Are you constantly reaching for your phone to fill an empty minute? Are you wondering how to survive a school break with bored kids? That dreaded feeling of being unable to escape an undesirable moment: boredom gets to all of us sometimes. When we’re bored, we may feel restless, irritable, and unfulfilled. We may also experience physical symptoms like fatigue, lethargy, and a lack of energy. 

How Bored Are You? – EQ Education News

by Patty Freedman

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In this month’s newsletter we unpack boredom and how emotional intelligence can help you with tips to support bored children (and keep your cool!). Keep reading for EQ research and resources you can use for you, your faculty and students.

What’s in this edition:

​🔴 Thinking About: What does boredom mean?

🟡 Research says: School Boredom Mindset correlates with lower wellbeing

🟢 Try it Yourself: 4 tips to Budge Boredom

🔵 Mark your calendar: Events for educators – will you join us?

🔴 Thinking About: What does boredom mean?

Emotions are messages from you to you. Boredom is one of those confusing messages that is uncomfortable and many of us try to push away or sooth ourselves to quiet its noise.

Researchers say Boredom is “the aversive experience of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity” It is a signal for us to to change the current situation and seek an alternative. Boredom is an under-appreciated message that can help us grow.

Boredom is useful
Boredom plays an important role in inspiration, innovation, and exploration. Artists and researchers find that creativity is often linked to boredom. For example in a series of experiments conducted at University of Central Lancashire in the UK, participants were asked to copy numbers from a telephone book before being asked to think of as many possible uses for a pair of plastic cups as they could. Compared to a control group, those who were given the tedious task beforehand were more inventive. In a second study, the researchers added a third group and assigned them an even more boring task: reading the phone book. Again, the most bored group outscored everyone else in generating significantly more uses for the pair of plastic cups.

Boredom is not Apathy
Apathy results from recognition of complete failure or helplessness and is characterized by a lack of motivation and a failure to seek alternatives. Boredom on the other hand results from recognition that the current goal is no longer stimulating and it is a signal to make a change. In comparison, apathy has a low arousal state and boredom has a high arousal state. Results showed that higher levels of reported boredom were accompanied by increased autonomic arousal (i.e., heart rate and galvanic skin response.

3 Boring Questions to ask yourself

While boredom is unpleasant, it is a source of useful information. Boredom can push us to do something else, it can help us make better choices and can change our direction to learn somthing and grow Here’s three questions to ask yourself when you are feeling bored:

Is what you’re doing too hard or too easy?

We can feel bored and not be able to pay attention because work is either too easy or too hard. We are most engaged when the cognitive demands and cognitive resources are in balance.

What you can do: If your task is too easy, consider trying something new or challenging. Simply listening to music will take up some of your surplus attention and make the experience more pleasant. Is your work too hard and you are feeling overwhelmed? Try breaking the task up into smaller parts so it feels more manageable.

Is what you are doing lacking in meaning? 

Meaning making is an important motivator. For some people it’s important to see how they or the work they are doing fits in the big picture. People get bored when they lose sight of the larger goal and may feel lost and uncomfortable as a result.

What you can do: Reframe the task and think about how the job might serve you or the people you care about in the future. If possible, think about how it can serve a larger community or purpose beyond the part you are responsible for.

Is what you are doing bringing up unsettled feelings? 

We live in a fast paced, high stimulation environment. Sometimes its hard to notice our own feelings because they are crowded out with all the busyness of life. For some people the feeling of boredom is very scary and uncomfortable. Did you know that technology may be causing us to feel more bored?

What you can do: Ask yourself are you soothing away those feelings of boredom with something like a phone, instead of engaging with them? Feel your feelings! Sit with your boredom a bit and journal about what the message may be telling you. Get curious. What is underneath the boredom? It can tell you what you need to change and be an inspiration for your next act.

🟡 Research says: School Boredom Mindset correlates with lower wellbeing

A study published in Journal of Positive School Psychology (2021) investigated the connection between student boredom at school and wellbeing. Researchers surveyed 2,331 California secondary (Grades 7-12) students’ to rate the following two questions: The “School is really boring” (1 = strongly disagree… 5 = strongly agree) and “School is worthless (a waste of time)”(1 = strongly disagree… 5 = strongly agree) to create a “School Boredom Mindset (SBM)Then they compared SMB to other assessments looking at well-being indicators. The findings show that students with the strongest SBM reported substantially lower well-being than their peers. “Diminished well-being was associated more strongly with boredom than school valence.”

What does this mean for our classrooms? Researchers advise educators to take a nuanced approach when students say “this is boring.” For students who say they are bored with the content/activity but value school, “a differentiated response would consider ways to make academic tasks more engaging and complementing interests and passions.” However, for some students for whom negative attitudes about school and perception the overall school experience has negligible value, “these students will likely require intensive Tier 3 interventions and support that address students’ school and non-school contexts.

To conclude, researchers recommend schools “provide professional development on effective responses to listening to students’ about their boredom experiences.”

🟢 Try it Yourself: 4 tips to Budge Kid’s Boredom

What exactly can you do when you hear those two dreaded words “I’m bored?” Here are 4 helpful tips for supporting kids when boredom strikes. Start by identifying what is underneath the child’s feeling of boredom.

If it is a need for attention: 

Children crave social interaction, some more than others. Being with friends and family gives children a reassuring sense of belonging and significance. For some kids, when they feel alone they are often “bored” and if their need for positive attention is not met, sometimes they seek negative behaviors to get attention. If not addressed, these antisocial behaviors (sibling fights, tantrums, back talking, etc) can develop into patterns.

One possible intervention with the attention seeking boredom child is to say saying “It looks like you want some attention from me, I will be done with my task in 5 min. Let’s set the timer. Then I can give you my attention for (x) minutes.”

Remember that attention is something you can give. And your child is also giving you their attention. Appreciate each other’s gift by turning off phones, tv and other distractions and really connect. Get close, hold hands (if appropriate in your relationship) because touch is important for connection. Sometimes all that’s needed is a little empathetic listening. It’s good for both of you to reestablish your relationship in a positive way and demonstrate your care for each other.

If it is a need for self-sufficiency:

Learning how to manage unstructured time is an important skill they need to learn. For many highly scheduled children they are whisked from activity to activity with very little downtime. It’s important to give children open time to process their thoughts, feelings and experiences of the day so they can learn from them.

Adults who rush in when a child says “I’m bored” and lists 10 things they could try are not letting the child manage their own feelings of discomfort. One way to support them is to create an “Idea List of Fun Things To Do” children can refer to when they feel bored. Help the child to list activities they can do alone and encourage them to add to the list over time.

Adults can give the child the tools to problem-solve and manage their feelings for themselves. The important thing to remember is the child is responsible for their attention and their time. They can fill it and you can cheer them on, but not be the source of all entertainment.

If it is a need for rest:

Just like adults, kids often suffer from mental fatigue when they’ve failed to get the appropriate amount of rest for their age.

When sleep is compromised and the brain begins to tire, naturally, things start falling apart. This can show up as anything from compromised immune systems to falling behind at school to, you guessed it, boredom!

When children’s minds are fatigued, it makes it really easy to lose interest in any given activity quickly. Making sure children have an adequate amount of rest won’t just help bust the boredom. You’ll see improvements in nearly every other area of children’s behavior as well.

If your child is overtired try reading or listening books, bath or yoga. These kinds of activities help with relaxation and support self-regulation. When possible turn off screens before bedtime.

A need to avoid uncomfortable feelings

Children are just learning to identify their feelings. Adults play an important role in teaching them how to “make friends” with all of their feelings (even boredom!). One of the first steps to making friends is getting to know them better.

Do an Iceberg activity with them: Ask children to identify their boredom. What does it feel like? Where is it in their body? Then dive into what feelings are underneath boredom. If Boredom is on the visible surface of the iceberg, what is below the waterline? Have them spend some time identifying thoughts, feelings and actions that they are experiencing in this bored state. Unpacking their feeling of boredom can help them identify other things they would like to work on. Developing this level of self awareness can help them navigate their feelings. Remind them that feelings are messages and we can all get better at understanding them.

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🔵 MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Events for educators – will you join us?

Free online events EQ Café “Unwinding Anxiety” about shifting from reaction to response – multiple dates

Emotional intelligence mini-workshops online – multiple dates

SEL for Educator Wellbeing certificate program in partnership with Antioch University, online – multiple dates​

S​EL Leadership Institute in partnership with Teachers College, Columbia University, in-person​ – July 29 – 30, 2024 in New York, NY

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