies just to reclaim a sliver of mental space. What’s considered a luxury for us is treated as a defect in children.
I sometimes wonder if our obsession with busyness comes from our own discomfort. It’s easier to hand a kid an iPad than to let them be bored—and risk listening to their complaints. But when we rush to fill the silence, we rob them of the chance to discover that the silence isn’t empty at all.
The slow lane of childhood is not wasted time. It’s the opposite: it’s the foundation of independence, imagination, and resilience. A child who learns to tolerate boredom is learning something profound—that they can create meaning, even in the absence of stimulation. That lesson doesn’t just make for a more creative kid. It makes for a more capable adult.
Maybe the greatest gift we can give our children isn’t more activities, but less. Not more speed, but more slowness. The courage to let them get bored—and to let them figure out what comes next.