Two Meanings of Boredom
The emotional aversion to reading and math is often described as boredom. This can lead to misunderstandings. There are two meanings and types of boredom. One builds upon the other.
First, there is the adult sense of boredom that results from under stimulation and is experienced as an emptiness. Children understand this meaning of boredom, but they also use the term to mean something else.
For them, boredom is the aversive, exhausting, hopeless stage, beyond frustration or. They feel overwhelmed by the academic and behavioral demands made upon them and incapable of rising to meet them. It is a unique feeling just like or , and it is just as negative. When the child has attempted a task over and over and can’t say “shove it” or can’t escape physically, when he is to the point of hopelessness, giving up, and being disengaged, then he says, “I’m bored.”
How Boredom Works ... for Kids
There are three reasons children use the word “bored” to describe their experience. First, there is some similarity between and what adults call boredom. Both are painful, a response to external stimulus, and lead to disengagement.
Second, and perhaps more important, adults initially respond more positively to the word bored than to other descriptors — such as angry, mad, or “I hate it.” In fact, every parent wants to think of their child as smarter than most. When problems begin to develop, but are still not well defined, it is more appealing for parents to think of their child as really bright but bored with the plebeian activities offered him by his unenlightened (or worse) teacher.
So, a version of “group-think” sets in. The child who talks about boredom reinforces the idea to the parent. Parental language about boredom likewise reinforces the child’s use of the word bored. They have a shared and mutually reinforced conceptual reality — the child’s problem is best thought of as boredom.
Third, the idea of being bored with something gives one a sense of superiority over it. For example, being bored with school gives the child a sense of ego support over the very thing that has been so damaging to his ego. This is a clever reframing of negative stimuli into a positive one.
Again, the child’s approach is a sophisticated, short-term adaptation, not a disability. This strategy also provides further rationale for the child to distance himself from school and schoolwork. Such children often develop a life quite separate from school, be it in joining the street culture or simply dropping out.
Sometimes they are quite articulate in differentiating themselves from school. Their message is “Why do I need school?,” “That stuff doesn’t make a difference,” “I’ll just get a job.” Until and unless the child’s pattern is extinguished, it is infinitely extendible into other parts of his life and on into adulthood.
Continued with: Learning to Avoid Reading and Math Help
A
