BOREDOM is good for children. So says a recent report. Not many children - or their parents - would find themselves in agreement with that.

"I'm bored!", is the cry every parent dreads, especially as the long school holidays loom in front of them. They go out of their way to keep children occupied, with playschemes and visits to museums (such different places from the 'boring' rows of old objects they once were), sports facilities and theme parks; and classes in everything under the sun.

As for leaving children to their own devices for more than five minutes together - that just isn't an option for many families. Part of it is a fear of allowing them to roam freely beyond the home in case they get into danger, in spite of the fact that more bad things happen to children within the home than out of it. But most of it stems from panic at the looming shadow of boredom.

And now we're being told it's good for them. It's nature's way of making them get up and do something productive and useful. But they need to learn how to do it for themselves, not always be spoonfed with activities to fill every waking minute.

When I was a child, school holidays meant lovely long days of playing outside, free to let limbs - and imagination - run wild. I'd have hated it if adults had taken over and filled those precious days with their choice of activity. To do things as a family now and then, as a treat, is a good thing. If it happens all the time it becomes routine, taken for granted, not something you remember with pleasure long after you become an adult.

There were things that were potentially boring - the bus journey to school, some lessons, sermons in church - but I dealt with them by the simple expedient of switching off mentally, and wandering away into a dream world of my own. That was when I invented stories, writing them up when I was at home, with all that free time in front of me. I still like bus journeys for the opportunity they give for uninterrupted thought.

Of course, not every child is a budding writer with stories to invent, though there are other kinds of creativity. But how will anyone ever be able to develop their full potential if they don't have times when there's nothing else to do but what they invent for themselves?

It needs to start young too. If children's infant and junior years are filled with non-stop adult-imposed activity, what happens when they reach their teens and insist on going it alone, rejecting what their parents have to offer? There they are, with empty hours stretching in front of them and no idea at all how to fill them. They're not used to freedom. All impulses to act on their own initiative have been regimented out of them. If they've never been allowed to find creative ways to fill their time, won't they be more likely to find pointless, stupid, uncreative ones? Either that, or they'll just get depressed by lives with no point and no purpose.

In a way, modern children are deprived in a way previous generations never were. So maybe we should start to give them their freedom back by sometimes simply allowing them to be bored.

Published: 20/04/2006