Reflective Parenting by Curious Neuron

Why boredom is important for your child's development with Susie Allison

• Cindy Hovington, Ph.D. • Season 8 • Episode 7

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Boredom is not a problem to solve but an essential skill children must develop for emotional regulation and creative thinking. When parents constantly entertain their children or rescue them from boredom, they unintentionally prevent crucial developmental growth. In today's replay episode (this is the second most downloaded episode of our podcast!) I chat with Susie Allison, founder of Busy Toddler with over 2 MILLION followers.

• Boredom is where creativity, problem-solving, and intrinsic motivation are born
• Children as young as babies can practice independent play when parents allow them space
• "Boredom busters" should be avoided - instead, honor the emotion but don't rush to fix it
• Screen time should be a predictable, scheduled tool for parents, not a boredom solution for kids
• Play shouldn't always involve adults - independent, unstructured play is where deep learning happens
• Start small with independent play - use a visual timer for young children to understand timeframes
• Creating the right environment with fewer, more intentional toys helps children engage independently
• Neurodivergent children may need different approaches to handling boredom
• Child-led play means letting children determine how they use toys without adult interference
• Expensive toys aren't necessarily better - simple household items often make the best play materials

Try the Reflective Parent Club for free for seven days to build emotion regulation skills and join our supportive community. Visit CuriousNeuron.com to access resources and learn more about supporting your child's emotional development.

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https://busytoddler.com/

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Speaker 1:

Hello, my dear friend, welcome back to another episode of the Reflective Parenting Podcast, which was formerly called the Curious Neuron Podcast. I made this change because it's reflecting where Curious Neuron is going, and we are becoming reflective parents. We are learning that we have to build strong emotion regulation skills and support our child's emotional development by modeling what this looks like for them. Many of us didn't learn how to regulate our emotions, and so if you are new here and wondering if this podcast is for you, you might not even know if you know how to regulate emotions. This is what one of the parents told me recently inside our club called the Reflective Parent Club, and I think this is why what the work I do is so important. I try to share the science and reach out to people that will help us understand what emotion regulation looks like, what's emotional intelligence and what contributes to us not regulating our emotions as well as we'd like to. It's not about digging into your past. It's really about building awareness, so that self-awareness is a big piece of what we do here at Curious Neuron and for this podcast, and so if you're new here, and this is something you are looking to do you want to express your emotions a little bit more. You want to communicate them a little bit better. You want to stop being reactive. Or maybe you suppress emotions and you don't speak up when you feel like you should in retrospect, and say I should have said something to my partner, or I could have said something to my boss who spoke to me. That way, then you are at the right place. I want to make sure that this is not, you know, another one of those parenting podcasts. There are lots, and there are great ones, but I don't need to tell you how to parent your child. I want you to become more attuned with yourself and I want you to become more attuned with your child and to build the confidence and the skills that you need to do that, not only today, but in 10, 15 years. If we can focus on that, which is through becoming a reflective parent, then things might feel a little bit less stressful and might feel a little bit easier, and that's what we do. So today we are revisiting one of our top three podcast episodes that we've played. So today we are revisiting one of our top three podcast episodes that we've played. We're on season eight right now, and this episode about boredom with Susie Allison is one of the top three episodes, and so, you know, if you have a child who really struggles with boredom, it's an emotion regulation skill. It's something that we need to support our child with, co-regulate with scaffold and build small ways for them to learn how to do this. It's not about, you know, kind of stopping the boredom or creating a way for them to, you know, get busy all of a sudden. We want them to be bored, and so if you struggle with this with your child, this episode is for you. I've said many times, the education piece is only the first part, and so if you struggle with this with your child, this episode is for you. I've said many times, the education piece is only the first part.

Speaker 1:

So on CuriousNeuroncom which, by the way, if you have not visited it, is a brand new website you can save articles now. You can create your account for free, save some of the blogs that we're posting, and we're putting up new ones every week. You could also revisit all of the podcast episodes. We've created a search bar so you can search for an episode. Let's say, if you said oh, bruce Perry's episode, I haven't listened to it yet, but I can't find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Go to kirstenroncom, click on podcasts and in the search bar you can write Bruce Perry. It'll bring you to that episode and so you can listen to it. That way, I want to make sure that you find an easy way to keep educating yourself. But, like I said, that's not enough. We've been doing this for years here at Curse Neuron, helping you build that self-awareness. But once you realize okay, I am aware now that I'm not regulating in the way that I'd like to, and this is leading to me not being the kind of parent that I've always wanted to be for my child. I want to show up better for myself and I want to show up better for my child. Then click the link in the show notes to try out the Reflective Parent Club for free for seven days.

Speaker 1:

Come to one of our weekly meetings, if you come. Let me just check the calendar. So if you join next week or at the end of this week, you're going to be part of our next week. We have our weekly not our weekly our monthly Q&A, our live Q&A with a neuroscientist, stephanie Zito, who is the author of a new book called Slow Down, enjoy Life. So she's coming to talk about how to keep self-care simple as parents. And then on Saturday, april 26th, at 11 am Eastern time, it's our monthly family meeting, where you bring your kids to the Zoom call and we are going to be talking about how emotions can feel like they get bigger and bigger and bigger and we're going to do a drawing activity around that, and I want to talk to kids about the importance of sharing and talking about our emotions that are inside our head, because sometimes, when we keep them in, it feels like they're getting bigger and bigger and bigger and stronger. And so that is what you get as a Reflective Parent Club member. You join for a dollar a day and you get to meet with me for an hour every week where you can talk about struggles that you are having. I post PDFs in terms of what you can do with your child, what you can do with yourself. I help you reflect on a situation that you've been through, and we have a course that you work through. You talk, you look at your values, you learn how to build emotion regulation skills and conflict resolution skills All of that for three months, for less for a dollar a day, which, for three months, is less than one session with the therapist, and so it really helps you get that community and that support you need to build the emotion regulation skills. So that's why I've built that club is because I knew that learning and education was not enough, and so we need a space where we can practice and reflect and have a community and somebody a facilitator, which is me to support you. Facilitator, which is me to support you. Miss, next week, come join us and see what it looks like when we have our monthly calls with our kids and our monthly calls with a Q&A a live Q&A and join one of our weekly meetings next Tuesday. You can join at 12 pm Eastern or at 8 pm Eastern.

Speaker 1:

Let's dive into this episode. First, I'd like to thank the Tannenbaum Open Science Institute for supporting the Curious Norm podcast, as well as the McConnell Foundation. Without these two organizations, this podcast would not be possible, and there's a special somebody that I would like to thank. I tell you, guys, when you send me a screenshot of your review, I send you a free PDF called Meltdown Mountain, which is a. I have my own beside me. It's a visual that you can use with your child to help them understand what this regulation looks like in the brain and how to support them. At least you get the language. You could print it, put it up on your fridge and talk about it with them, not when they're having a tantrum, after or before, but it really helps them build emotion regulation skills and it gives you that language that you might need. There's a booklet that comes with it, so you learn about that. You can get it for free or you can go on CuriousNoroncom and click on shop and purchase it if you'd like. But you can get it for free if you send me an email with a screenshot of your review at info at CuriousNoroncom.

Speaker 1:

But I'd like to thank Carly my West Coast friend she said, which I love for taking the time to send me such a beautiful email telling me how she listens to the podcast in the car while one of her kids is napping. And it really means a lot to me to see these emails, because you don't see it. But right now I'm in my basement recording this intro and I'm by myself and I don't see you. I see numbers and metrics, but I like to know who Carly is or who Michelle is or who Tanya is. Names matter and they're important. It makes me feel like I am speaking to all of you, and so if you do have a moment, please leave a rating and send an email and I will send you that free PDF as a thank you. So thank you, carly.

Speaker 1:

Today I'm interviewing somebody who I've been following for a long time now, and if you don't know the word busy toddler, if you don't know who this person is, then you need to jump onto Instagram or her website Because this person is. Then you need to jump onto Instagram or her website because this person is somebody that will help you come up with really easy activities for your kid, and it's kind of ironic that we're going to talk about boredom. But before we begin, please let me introduce you to our guest today, susie Allison, who is the creator of Busy Toddler. She has more than 1.7 million followers on Instagram. She's also a former kindergarten and first grade teacher with a master's in early childhood education. Susie shares ideas and tips on playing, learning and parenting that she's developed through years of experience as a teacher and a parent. I could not be more excited to speak with her today, and the topic of boredom is something that has blown up on my personal account on Curious Neuron Every time I post about this.

Speaker 1:

Everybody has tons of questions when do I begin? How do I do this? What if my child doesn't like being bored? And they whine and they cry and they're uncomfortable, and that makes me uncomfortable. So we're going to make sure that we cover all of this today in our conversation. Enjoy the interview. I'll see you on the other side. Hi, susie, hi how are you?

Speaker 1:

I'm good. I've been excited to speak with you for a long time now and I love that we connected on the topic of boredom because you know you're a busy toddler and you've taught me how to keep my kids busy and I teach parents how to. You know use play to help their child with. You know support their development. So it's kind of interesting that we're both talking about boredom today, but it's a really important topic.

Speaker 2:

No, it is, and the irony is not lost on me. I'm so here for this. I love it.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. First, I introduced you at the beginning, but I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of everybody. You know. I put this little question box and said what questions you have around boredom, and there were a few questions, but most of them were can you please tell Susie? I love her and all her activities have have helped me so much. So I needed to say that, because there were at least like 30 something of those messages, so I needed to tell you. Um, but you have helped so many of us, including myself with the three kids, and you make it easy, and I'm one of those moms now that had always, always had one like or two sheets of those dot stickers wherever I went and they saved me. So thank you for the work that you do.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's all my pleasure. It really is. What I get to do is such a joy and it just fills my spirit so much, and then just getting to hear back from people about it really is the icing on the cake.

Speaker 1:

I love that. So let's get into this topic of boredom First. What are your thoughts on boredom? Because, like I said at the beginning, you have taught us to keep our kids busy. So do you believe in boredom and how do you balance that?

Speaker 2:

I sure do believe in boredom. You know, one of the things I like to joke about is that while I do post these activities, the activities are more for parents, not necessarily as boredom busters and actually boredom busters is one of my most hated terms. So, like other people, it's like moist, or my sister hates the word complimentary, for me it's boredom buster. I hate the phrase boredom buster because I don't want to bust their boredom, because in boredom, as you know, lies the secret to so much goodness in childhood that I don't ever want to take that away. So while I am the activities queen you know that's what I've been told you are yeah, I use activities not to help my kids, not to be bored. I use them as tools when I need help.

Speaker 2:

If the kids are fighting or play, maybe is it going well, or I'm desperate to drink my coffee, or I need to hit the reset button on our day, that's when I reach for an activity.

Speaker 2:

I don't reach for an activity, and I consciously don't reach for an activity. If I hear my child say I'm bored, I don't and I make a very clear definition that I'm not going to do that with my kids. I'm not here to rescue you out of boredom, and I know we're going to talk a lot about that, but I'm not here to be their boredom savior. I'm here to help keep our ship running smoothly and help fill them with all sorts of amazing skills and strategies to develop in their lives, and learning to cope with boredom is one of the most important skills that we can give to our kids. Life is inherently boring. There are parts of life that are just inherently boring, and if we try to kind of bowl over that with our kids or avoid that with them, we end up causing actual problems in the long run that they're going to run into, and you know that as well as anyone. So yeah, while I might have all these activities at my disposal, it doesn't mean I'm using them ever for the dreaded boredom buster.

Speaker 1:

And I think that that's a really big misconception around all this, because there have been a lot of parents throughout the past few years that I've been doing this that come to me and ask me, you know, or have guilt around the fact that sometimes they're not enjoying certain activities that they're doing with their child, or they don't like play necessarily with young kids, or they tell me that they run out of ideas, you know, throughout the day. And that's where I tell them you need to include, you know, a balance of playing with your child or stepping away or creating activities like you have taught us. You know, with the sensory bins, it's not about filling up the entire day, so it's not like 10 o'clock is a sensory bin, 1030 is you know another activity, 11 o'clock, whatever it is. But I think there's a really big misconception around all this and it places a lot of stress on new parents.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I couldn't agree more. I think the role of the facilitator of the child's life is something that we have glommed onto in this parenting generation that didn't happen in the previous generations. They didn't see themselves as entertainment facilitators. The way that we see ourselves is that and I'm not 100% sure where that came from or how we kind of shifted and maybe it is just because we were one of the first generations to really choose to get to have children and at what time, and all these other you know really interesting cultural factors about parenting in our generation. But it is very interesting that we have chosen to walk down this road of being these entertainment facilitators and really by doing that we've taken away the ability for our children then later in life to be their own entertainment facilitators or their own, you know, guides in life and to build their resilience and all these deep cognitive skills that we want them to develop. We end up accidentally developing, removing by taking on that role.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think also we like to fill in these moments of boredom or these voids of something where you know it's either during the car ride or waiting at a doctor's office or you know just different situations where we can become uncomfortable because our child is uncomfortable, and we're able to fill that in now with screen time and I don't want to like put screen time down because there are moments where we need to step back as a parent and take a breath.

Speaker 1:

But I think that those periods, those dull periods, we become uncomfortable as well. And I think back to my own childhood. I was raised like at my grandparents' house and my grandmother was alone with me and she would basically throw me outside and say I'll see you at lunchtime and I mean it was like 8am and it was like come back at 11 when it's lunchtime and I would be in the backyard by myself most of the time and, had you know, I'd have to figure out what to do. And we've kind of removed that a little bit from or actually a lot. We've removed that a lot from kids because we're also scheduling scheduling a lot of activities in terms of like sports and instruments or whatever it is. So their days are not what they used to be when we were younger.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we've gone from kind of every previous generation growing up in a very child led childhood into now we have this very parent led childhood where we want to be responsible for their enrichment and their engagement and their future happiness and their successes. And we do all that by adding in all these extra bits because we want their life to be quantified. We want to make sure that we can see the data and if the data says that we've done X, y and Z to get them to this final outcome, then we've been quote unquote successful as parents. But if we go back to that child led idea where we can let kids learn naturally and learn through play and learn through their own experiences, that puts us in the back seat and that becomes a really uncomfortable position for a lot of parents, because we want to make sure that we're guiding, molding and driving our kids into the right paths, but what we accidentally do is we're pushing them maybe into a path that isn't the best for their development and that that child led one would have been or could have been the much better path. And, like you said we do we end up scheduling and overscheduling all of their time to where they lose the ability to self-entertain and to find their own way, lose the ability to self-entertain and to find their own way.

Speaker 2:

And when a child becomes very overscheduled and their life is very scripted, then that's where I feel like we see those kids particularly getting the most bored, because they haven't had that ability to learn the skills that they would have otherwise learned for the moments when they are free and they are in free time. Then they come back and say well, I need something to do, because I'm used to you giving me the answer, I'm used to having an adult telling me what to do. I'm used to this very structured time. So then the idea of an unstructured time becomes very scary and very stressful for those children. And we don't. We don't want to see that and we don't need to see that. Kids know what they should. They know inherently how to play and entertain. We just have to allow that to blossom.

Speaker 1:

How did that look like in your home? Let's start off with the first child when they were babies, because one of the common questions I had received today was you know, when do we start this? How do we introduce boredom? So how did the day look like in your home with your first child?

Speaker 2:

With my first child. I was very lucky very early on to recognize that he was self-entertaining all the time and that this was something I wanted for him. And so I would watch him on his playmat and I would see that he was staring up at the little playmat mirror and I go, oh, that's so cute. I'm not going to interrupt that, because just like an adult doesn't want to be interrupted in a conversation, a child doesn't want to be interrupted when they're in the middle of whatever it is that they're very engaged and focused on. So I would watch him on his mat and I would watch him with like a little block or a rattle or something, and I would just be quiet and I would let him be there in that moment by himself.

Speaker 2:

And and like you said, I think that that's something that people think that self-entertaining and independent play and being alone with your thoughts is something that develops much later in life. But really it starts the day they come home from the hospital. You can let them be at one with the world and with themselves. They can sit and look in a mirror, they can look out the window. If you see them being thoughtful on the changing table, just you know you don't need to ask them what they're doing. You can just let them breathe and let them be and let them look and engage. And so often we want to again, we want to interject ourselves and give ourselves something to do and make sure that we're doing everything possible when really, by not doing anything, you're doing maybe the best thing you could be doing in that moment.

Speaker 1:

And you know it's interesting, the way that we're kind of programmed now is that the more we do, the more productive we are, the better it is for us, right as adults, and something I had learned with my kids by the time I had my second one and we would go out and take walks and they would stop and, you know, pull some grass or, you know, find a little dandelion or pick up a rock, and my brain was almost programmed to say let's go, let's continue, let's move on through our walk. We need to get home. And then I had to stop myself and say, no, there's, I have nothing to do when I get home, it's just a walk. Why am I rushing them? And and I was almost uncomfortable with that moment of just being there and waiting and being present, but they're comfortable with it, they're good at this, this is what they do, they explore and you're right, we have to step back a little bit and get comfortable with that.

Speaker 2:

And their brains need time to explore. You know, our brains move much faster than theirs and theirs needs a second. It needs, you know, and the teacher world and education where we call it wait time. They need wait time. They need time to process it and think. Whereas we recognize immediately it's a dandelion and I'm good to go, they need a couple of seconds to take that in, to imprint that, to make the mark, to touch it, to feel it, to experience it, and then they're ready to go. And it isn't going to be on our timeline.

Speaker 2:

And that again goes back to this kind of child led lifestyle that we have to slow down.

Speaker 2:

We are in such a rush and it isn't to, you know, to put us down and to say, oh, you know we're, we're ruining them, but.

Speaker 2:

But it is to say we, we can learn from them to experience things a lot slower and a lot more deeply, and then we can also give them the gift of this kind of time to make their mark and make their impressions and do whatever their brain needed to do in that moment. And then we can look for the cues that they're ready to go. You know, I would look for cues on the play mat then that my son was starting to maybe fuss or move and I say, oh, he's, you know he's done. And now it's time for me to to scooch a little closer so he knows that I'm right there with him, and then him and I can engage and have our little baby babble conversations and then, when you know, when the next time comes and I notice he's engaged, I can scoot back again and let him have those minutes. So I think there's a lot about, like you said, just noticing those cues in kids and then cultivating that it's good to stop, it's good to sit, it's good to just be.

Speaker 1:

I'm putting myself in the shoes of a parent who's listening, and perhaps they have a child who's a toddler at this point and they maybe this parent didn't realize that they had to notice those cues and they were filling in those voids and those gaps. Now they have a toddler who is uncomfortable, perhaps being alone and in that boredom, what can a parent do at this point to kind of reintroduce it or support them to develop this?

Speaker 2:

I think one of the best things you can do is to frame it around independent play and to really just start small with with their growth in independent play, because independent play is essentially in itself the child finding a way out of boredom, because they're finding something to do with their time. And what I would recommend doing from toddler age on, is to get yourself a visual timer, kind of like an oven clock, where you can turn that timer and say, hey, you're going to play for the next five minutes. But you need to show them what five minutes looks like, because to a toddler that might as well be five years. Show them what that looks like on this little timer and then ask them to play by themselves.

Speaker 2:

While you do something, make yourself busy. You're doing the laundry, you're unloading a dishwasher, you're making dinner, so that you're occupied in a job and they're occupied in a job. You can still see each other. Maybe you're in the same room together, maybe you move the blocks in the kitchen, but you're building this five minutes at a time. Because I think, especially in the toddler years, we want to bite off then a lot more than we can chew and we say, well, we've got to do this. So I'm going to you know we're going to go for an hour tomorrow and it's like, well, no, no, we're not no, but truly, if you can start with five minute increments of having the child play without you entertaining them and being involved in the play, that's your road to getting the child to find their way out of boredom and to live a much more self-entertained child led life.

Speaker 1:

And I've learned along the years that sometimes taking the two extra minutes or five extra minutes yourself as a parent to sit down with them and get them started on something, sometimes it helps because you've started pretend play and they're continuing something or whatever it is with the sensory bin. But it does help to kind of guide them sometimes if they do need it, almost like a pre to your five minutes and just being there with them. But I think also the activities that you offer are really great because they're something new, right, something novel is exciting for a child, so they want to explore different things and you don't necessarily want to have a million toys in your house either. So your activities, including a sensory bin, that helped my kids a lot because the sensory bins allowed me to step back and my child was like Ooh, what's this? And then that's when I was able to, like you know, run a load of laundry or wash some dishes, because they were curious about it. So does it matter what's in their environment, in your opinion?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think it does matter what's in the environment. So my third born is my child that was born with really without the ability to play independently, and though I structured my home and he had great models and his older siblings who are phenomenal at playing by himself, this is something that did not come easily to him and this was something that we had to really work on. And things that I noticed that helped him back in the early years, as we were really trying to grow this skill and grow it intentionally was he was very overwhelmed by the number of toys that he was seeing. And when he would get overwhelmed by the number of toys, then it was too many choices, he was overstimulated and no, he's not going to play. Then Then he's just kind of given up on this idea because I can't find anything to play, there's too many ideas, and now I'm going to walk away from it. And then he'd show up and say I'm bored and it's like, well, you're not bored, you've just had a hard time finding a choice of what to do. But sure, okay.

Speaker 2:

And so what I ended up having to do for him was to really pare down the toys that were available in his room environment and really limit what he had available and I had. That was not something that I'd ever had to do with my other kids. They could find what they needed and be on their merry way. He needed limited choices. He also needed choices that he could absolutely do on his own. If there was something in his room that he needed an adult or an older child's help on, guarantee, that's what he was going to pick and then he was going to come find one of us to make it work for him. So we had to really eliminate all of those from his environment and we took away the toys that were. Maybe they were too old or too young for him and we'd been saving them because he's the baby. So we just everything ended up in his room. Or they were toys that were way too developmentally old for him, or they had missing parts, or they just weren't working quite right, and we really pared down for him. There is no right answer or wrong answer for how many toys you have with your child.

Speaker 2:

This was a great example of it's very personal to each child what each child can handle, and so for him it was about paring down, about making sure he wasn't overwhelmed by his choices, that he could find his choices, because if I had something in a bin like one of those Target bins that they then can't see what's inside of it, that toy might as well not exist to him. If it was not out on a shelf where he could see it, then he would just walk right past it. And again, then he's walked right past it. I have nothing to play with, I'm bored. You just need to open up this bin. So then I learned I have to move these kinds of toys around and leave them out or have clear bins or different ways that he can really see and and find his play in a very specific way. Again, that I didn't have to do with my other kids.

Speaker 2:

And then going back to the sensory bin conversation for him, that was the key to independent play when he was little, from about 12 months old on, I really worked with him on sensory bins and there was something about that being this very limited choice of something to do that he could do.

Speaker 2:

And then he knew he was successful at it, he knew he was happy doing it, it was engaging to him and, frankly, he, it was in our kitchen. So he, I was always within eyesight of him and I think that that a lot of times when we think about independent play with children, we imagine ourselves in a completely different space in the house and that will work for some kids and it won't work for others and it never worked for him. His umbilical cord does not stretch that far, so him being kind of in my kitchen area, he could kind of spin around and see me anywhere that I was working at and that was comforting to him and that allowed him to stay safe and to continue playing then on his own and to build those skills to where now he's five and we're better much better.

Speaker 1:

I've noticed that the similarity with what you said with babies, though, in terms of noticing. So it doesn't matter if your child is two months old or five years old. You have to notice, you know what works for them and what doesn't work for them, and and you really, every child is different. So the advice that you're giving today, like you said, we really have to look at the child and see what works best. If they need to be in our room, if you know, some might be better at all of this that we're talking about, right, so it's really important that we take the time to discover what's best for our own child.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think sometimes we want to put a one size fits all especially in child development on something and say, well, this is you know, this is best practice, so this is it, this is where all kids should be. And that's not true and that's not going to be true. Kids have such a variety of needs that we must be willing to look at it as just kind of a baseline and then work our way up, down, left and right, to fit each child in our family. If you have multiple kids to be able to look and say this worked for this kid, it does not work, and then that's okay. If it doesn't work, it really is okay. It's not a condemnation on that kid because it didn't work for them or they need something a little bit different. It's just they need it a little bit different and it is what it is.

Speaker 1:

What would you say to a parent who has a child who's a little bit older, maybe between five and seven who struggles with that boredom and as a parent, perhaps they've been using screen time to kind of fill that void? How do we step back from that and reintroduce this new world now of I want you to be bored? How does a parent do that?

Speaker 2:

I think first you have to reframe your use of screen time and I think you have to reclaim it, because when a child ends up using screen time to fill their boredom, that means the child owns the screen time and they're using it as a tool to help themselves. And what I preach and what I practice at my house is that screens are a tool for parents and they're a tool for us to use when we need help. They're not a decision for the child to decide when the child needs or wants screen time because, frankly, they might choose it the entire day and we really we really lost control. So instead, what I would look at doing is starting screen time to be a predictable schedule, that these are the times of day when it is absolutely available. It will always be available, you can count on this like clockwork. It will be available in my house for my kids that's around breakfast time, when I'm cooking breakfast and trying to start our morning and like reprogram my day. They get their 30 minutes then and then in the late afternoon, kind of after that, nap time, rest time, quiet time my kids get another dose of it in the afternoon and again, it's a very predictable schedule. They know when it's coming, they don't have to worry it's not going to come, because I've built that trust with them that they know it will absolutely come at those two times and because of that then they don't feel the need to ask for it throughout the day because they know the answer will be no and they also know when the routine is. They know when to expect it. So if that is something that you're struggling with at your house and your child is coming to you constantly throughout the day, can I just do screen time now? I'm bored.

Speaker 2:

I would really encourage you to set that boundary to start today, find your time or times throughout the day that you do need screen time, and it will be comfortable for you and it is something you can give your child and then pull it away at the other times. They need a predictable routine. They need to know when it's going to start and when it's going to stop and that they can count on that, because they need to also then know that it's not a fallback option later in the day, that this is not something that I can decide around lunchtime. I'm suddenly. I'm really bored. I just would like to have my tablet back.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, it's not available right now, and we look at it the same way. Maybe we would look at, you know, if they asked to eat bread all day or if they wanted to eat candy all day. It's the same kind of thing. We have no problem putting a limitation around it in a lot of other things in parenting, and so we can do the same thing with screen time.

Speaker 2:

And, you know, play begets play, and so the more a child can play and the more that they can get used to that play and used to the fact that the tablet isn't going to come rescue you and take away this feeling that you're having right now, the better. Because really, especially as they get older, they need to learn to be able to sit with that boredom because, frankly, as we know, there's a lot of boring times at school and when we get into that school age, they have to have that skill, they have to have that ability to handle and sit with boredom. They have to be able to. It becomes very crucial to their existence in the elementary, middle and high school life.

Speaker 1:

This is exactly what led to my posts on boredom.

Speaker 1:

I was listening to the audiobook of Atomic Habits and near the end of the book he talks about intrinsic motivation and how, you know, I think they were comparing athletes and the ones that did well were the ones that were able to motivate themselves past that boredom of that plateau, like I'm not getting any better, but you know I need to keep and keep, you know, running every day or whatever it is.

Speaker 1:

But they were talking about that and that made me think of school, where we have to kind of, you know, push through the boring subjects or the boring moments, and I'm so happy that you brought that up because we don't think about the impact that this could have, including intrinsic motivation. So when I had, when I've dealt with parents who have school-aged children, they'll say, like, how do I get them to be motivated, right, without the external factors? But it starts very young and when you're bored and a child is sitting there and sees something and says, oh, I wonder, I wonder what that would do if I kind of built a tower, if I put those two things together. It's child-led an idea and they've, you know, done whatever they thought of and created something, and that's internal motivation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's really what we want to get kids at, because as they get older and school gets more challenging, they have to be able to keep themselves motivated. Something that parents end up doing a lot of times is we equate boredom with intelligence and we say well, my child's bored in school because I think that school is really easy for them. And I think what we need to understand a little bit more is that boredom happens on both sides of the coin. You can be bored when something is too easy and you can be bored when something is too hard, and that boredom isn't necessarily caused by the level that the child is at. It might just be the level that the activity is at.

Speaker 2:

And as kids understand boredom when they're younger and they bring that into the school time, they really are able to handle that and either get their needs met by saying, hey, this is too easy or hey, this is too hard. I have a lot of questions because I'm not able to do this. And again that becomes that intrinsic motivation. Do they want to get better? Do they want to better themselves? Do they want to solve this problem, whether the problem is too easy or too hard, but it really does all go back to this understanding that it's okay to be bored, that bored is a fine emotion to have and we have to see it as an opportunity to start something new and start something exciting and to work within ourselves to cope, to cope with it.

Speaker 1:

I think back to when my kids were young and we were sitting at the doctor's office and we had a lot of parents around us that had their babies and we're like looking at screens and you know, I guess sometimes you know you don't want your child to cry, you're in a public area, but we would walk around and look at either if they had paintings on the wall or we would sit there and people watch. Now I don't know if people watching is something I like to do, because my husband's Italian and you know they just people. They people watch all day, like when we visited Italy. It's so fun.

Speaker 1:

You're bored, you're not doing anything, there's no purpose to what you're doing, but you know, having that child in that situation is really nice because now they're able to just sit there. And of course now they're getting older and sometimes they'll say you know I'm bored in the car ride. But then I'll say what can you do with that boredom? Can you play Simon Says together? Can you play I Spy? I wonder if you know giving them the ideas. Is that something you would recommend? Or do you just tell them like, deal with it?

Speaker 2:

Well, first of all, I love the way you phrase that. What can you do with that boredom? Because that just makes it sound so empowering. Like, you're right, you are bored. What are you going to do with that? Like, where do we go from here?

Speaker 2:

For me, if my kids come to me and say they're bored, instead of dismissing the emotion because it is, it's frustrating to be bored. Nobody likes the feeling of bored. I was in an orthodontist appointment with my son the other day. I didn't remember a book. There's no magazines in the waiting room. It started to go on longer than I expected. My phone internet wasn't working and all I could do is text. And I texted my best friend and I said I'm at the orthodontist and I'm bored, entertain me. And she wrote back no, you have to sit with it. And I just laugh because you know it's kind of like what we'll say to kids yeah, but so what I like to do with my kids if they come to me and say I'm bored, I honor that emotion. Wow, you're bored, okay. Okay, let me help you really quick to find what we can do.

Speaker 2:

And I think the key is really quick because I'm not going to make attention seeking part of the answer to boredom. I'm going to really quickly toss out a couple of ideas and then go right back to what I'm doing. Oh wow, you're bored. You are welcome to go outside. You're welcome to color right now. You're welcome to do the dishes with me. Maybe someone will keep me up on that. You know, you're welcome to do the dishes with me. Maybe someone will keep me up on that. You're welcome to head to the sensory bin. Let me know what you choose. And then I turn around and I always end it with that Let me know what you choose and I just kind of walk away and I leave it at that. And sometimes what they'll choose at a young age is maybe to just sit on the floor and stare at you. All right, well, that's what you chose to do. I'm going to go back to doing the dishes, which you said no to helping.

Speaker 2:

But my goal always with that is again to just remind them, give a few quick ideas, not get sucked into the trap of where I'm trying to like overly entertain them or give them all this attention based on the words I'm bored, because I don't want them to then be like well, I'm bored, I'm going to go talk to mom and now she'll give me like a 20 minute conversation and that'll satisfy me.

Speaker 2:

I just want to give them a few quick ideas to help them redirect, and I'm going to say it's 50, 50 on when they'll take one of the suggestions or they just walk away from me and go do something else because I did not give them anything they were interested in. They always go and find something else and that also just has to do with the culture of our family and this idea that there's plenty to do. You have stuff to do. You're just maybe a little lost or a little confused on what to do. I'm happy to help you to. You know, spin around the house really quick and take a quick inventory of what we have. Something's going to spark your interest. Worst case case scenario sit on the floor and watch me finish the dishes, or help.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, please help, please exactly so many kids so many dishes. My dishwasher broke the other day and I was like, no, no, no, this can't happen no no, you know, I I am. I'm thinking of some emails I've received from parents who are single parents and they have guilt around the fact that they might tell their child go play, or it's okay to be bored. Have you experienced the same thing and what would you give them as advice?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think the same thing happens with parents with an only child. We get very wrapped up in making sure that the parent is the playmaker, the play friend, and it is always okay and and it is always great for a child to play independently and it is always good Whether the child has siblings, doesn't have siblings, has a parent, has two parents. Children need alone time. They need to play independently. We know this from countless years and millions of studies on child development that they need play without adults. So we have to get into a point with our lives that we can kind of release that guilt.

Speaker 2:

It is okay if you are a single parent. It is okay if your child is an only child for them to go play alone or to be bored or to figure something out, no matter if that child has two parents or has a sibling or not. That child has work they need to do, playing, and you have work you need to do as their parent caregiver and we can't have you taking the burden of their play onto your already unbelievably full plate. So that is something that you can push off of it. Let them handle play and then come back together for what I call connection time, activities, puzzles, board games, walks around the block, cooking together, having deep conversations but play really is something that all parents from all walks of households can say.

Speaker 2:

It is okay for me to say no to playing with you right now. I have things I have to do. Your job is to play, my job is 500 other things to make this family and our life run smoothly, and we'll come together when we're both done with our jobs, and I just think it is. It is really such a fallacy that parents have to take on that role of of play friend with their, with their kids, when we just we know through every bit of research that kids thrive in situations where they're playing independently and it really is just one of those. I know, I know it is so hard and it is so much easier for me to sit here and say it to you than it is to put it in practice. But the next time you have to say no to your child for play, take a deep breath and say I'm saying no to play because it is what's best for them and what's best for me right now, and that is okay. That is beyond okay.

Speaker 1:

And we could schedule it in the same way that we can schedule the screen time right, and it doesn't have to be an hour, it could be 10 minutes after dinner or 10 minutes before dinner if you want that time to step away. But just planning that I find makes a really big difference because your child feels more connected to you and I love that you use that word and then it makes it a little bit easier to step away in that moment and you don't have guilt either.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think having play is a routine time. You know, if you have play every day after breakfast and every day after dinner while I'm doing the dishes, is your 15, 20 minutes of play by yourself time. I think that's awesome and that also helps the child to get into a habit of after dinner. Each night my parent goes to do the dishes and I go to my room to play and it's this little break time and then you come back together and have your connection time and and beauty in that. There's such beauty in routine with children. There's so much goodness in there alone that I think we can really apply it to their play.

Speaker 1:

There was a study that I mentioned last week and I thought it was interesting to look at neurodivergent children. The one that I looked at I think it was with autistic children, I think, or ADHD, actually, I forget. I'll have the link in the bio for everybody who's listening. But the study mentioned that these children might look for risky behaviors or some sensory-seeking behavior if they're bored. This reminded me that not every child will deal with boredom the same way. How can a parent navigate that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I loved that when you added that into that post and actually that was on my list of things this weekend to look back through. Was that that study?

Speaker 1:

I thought that was so fascinating and such a great reminder to parents again going back to what we talked about that this is not a one size fits all, it's whatever size fits your child, yeah, and I think it's really important to mention that because I know, again, it comes back to some parents feeling like they might have failed at parenting or they're doing something wrong because their child is not thriving, for, you know, when it comes to boredom and they're not, it's more than whining.

Speaker 1:

They're looking to, you know, fill this void through risky things. So I just want to make sure that we've mentioned that. I'd love to continue or end this conversation and talk a little bit more about play, since that's your area and I think, with what we were talking about in boredom, play comes into it. You started our conversation with child led and perhaps there are some parents who don't understand what this means and have this understanding that play means we have to sit there with them or you know they have to be filled with toys, you know, around them. So what is child led play and how does a parent do this?

Speaker 2:

So child led play, what we think about in education? We talk about unstructured, independent free play. It's such a mouthful unstructured, independent free play. And that means that it is play of the child's own will, independent of adults and unstructured, with no predetermined outcome. We're letting the child completely decide what they want to do. If I come to my child with my post-it note activity and I've got everything written on the wall and I say here you go, here's some post-it notes, you're going to match it up to these letters, that's a structured play activity. It's great, it has lots of value, but it's a structured play activity. If I put down a bin of blocks in front of my child and say I'm going to go unload the dishwasher, have a great time with these blocks, and then they start building and making castles and all these things, that's unstructured independent free time, free play. And that really is where the magic happens in childhood is this idea that kids do better, they learn more and they learn more deeply If an adult isn't playing with them.

Speaker 2:

We know that adults, though with the best of intentions, we accidentally change play, we make it less intrinsic, we take away a little bit of the child's free will because they might not feel as comfortable ending the play because they don't want to hurt our feelings. And those little tiny tweaks that happen in play. They lean on us for problem solving, they wait for us to rotate the puzzle piece. Those little tiny tweaks that we accidentally make to play. They really do have an impact when we combine them over long periods of time and we talk about that. This is how every single play moment happens for this child. So instead, what we want to do is we want to breed this culture in our family that we value a child's unstructured and independent free play, that we value what the child can do and how the child can lead themselves into their own way as adults.

Speaker 2:

It means hanging back. I always call it sitter-vising. We can sit and supervise from a seated position and watch the magic unfold. And when you're sitting or you're working or you're doing chores and you're seeing your child play, I hope you know that that is the most significant and important work that your child can be doing at that moment.

Speaker 2:

And again, going back to this guilt that we often feel when we remove ourselves from our children's play, we don't need to feel that. Instead, we can look and go oh my gosh, look at what they're learning. Oh, look what they're doing. Their brain is working so hard right now as we're unloading the dishwasher. What they're doing. Their brain is working so hard right now as we're unloading the dishwasher, folding the laundry or answering a work email. There is so much beauty and so much goodness that comes out of a child leading their own play, activity that just can't be replicated when adults are playing with. So as you can and as you grow this skill, the more that you can back yourself out of play. Please know you are doing so much good for the child.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure a bunch of parents listening to this right now just kind of like exhaled and, like you, just like let all that guilt, like leave them, because I do know that lots of parents have this guilt. I also think you know I had met a friend of mine who she had bought all these toys and then her tuyo wasn't playing with them the way that she was supposed to, which is how she worded it and I thought that was interesting because I said, well, how is there a right or wrong way to play if that's the way the child wants to play with it, right? So I think it was a board game for two or three year olds and the child was removing the pieces and playing with the little figurines and but was entertained for 20 minutes doing the wrong thing, according to the parent. Do you, how do you approach that? I don't know if you receive those emails as well or speak to those parents, but that's my answer is there's how is there a wrong way to play?

Speaker 2:

but it might not be the way that we want them to and it comes back to what you were saying in terms of us kind of taking control without realizing yeah, and I think it also goes back to the very beginning, when we were talking that as parents, we want to, we want to be the drivers, and in play, we really not even. We don't, we can't, we don't even need to be the co -drivers, we need to be in the backseat like way, maybe even off the vehicle, we just watch them, which is really hard. It's really hard in parenting. We, we want to make sure they're eating the right foods and that they're, you know, listening to the right stories and that they're, you know, having the right experiences. And then, when it comes to play, we really have to say well, here are your tools, go for it. And and we have to let go, we have to.

Speaker 2:

I think it's very important that we do recognize that toys are the tools for play and that we are the gatekeepers of those toys and those tools, and to think thoughtfully about what we bring in our home. Thinking thoughtfully about toys doesn't mean expensive. A toy's value is not determined by its cost. It's determined by whether or not the child likes it and whether or not the child can find value in it. My kids have this horrible toy that I can't even tell you how much I hate this toy. It kind of talks and grows and it makes weird noises and they scratch it, but I can't even describe this. My brother gave it to them. They love this toy and the joy and the play that that toy has brought them in the last three years.

Speaker 2:

I wanted to vomit when that toy came into my home and I began immediately thinking about how do I get that toy out of my home. And here we are, three years later, and the other day it really did look like it had finally broken and my husband looked at me. He goes I'm really sad. And I said I'm really sad too. Someone needs to fix this. And we got it fixed and it's back to working. But it just really goes to show that we can't decide what the children are going to like to play with and we can't decide how they're going to play with it. What we want to make sure is that they have tools for their play, they have opportunities to play, and that we're standing back and letting it happen. No, if it drives us a bunker or not, as long as they're safe.

Speaker 1:

Yes, exactly, we're good, I'm so happy you brought that up. You know, something I try to tell parents is try to avoid battery operated toys as much as you can. But then there's an asterisk around you know, under that and it's. If your child enjoys it, then it's fine. You know you don't want to and for me it's just to have around. You know, under that and it's. If your child enjoys it, then it's fine. You know you don't want to and for me it's just to have.

Speaker 1:

You know for parents to understand that you want to have a lot of open-ended toys and not just toys that you press buttons. But, like you said, there's never like a one rule for everything and a child. We have this caterpillar that you press the button and it does all these weird things and goes to the left and goes to the right. And my toddler loves it. He does. And I hate the sound, the noise, the songs, every beep, beep, beep, beep, that I don't like them, I just don't. But he loves it.

Speaker 1:

And what can we do? We can't change it. Um, so these? There aren't any rules when it comes to play and I think also because of marketing and society, again, like we've kind of become accustomed to the idea that the more expensive the toy is, perhaps the better it is for a child. But they're gonna hate us, they're gonna hate me. But it's not true. I always tell parents the best toys are probably what you already have within your home. You know, you know a bowl and a wooden spoon and some dried beans. There you go, you're done. You have it all a measuring cup and you're done, which is what I is the way you remember playing with.

Speaker 2:

They are yeah, and I think marketers have done such a great job preying on the fears of parents. They slap the word learning, they slap the word educational. They tell you you need this toy or your child is going to fail to succeed and fail to thrive, and that becomes very scary for us. I mean, they're very good at what they do. We have to be smarter than that. We have to look at that and go yeah, because they're trying to sell it to me. Of course they're going to tell me that. Have you ever seen a set of wooden blocks? Have to tell anybody that how great they are? No, we know how great wooden blocks are.

Speaker 1:

We all have them in our childhood.

Speaker 2:

We know how great wooden trains are, or you know Lego duplos.

Speaker 2:

We know how great these toys are because we grew up with them and they're the toys from our memories.

Speaker 2:

And the toys from our memories are a lot of the best toys for our kids because they were the same toys our parents had. These are the toys that have stood the test of time. I think it's just marketers and these companies. They do such a great job of preying on our fears that our kids are going to fail and that if we're not again driving their learning and driving their education and driving the way that they play, that they're not going to drive it in the right direction. And it's actually really far from the truth, because they're just trying to take advantage of us and take advantage of our money and they're trying to give us toys that really aren't going to last for very long or are going to have a really short shelf life in your home and shelf life in your home. And then you're back a couple of months later trying to buy a new toy, to do the same thing that maybe could have been accomplished for years and years and years with a really simple, simple toy that you remember from when you were a kid.

Speaker 1:

Another group of parents that just exhaled out now, knowing that they don't have to buy all these expensive toys. But it's true. You know, and I think what's important is so for those of you who are listening, there was a previous episode for this podcast on educational toys and I summarized this study in the Journal of Pediatrics that this defines an educational toy and mentions that I think it was like 80% of toys, or even more than that, don't meet the actual definition of an educational toy, which is an object or item that increases the interaction between the parent and the child. And you know, then I see all these like these companies and they press a button and they're like it sings and it flashes red, blue and whatever color, and that's the educational part. I'm like, no, that's not it at all.

Speaker 1:

But this whole idea of play and I'm so happy we're having this conversation because, like you said, like I just I learned so much about play through you and then I would look into the research and say like, oh, this it fits, everything that Susie's doing fits, it makes sense, and we have to learn to step back and that's where the boredom is going to come in, that's where all the growing and the learning will happen and I just absolutely loved our conversation. Can we end off our conversation? I always like to kind of summarize things for parents so that they have a game plan. What would you say to a parent who's you know, who listened to this episode and they're like, oh okay, hold on a second. I need to, I need to like rethink how I'm doing this in my home, regardless of the child's age. How can what's the game plan right now that they can start off with?

Speaker 2:

I think one of the big game plans would be to look at your daily schedule and see how much time the child has to just be free. How much free time does the child have and where could you schedule that free? It's kind of an oxymoron to have scheduling free play. Where could you schedule free time into their daily routine? Where could you make and normalize this idea that you're going to play without the adult's intervention? And then the next thing would be again what I just said make sure that you're letting them play without your intervention and that you're taking a deep breath and remembering that that's actually a good thing. They don't need to be playing with you all the time and frankly, they shouldn't be playing with you the whole time and it really is okay to take that step back. And then to when a child comes to you and says they're bored. Look at it as an opportunity. Ask them what they're going to do with that boredom and maybe give them three to four ideas of what they could do and then quickly go back to what you're doing so that you're not stuck in that boredom trap with them.

Speaker 2:

And then the other piece would be to really consider the screen time piece of it? And where is screen time fitting in? And all this? Is screen time become what we're using as a boredom buster my most hated term but is it become that? And if it has, let's pull back a little. Let's make screen time back to a parenting tool, not a child tool, and let's put it into a predictable schedule so the child knows when they're going to expect it. And then they are not using it as something to overcome boredom, but instead they're using their own sense of resilience and problem solving and their own beautiful mind and to give themselves so many opportunities.

Speaker 1:

So many. What a wonderful way to end this conversation. Thank you, susie, for taking this moment to chat with me, and you could visit her on Instagram at Busy Toddler B-U-S-Y-T-O-D-D-L-E-R. And visit her website BusyToddlercom. Right now she has her summer activity list for toddlers that you could download for free. I've used it past summers and it really helps because you don't have to do the thinking part, you could just download it and there are your activities set out for the day or the week. Thank you to everybody who was listening. If you would like to leave a rating interview for the podcast, please do so and you can join us next Monday for a new episode. Thank you so much, susie, of course. Thank you.