In this delightful podcast Dr Aric Sigman explains  why boredom needs an image makeover. Boredom is a constructive part of  the childhood experience, vital for our children’s mental health,  creativity and future success. All too often we  feel  obliged to ‘cure’ our children’s boredom or make every second count in  the weekly schedule, but we need to make space for boredom and help our  children develop the ability to withstand a  lack of novelty and stimulation. What they mustn’t learn, Aric says, is  the solution to boredom comes outside of themselves - buy this, play  that, smoke this, eat that. Instead they need to develop strategies to  solve their inner boredom and they need time  to practice this.  In our always on, too much choice,  electronic media  world Aric provides useful strategies for parents to bring boredom  back. He does not leave adults out of the equation either. We too are  increasingly in need of stimulation and addicted  to novelty! What might we be modelling to our children?

Dr Aric Sigman (http://www.aricsigman.com/index.html ) is a health education lecturer and has delivered numerous talks for The Parent Company (www.theparentcompany.co.uk) on screen  time/dependence, alcohol, ‘soft’ drugs & vaping, preventing mental  health problems, body image, and understanding boys, sex and  relationships topics. He is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary  Group on a Fit and Healthy Childhood, co-author of 3 of its latest reports on mental health in childhood. He publishes medical papers on health and development subjects and  is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, Associate Fellow of the  British Psychological Society, and a Chartered Scientist awarded by the  Science Council. He is the author of five books (http://www.aricsigman.com/books.html)  on health and development-related topics, including Getting Physical, which won The Times Educational Supplement’s Information Book Award.

Here is a link to the survey with the quote from a very wise dad on page 19 https://www.suittiestroller.com/dad-survey-report