Opinion | Helicopter Parents Should Ignore Their Children More Often – The New York Times

More important, following adults around gives children the tremendous gift of learning to tolerate boredom, which fosters patience, resourcefulness and creativity. There is evidence from neuroscience that a resting brain is not an idle one. The research tells us that the mind gets busy when it is left alone to do its own thing — in particular, it tends to think about other people’s minds. If you want to raise empathetic, imaginative children who can figure out how to entertain themselves, don’t keep their brains too occupied.

An excellent way to bore children is to take them to an older relative’s house and force them to listen to a long adult conversation about family members they don’t know. Quotidian excursions to the post office or the bank can create valuable opportunities for boredom, too.
Leaving kids’ screens at home on such trips can deepen the useful tedium. It also forces parents to build up their tolerance to their child’s fussiness, an essential component of underparenting. Parents too often feel the need to engage their children in “fun” activities to tempt them away from screens. But by teaching children to crave constant external stimulation and entertainment, intensive parenting can actually worsen screen dependence.

— Read on www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/opinion/parenting-helicopter-ignoring.html