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Key points
- I remember the long, slow days of my childhood summers—no technology, just our imaginations.
- Many kids today are living highly scheduled lives. They don't have time to slow down and find themselves.
- Do-nothing time without devices leaves space for creativity, possibility, and regeneration.
- Summer is an opportunity to develop the self-regulation and self-discovery that can lead to a fulfilling life.
My childhood summers were endless days of sunshine and rain and inventing activities with my siblings and the other kids on the block. Sometimes we attended sports or crafts activities at the neighborhood school. For a couple of weeks, my parents would rent a cottage on a nearby lake, where we swam and explored and made villages on the beach with stones and bits of driftwood. But otherwise, for July and August, we were on our own to figure out how to spend the day.
I’d do some reading every day, and once in a while, we’d devise a commercial enterprise (a lemonade stand, or maybe a fair for kids with a fortune-telling booth, games of chance, and games requiring some skill) that required attention to the mathematics of money, but otherwise, nobody ever suggested anything remotely academic. There was lots of purposeful activity, though, and lots of time for daydreaming.
Those hours and hours of do-nothing time—long before today’s technology options—gave us a chance to think about who we were, what we liked doing, what each of us did well, and what we wanted to learn more about. We acquired all kinds of useful skills along the way, including resourcefulness, emotion regulation, leadership, collaborative problem-solving, conflict resolution, planning, group dynamics, and more. It might sound paradoxical, but we learned to work hard in inventing meaningful play activities.
Once we were old enough to get jobs—around 13 or 14, when we could get under-the-table jobs at market stalls—we spent most of the summer working, but before that, our summer days were mostly ours to fill. My five siblings and I ended up creating diverse careers (actor/writer, politician, clothing designer, property developer, yoga teacher, and psychologist) that reflected our individuality, in ways that each of us has found fulfilling. I’m pretty sure those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer had something to do with that.
Device-free do-nothing time—in the context of warmth, stimulation, and social support—is good for our brains in a whole lot of ways. The restful neural processing involved in daydreaming is good for children’s brains, necessary for self-discovery and self-actualization, and for consolidating their learning. In a life that’s normally filled with academic, social, and physical schedules and challenges, your child needs unprogrammed do-nothing times to replenish their spirit and find their creative wellsprings.
Unscheduled free play supports your child in developing the skills that will matter most in the course of their lives—emotion regulation, persistence, and self-discipline. Summer’s a great time for creative regeneration, and can be a springboard to an academic year, and a lifetime, of learning, achievement, and fulfillment.
References
“Why Your Brain Needs More Downtime,” by Ferris Jabr
“The Art and Science of Doing Nothing,” by Susan Weinschenk
