Do Kids Need Silence and Solitude?
(or listen ... )
He was so frustrated. Running to the car at 3:30 when the bell rang, he was more than ready to head home. Then chores and dinner, baths, homework, and bed. Monday through Friday, it continued. Until one day in frustration, he exclaimed, “When will this stop? I never have time for my aquarium anymore!”
One of the few 5th graders who still had any consciousness of when he had time for things he was interested in; his aquarium, programming on AUTO-CAD, or creating a BMX track out in the field.
A year and a half ago we made the decision to send our kids to charter school after homeschooling from kindergarten through third grade; putting an abrupt stop to any considerable amount of free time.
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I know, it’s so tempting. It’s that time of year when we start thinking about summer and those flashy brochures come into your inbox.
Football, soccer, and ballet camps … They can get exercise and a jump on next year’s season!
Vacation Bible School, mission trips, and family camp … Who knows what could happen to impact their little spirits!
Art and science camp taught by college faculty. What could be better for our little Einsteins?
Family reunions, camping trips, and summer holidays … “Yes, yes, yes!”
That all sounds fantastic!
But what happened to good old, summer?
No more schedule. Sleepy, suntanned kids come to breakfast with messy hair and sit there for as long as they want to finish their cereal. Changing out of their pajamas, coloring for hours at the dining room table, or meandering outside.
It used to be, children grew up on farms where the family was all together. There was lots of time outdoors. There were chores that needed everyone’s hands to get them done. Extracurricular activities were minimal.
Children had lots of time for free play. To make mud pies, sit under trees, or walk in the fields. To take their BB guns and hunt in the woods. Look for bugs. Swim in ponds or walk in the creek.
Boredom wasn’t something to freak out about. If your child didn’t have something to keep them busy, you let them sit in their boredom. Children need boredom to let their imaginations come to life. Before you knew it, they’d be getting their playset out, pulling out a book or heading out the door to get their hands in the dirt.
Boredom is good for the soul!
“It has the capacity to spark creative ideas and launch new projects. For children, it can propel new routes of play and self-entertainment, which develops creativity, self-reliance, and relationships skills.” Jeffrey Davis, M.A., Psychology Today magazine
Childhood has changed so much. From going to school from 9:00 to 3:00 and time at home in the evenings and weekends to 9:00 to 3:00 being just the beginning. Then off to extra-curricular activities and weekends filled with clubs and travel leagues. Then, we fill up their summers too!
As adults fret about their children’s skyrocketing anxiety, loss of direction, and creativity, I wonder, are we missing what our children need the most?
Stillness and Solitude. Their lives have been filled from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep with people and activities. They haven’t had any time to breathe, and they’ve lived this way so long they don’t know the difference. Childhood is supposed to be an era where you have time to be, explore, create, and live in a world of your imagination.
To get to know God and yourself in the wonder of the outdoors, your parents’ love, peanut butter sandwiches, and long summer days to ride your bike or play in the sprinkler.
To quiet the voices of everyone and everything else; telling you what to do and who you are, so you can hear your own.
Are activities more valuable in a child’s life than allowing who they really are to come to the surface through unscheduled time and solitude?
The thing Madeleine L’Engle, famous author of A Wrinkle in Time, attributes to how her writing began, “I was still at the age of unself-conscious spontaneity when I started to write. At the age of five I wrote a story, which my mother saved for a long time, about a little “grul,” my five-year-old spelling of girl.
I wrote stories because I was a solitary, only child in New York City, with no easily available library. So, when I had read all the stories in my bookcase, the only way for me to get more stories to read was to write them.”
Until we have time alone, will we know how to hear their own thoughts or just the noise of the masses?
But we have a choice! To live differently. To arrange our children's schedule carefully choosing one or two things they would enjoy and then giving them what they really need and hardly ever get.
Free time.
The priceless opportunity to decide what they want to do. To have hours uninterrupted. To get to know the sound of God’s voice and their own.
And while we are slimming down their schedule and giving them time for stillness and solitude this summer, we can treat ourselves to the same thing.
Doesn’t that sound fabulous?
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What do you think your child would do with uninterrupted time? What would you do with it?