Psychology says the most valuable thing the 1960s and 70s gave children wasn't the freedom to roam or the absence of screens — it was the experience of being genuinely, uncomplicatedly bored, because boredom is the state the brain enters immediately before it starts generating its own meaning, and a generation raised without it is a generation that has never had to find out what they think when nobody is telling them what to think

I remember the sound of absolutely nothing. It was a Saturday afternoon in 1968, and I was sprawled across our scratchy wool carpet, staring at the ceiling fan making lazy circles above me. No plans. No structured activities. No one telling me what to do next. Just me, the dust motes dancing in the afternoon light, and an endless stretch of time that felt both excruciating and oddly liberating.

That memory came flooding back recently when I watched my neighbor's eight-year-old have what can only be described as a complete meltdown because his tablet died and he had "nothing to do" for the twenty minutes it would take to charge. Twenty minutes. The same amount of time I once spent watching a line of ants carry crumbs across our back porch, completely mesmerized by their tiny universe.

The lost art of doing absolutely nothing

Growing up as the youngest of four sisters in small-town Pennsylvania, I became an expert at being bored. Not because my parents neglected us, but because they understood something fundamental that we seem to have forgotten: children need empty spaces in their days. The Kids Mental Health Foundation explains that "Boredom is a result of our brains not having something to focus on (like an activity or school)." But here's what they don't say explicitly: that unfocused state is exactly where the magic happens.

During those long, unscheduled afternoons of my childhood, something remarkable would occur. After the initial restlessness, after the dramatic declarations that there was "nothing to do," my mind would start to wander in the most extraordinary ways. I'd invent elaborate stories about the people who lived in the wallpaper patterns. I'd wonder why clouds moved the way they did. I'd create entire worlds populated by the dust bunnies under my bed.

What I didn't know then was that I was exercising a crucial mental muscle. Progressive Psychology notes that "Boredom supports the development of emotional regulation as there is no external stimuli." Without the constant input of entertainment, we learned to regulate our own emotional states, to self-soothe, to find our own equilibrium.

When boredom became the enemy

Somewhere along the way, we decided that boredom was something to be conquered rather than embraced. I watched this shift happen gradually during my 32 years teaching high school English. In the early years, students would doodle in the margins of their notebooks during quiet reading time. By the time I retired, they couldn't sit through five minutes of silence without reaching for their phones.

Victoria L. Dunckley, M.D., puts it bluntly: "In short, screen-time makes children less able to tolerate disappointment and boredom, more entitled, and less willing to work — whether it be for school, at a job, or to improve a relationship."

But it's not just about screens. It's about our entire cultural shift toward constant stimulation and structured time. When did we start believing that every moment of a child's day needed to be optimized, enriched, and productive?

The creativity that emerges from empty spaces

Think about your own childhood for a moment. What are your most vivid memories? I'd wager they're not from the structured activities or the educational programs. They're from the unplanned moments, the times when you had to create your own entertainment.

Kaja Perina captures this beautifully: "Boredom used to be the wide-open space where creativity, reflection, and daydreaming lived. It was the area where kids learned to experiment with ideas and tolerate emotional discomfort."

I think about my own children, Daniel and Grace, now adults themselves. Their most creative moments came not from the art classes I enrolled them in, but from the rainy afternoons when they transformed our living room into a pirate ship using nothing but couch cushions and imagination. They learned to negotiate with each other, to compromise, to build worlds together, all because they had the time and space to do so.

Building the tolerance muscle

Here's something that might surprise you: boredom is actually a skill. Dr. Kesireddy explains that "Boredom is a skill. Without practice, children struggle to tolerate it." Just like learning to ride a bike or tie your shoes, learning to be bored takes practice.

When we immediately rush to fill every empty moment in a child's day, we're essentially carrying them everywhere instead of teaching them to walk. They never develop the psychological muscles needed to sit with discomfort, to push through the initial resistance, to find what lies on the other side of that restlessness.

I see this in my journal every morning. I wake at 5:30 AM and spend that first hour in silence with just my tea and my thoughts. Some mornings, especially when I first started this practice, the urge to reach for my phone or turn on the news was overwhelming. But in that quiet space, something else emerges. Ideas bubble up. Solutions to problems appear. Sometimes, I just sit and feel grateful for the sunrise. This ability to be alone with my thoughts didn't come naturally; it came from years of practice that started in childhood.

The generation that never learned to think alone

What happens to a generation that has never experienced true boredom? Alana J. Anderson and Sammy Perone note that "Boredom is a negative emotion that most people experience on occasion." But what if you've never learned to experience it, process it, and move through it?

We're seeing the results now. Young adults who can't sit through a meal without scrolling. College students who panic when asked to write without first consulting AI. Workers who need constant feedback and validation. They're not weak or entitled; they simply never developed the internal resources that come from sitting with nothing and making something from it.

Edward Collier offers hope: "Boredom may be an intrinsic part of life for practically everyone, but it needn't be destructive. In fact, boredom can be a force for good, fostering the ability to fall back on one's own resources, a life skill best developed when young."

Final thoughts

Last week, the power went out in our neighborhood for three hours. I watched from my window as children emerged from their houses, blinking in the sunlight like creatures awakening from hibernation. Within thirty minutes, they had organized a game involving chalk, pinecones, and rules that seemed to change every five minutes. Their laughter filled the street.

When the power came back on, I heard the collective groan of disappointment. For those three hours, they had rediscovered what my generation took for granted: the profound gift of having nothing to do and finding out that nothing can become everything. Maybe that's the real lesson from the 1960s and 70s. Not that life was simpler then, but that we understood the value of empty space, of quiet moments, of letting our minds wander until they found their own path home.