Why Unstructured Play Builds Stronger Kids-The Power of Make Believe pt. 1

On todays episode we talk about what unstructured play really is: kid-led, flexible, sometimes loud, sometimes messy, and quietly essential for healthy development.

We connect the dots between free play and the skills families wish kids could “just learn” faster: negotiation, conflict repair, empathy, creativity, and resilience. We also talk about what gets lost when childhood is packed with testing pressure, nonstop activities, and constant screen stimulation. Structured sports and adult-led programs can be great, but they are not the same thing as peer-negotiated play where kids create rules, test limits, and learn what fairness feels like.

Then we move through real-world parenting questions: what unstructured play looks like for toddlers, elementary kids, and teenagers (yes, teens still “play,” even if it looks like tinkering, music sharing, and hanging out). We dig into boredom as a feature, not a flaw, and why calm downtime helps the brain organize learning. If you’ve ever felt tempted to fix boredom instantly, this conversation gives you a better option that supports brain-based parenting and long-term emotional regulation.

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Music:
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Transcript

Welcome And Play Memories

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Brain-Based Parenting, the Boys Ranch podcast for families. We all know how hard being a parent is, and sometimes it feels like there are no good answers to the difficult questions families have when their kids are struggling. Our goal each week will be to try and answer some of those tough questions, utilizing the knowledge, experience, and professional training Cal Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer. Now here is your host, Cal Farley Staff Development Coordinator, Joshua Sprock.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Thanks for joining us today. I hope this is going to be a fun one. We're going to discuss the importance of unstructured play in our kids' life.

SPEAKER_05 0:36

To do that today, I'm joined by Sam Czerna, Assistant Administrator of Residential Communities. I'm Mike Wilhelm, I'm the director of Faith-Based Outreach.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

I'm John Hazel, Vice President for Youth Services.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

All right, let's jump into our question of the day. So, what was your favorite play activity as a kid?

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Well, my favorite play activity probably was some type of sports outside, whether basketball in my front yard or playing football out in the street with the neighborhood friends.

SPEAKER_05 1:02

I love playing soldier. I love I like being outside running around pretending I had guns and shooting the bad guys and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

We we played a lot of basketball in the driveway. That would have been probably uh what what we did the most. Well but we also like to build forts. Yeah. Did you all build forts?

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Oh yeah. Yeah. In fact, we had my dad had built a clubhouse per se in the backyard, and that was home base for my early firefighting experience. Oh wow. Garden hoses and water and putting that fire out on that clubhouse.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

So I was obsessed with Star Wars when I was a little kid, still maybe am, but I would turn everything into a lightsaber, sticks, wrapping paper, wrapping paper tubes, everything you could you could think of I was making into a lightsaber and beating my brothers with them.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Yeah. Which one were you? Chewbacca or I'm always Luke. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:54

So what was your lightsaber of choice, Josh?

SPEAKER_02 1:57

I mean, the best thing was those wrapping tubes. You couldn't do too much damage. And my older brother was a lot bigger than me, so you know it couldn't hurt him too bad.

SPEAKER_04 2:05

I was going to say that's a good choice because like PVC pipe hurts. But yeah, the wrapping paper tubes you can really get a little sting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

They're not as durable though. That's the bad part. They wouldn't they break easy.

SPEAKER_05 2:20

That's a perfect thing. It's like one of those memes where you say you can't hear a picture. I just hearing those things can hit your head.

What Unstructured Play Means

SPEAKER_02 2:27

All right. So today we're going to be talking about unstructured play. So when we say unstructured play, what exactly do we mean and how is that different from organized adult-led activities? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_05 2:36

Kind of unstructured play to me it means that the child is controlling what the activity is, how long it's going, first starting point. There's there's no like start-end time, there's no control over what it is.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Well, I think the unstructured means that the adult isn't necessarily leading the activity. And so the child has the opportunity to problem solve, to create, to be curious, to to do things on on their own, to explore whatever.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

No, I that sounds about right. I I know some of you probably read some Jonathan Haidt. It seems like he says something to the effect that voluntary parti participation, and then he really focuses on group unstructured play. So it would be peer negotiated play from there, peer negotiated norms, expectations, rules, if you will. But it could be an individual as well, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:28

I remember I was a kid playing and we'd get into the group and someone would have to be the mom, someone would have to be the dad, someone would be the kids, and you'd assign each other roles and everything like that, and you'd have to negotiate. Well, I want to be the mo I want to be the dad, or I I don't want to be, you know, it's and I and you do kind of learn those negotiating skills and creativity skills through doing that.

Why Free Play Builds Character

SPEAKER_04 3:45

See, my wife used to ride bikes when she was a little girl. She told on herself, and I think one of her friends might have told on her first, and there was there there were she had two friends, so three of them on their bikes, and they would ride bikes and they would pretend that they were married to the three guys on Bonanza. My wife was Bonanza, Mike. And she was the bossy one of the group, and so she had uh little Joe for every time, and uh there was no negotiating that, that was just a given. And then there was another one that always had to have Haas. So there they they learned to play together with wasn't much negotiating. It was just yeah, yeah, but it's all good, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, so why is this unstructured play so critical for healthy childhood development?

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Part of it is learning those skills that you need that stay stick with you throughout your whole life. Like I just come back to the idea of that curiosity and learning how to be curious leads to any kind of personal development, whether that whatever that might be, professional development, any of that kind of stuff. And then the ability to be able to negotiate that in a group setting, that just stays with you your your whole life.

SPEAKER_05 4:53

Oh, I agree. You know, it it's it seems like that's a time where I mean you hit it on the head. I was thinking about negotiation. I remember having when I was playing the games, we used to call it just pretend. You know, you know, whatever it was we were playing that day, everybody's got a role. You said that, everybody's got jobs, but then we can negotiate. Well, this happens or that happens. And the group can kind of say, No, we've no, that's not that's not gonna go with our story, and you know, and it's really it's neat because all we were all we needed to have was time and space, right? And usually the adults were around. I mean, well, not really. We were in the we were in the 80s, man. The backyard was the playground. So as long as we stayed in the fence, we could do whatever, you know. But we was a safe place we can all do, and then we can just do whatever. And you know, we had we had a certain amount of time, like you know, that at some point we had to go eat. But I that is where I learned how to how did my friends think, you know, how do we solve problems, even though they're the make-believe ones, sometimes we create obstacles and then we're deciding how do we negotiate it. So I do think it's it's great. And then you don't you don't have a lot of advice, you only have what you know and what you figure out.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

It's kind of like practice for your future adult life in a safe space.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

Yeah, even the things that don't go well, it's just all part of the process, right? Yeah, you develop some resiliency and you learn that life's not always fair. Some people are more unreasonable, but it seems like it, even through the all of the messiness of it, that it is really important for our moral imagination and moral core to to form properly, because even when things aren't going right, it's pressing up against that and and causing us to think, well, there is such a thing as right and wrong. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna get it right all the time, but but that whole thing does come into play and comes online and it seems very important that there's that this is happening at that young age. Another thing, and this is you know, speaking as a from the vantage point of a chaplain, but talking to parents out there that are concerned about the faith formation of their children, that unstructured play seems like it's very important. I think you might have mentioned it, Sam, about it how it really does develop imagination. Imagination and wonder is healthy faith formation needs that. And if that if that is atrophied, faith formation is much more challenging to come online. And then also the aspect of trust probably emerges out of this as well and is developed, and that's another necessary component in faith formation. So I would say that when you're talking about wanting healthy faith formation in your children, this unstructured play in those critical developmental windows is going to be a uh definitely be a factor to consider, wouldn't you say? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

I think it's funny when you guys talking about all that. I was thinking about when I was a kid, one of the kids who would always play with us, he would always get upset when he didn't get his way when we were talking about it, and he'd then he'd quit the game and he'd go sit in the front yard and just kind of pout, and then we'd just kind of keep playing, and then five, ten minutes later, he'd come back and be like, I'm sorry, can I play again? And it was kind of that working things out, working forgiveness and all that kind of stuff. We kind of did on our own, and it all came through just that imagination and play.

Imagination Empathy And Screen Pressure

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Well, that kind of lends to the core developmental strengths, that affiliation piece, learning how to be a part of a group, which is which is necessary for healthy development.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Maybe you guys could talk a little bit about imagination development too. I wonder how important imagination development is in unstructured play, and maybe how maybe current kids don't have that as much.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

I do know, and you're kind of force-fed content, visual stuff, all that kind of thing, to me that kind of tends to be a distraction from your own ability to imagine and be curious. And so I think there is some detriment there if if there's not that unstructured play time so that you can develop that own critical thinking on your own on your own.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

Imagination's big, and one thing I was thinking about was when I was a kid, I was kind of a sheltered kid a little bit. Like I I had a very small friend group, was where I lived, you know, had my family around. So I thought about things I knew when I first met my neighbor, and we were able to go out and play together. And he was around my age and his sister, and then I'd have cousins come over. And so I only know what I know, what I'd seen on TV, what my family taught me. So, you know, when we were little, we played a lot of like like house, or we played like like you said earlier. We played all I know how all I know is mom-dad stuff, right? And we'd cook with my cousins or my brothers, and because that's all we need to do. But then when my group got bigger, now we're playing other stuff. Or when I started watching different stuff on TV, I learned what soldiers were. Then we're playing soldiers. And but the cool thing is about other kids being joining your group is they have experiences and thoughts, wait, what if we do this? I'm like, Well, I've never thought of that. And now, you know, now we're playing Star Wars, or now that we play Star Wars too. And now we're playing guns, and now we're, you know, we uh then we just expand. And when girls get involved, now you're doing other things boys don't really want to do. Like we don't want to we don't want to play that. Like we don't want to play cook and I don't want to eat anymore, I want to run around and shoot things. You know, you know what I mean? But you uh the whole group collaborates, right? And you mentioned something great too, conflict, because even in this imaginary world we're playing, it's not a perfect world. And somebody gets upset, somebody gets upset about how the story went, and that's not what was supposed to happen. You know, and so it's really neat to see the how how the group brings more to a person, you know, like uh because we didn't have as much media as we have right today. I mean, today you can absorb a ton of things and you know get out there and reimagine whatever, I guess, but we only had what this group had. And then when my group got bigger later or became teens, well now you you're learning more stuff for more people, different thoughts and ideas.

SPEAKER_04 10:11

So it takes imagination to consider other perspectives, doesn't it? And so just all those rubs with yeah, so we're really focused right now on talking about unstructured play with you know with in a group, although individual unstructured play, I think, is a big part of this podcast as well. But with a group, yeah, you you just can't uh can't receive that through just facts, information. You it needs practice, doesn't it? And that to think about someone else is a real being and has another perspective, that takes a while. That doesn't just come naturally, does it? But it takes practice and and it's an imaginative thing to start to consider like, oh, Sam likes this, or some people do this or prefer this. So uh seems like empathy uh to develop properly as we grow needs some of this unstructured play and these kind of interactions.

SPEAKER_05 11:03

You know, that that's so true. I think I was thinking about how sometimes the when the roles were assigned, it was based on our personalities. You know, you talk about that, right? Because we're groups. And when, you know, we always had this one kid, he's the leader. And he was kind of our leader. He's young, he's not the oldest. That doesn't make you a leader. Your imagination and your willingness to do things makes you the leader. So we all knew he was so when we were we played unstructured play, he's the leader, and we're following him, and then we just throw out ideas that ultimately he kind of decided what what we did in a way. But that is interest interesting to hear about how your your personalities even kind of go into that.

SPEAKER_04 11:34

Yeah, and if and if uh this podcast is is piques anyone's uh interest, you need to Netflix Goonies tonight. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah. And to see how it used to be done, how kids used to play. Yeah, you had kind of a mishmash of they were Goonies and they were what they weren't all the same age, all the same interest, but to watch them work through challenges together and unstructured play, a little dangerous at times in the movie. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but but there's there's a good one. That's that is good.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

So let's talk about what does unstructured play look like at different developmental stages from toddlers to elementary kids to teenagers. What is what does unstructured play look like in those different times of life?

SPEAKER_03 12:16

Aaron Powell Well, I I think it does kind of change and develop over time. You know, unstructured play, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that it's unsupervised. And so for for the younger age, of course, the ability to have kids, like I know even with my granddaughter when she was a little bitty, little bitty one in the kitchen, setting a pot pot and pan out there for them to bang on like drums or to look at, or it wouldn't take a whole lot to keep her occupied. And it was right there within arm's length of us while we're cooking or doing whatever we're doing in there. Could be me just getting down on the floor with her and interacting with her, not having a set thing or letting her lead the when she got a little bit older, the coloring, you know, and she would ask me to color this or whatever that might be. And then all the way up to my teenager, you know, that might be me and him. One way that we used social media was to to send funny Instagram videos back and forth to each other, which was uh, you know, I didn't tell him what to send me. He didn't tell me what to send to him. It was just that interaction together.

SPEAKER_05 13:19

Yeah, I I spent some time with my granddaughter uh a couple of weekends ago, and uh, she's uh not quite a toddler yet, but it's really neat to see young kids. They're they're experiencing lots of things for the first time, and it was something random like seeing her put her hand in water and the and just going back to feel it and looking at it and moving fingers and so they're exploring, right? That's how babies play. You just I like how you say it. I just let them touch stuff because the sensory stuff is what's activating right now. They just they're feeling things for the first time. Hey, that's smooth. Oh, they don't have the words. They're putting all this input into them, they're hearing us talk, right? They're watching our mouths move, and you see them try to talk, you know, even it's just like six months, and she's trying to babble some words and she's talking, and we have no idea what she's saying. But you know, and it is in it, and what I'm noticing, and this is I mean, in this case with my daughter, my daughter's just with her all the time, and they're playing together all the time. And it's kind of neat too to see a six-month-old understand what kind of a phone it is now because that's how she talks to us, because you know, we don't live in the same town, so we're talking. Well, her and her grandmother are talking daily through the phone, and so she sees this as a kind of a good thing, like she's seeing somebody interacting with her. It's different, but that's kind of how she's playing. And she wants to touch the phone. But then when she sees us in person, it's a way different kind of thing. It's just like we're there, we can touch her now, right? I don't know. But anyway, I I think there's a big a big toddlers to me are a um it's fun to watch them because you're seeing them learn it all for the first time, you know. Then of course as they get older, they kind of they kind of move move to different kinds of play. You know, they get to where they're they're into the pretend stuff. That's probably when they're six, five, six years old, or a little younger than that, they start pretending things and playing with the with the stuff and imitating their parents a lot more. Uh they want to do the things you're doing. So although I don't have to tell them to do it, they just start doing that thing. My my little grandsons would start, they'd pull out the little tools because they'd see me like doing I'm not a tool guy by any means, but grandpa had to fix everything. So I go fix some stuff, and then they're now I buy them little tools and they're able to on their own. Well, how does that work? And I get to show them stuff. So it's really kind of neat. And then watching them just do it themselves. Well, I'm pretending to build this for you, and okay, build build me that thing. And it's not structured by me, they get to do it and they just come show it to them.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of, you know, play is just experiential in nature, and so anything you do as an adult, you can bring along, have your your child, your grandchild, whatever, experience that with you. Yes. And without actually, you know, setting expectations on that experience for them or being overly directive in how they experienced it.

SPEAKER_04 15:54

I I appreciate this question. What's that look like different developmental stages? One thing I was thinking about before coming into this podcast, there is we don't necessarily have a shortage of play and activity in the kind of the world that we find ourselves in today, but there is a there's quite a lack of unstructured play. It's been choked out because of very ambitious academic goals, expectations, testing and things like that, hyperscheduling around all kinds of activities that are structured, sports in particular, like in our culture, right? But so it's easy to kind of listen to this podcast and then assume that, well, structured play is bad. Well, though no, that you know, those things done with a with a good coach that has that's teaching good character and you're learning how to work together with the group towards a goal, learning about self-discipline, that has a very important place. But there are two different kinds of play. And probably when you're talking about early like earlier age children, probably gonna lean heavier the need for unstructured play, and then is and it probably balances out maybe half and half, but then in teenage years it might lean a little more towards those structured activities having maybe a little more a higher percent of the time. But there's two things that are both needed, but it would seem like would would you all say that when the for the youngest age children it's probably unstructured is the greatest need? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

Yeah, yeah. And I think the supervision part may change, you know, as they get older, because at some point they have to start doing things on their own and they have to be able to fail at things while you're still there to support them. And so whether that's you know, letting my 17-year-old drive to town by themselves, you know, instead of me going with them or whatever that might look like, you know, is is a piece of it all. Because I was thinking about that, because I do think that, you know, early on, those early years are more individual, just like we talked about. Right, right. And as they grow, those become more group activities because they need that interaction, because they need to learn how to develop those skills to work along with other people and be with other people.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

And I I had the I I I would live had a charmed childhood where I grew up in a a little bitty farm town. And so, like on a Saturday, we and after breakfast, say, Mom, I'm gonna go ride bike. That was just what the general thing for I'm just going out and we go find your buddy, and we just go find something to do, and it was unstructured play. Now it was unsupervised too. I don't know, and but it was a safe little town, and that's how we grew up. It was an old nostalgic way of doing it.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

I'm assuming supervision though was shared by your community, probably.

SPEAKER_04 18:43

It was the neighbors and the and and then and when I was younger, when we would stay at grandma uh my grandmother's house, she lived right by the park. So when we were and she was an older grandmother, she uh and we would go to the park and play. And you just never knew which kids might show up at the park. And in fact, in our little town, it tended to be the kids that had the least supervision, and so maybe had homes that were stressed a little more. So they were sometimes some of the of our town, maybe some of the rougher kids, and we would just start to negotiate together what we were gonna do and play if we're gonna have a water balloon fight or play in the sandbox or whatever it was, and it seemed like we were unsupervised until somebody started to bully or something, and that's when you knew grandma across the street was listening to everything, and she would be out on the porch and she would give us the all right, that's enough. So it was a nice way that she did that though, because she allowed us to have unstructured play, but without her hut being a helicopter grandma, but but she was watching and making sure we were safe.

Boredom As A Parenting Tool

SPEAKER_05 19:48

Yeah, I think teenagers are they're just a little different. Well, they're a lot different than the youngers, right? If you told us teenager to go out and play, I'm not sure they're gonna take that one. But here's here's what my thought is. I think you guys spoke about supervision, and yeah, I think when kids are small, they need more supervision, depending on your children and your community. Yes, you uh teenagers need supervision. So within the context of whatever supervision you're providing for your child, they'd still the go play. So socially hanging out is kind of plain, right? You know, sharing ideas. I've known teenagers to I used to have a buddy that he, this guy could take apart a speaker, reinstall it in a car, and add lights to it. This is in the in the 90s, right? And he's just doing this stuff, and so he's just exploring his his side skills, right? He's working on his side hustle before he even has a job, right? So uh he's a he's good at electronics, so he's doing this on his own and then showing it to us, and we think it's the coolest thing, you know, how they light up with the with the sound and all that and everything. So, you know, a lot of them they that's where they start exploring, you know, the arts, you know. They hey, what kind of music do I like? And then they're sharing, I remember sharing music with my friends, and then that's when you realize not everybody likes the same music you like, right? Or or they introduce you to a different genre that you maybe have not heard, and that's all to me like unstructured play, right? It's all and in and their world gets so much bigger because of all the thoughts, and and they're getting more comp way more complex than a than a small kid. So there's way more thought process, idea, creativity going on, and then like I said, they you know that's where bands form and that's where you know other things form with with teen teens. And so although we would we we we don't call it play per se, that is still a freedom to where they create some of the rules and get to do stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

All right, so what role does boredom play in fostering independence and initiative?

SPEAKER_03 21:29

Oh man. When I was a kid, that was an opportunity to go do chores.

SPEAKER_05 21:35

Yeah, I learned real quick, you don't tell mom you're bored. I'll find you something to do, man. I was a really bored kid. I think I think because I lived I lived in some I lived a alone a lot. Remember, I I I t I said it in some podcasts. You know, I had a neighbor kid who was kind of my only friend, but he was also kind of rough. And so there's a lot of times I've that I had to spend alone and doing those things. I mean, so I'm bored because I think, you know, it's that social interaction. Was what created the fun for me, really. Now, don't get me wrong, I can I can certainly entertain myself. But it's interesting because like today, I can entertain myself with lots of things, digital product, whatever, right? There's it's everywhere. When I was a uh a young kid, I didn't have all that stuff. I had to figure things out. Like I literally for one time created a board game. I bought a board game, I found out a kid had made this thing, and I said, I want to make my own. And I went and got paper and I and I I drew the little squares and I figured out how the dice were gonna work, and my brother got mad at me and tore it up. I'm still mad at him about it. But you know what I mean is it sparked this creativity and something that I wanted to do. And it's still to this day, I'm kind of a board game kind of guy. I like I like games, I like to do things solo because I had to learn real quick when I was young. If I don't want to do chores, I gotta keep myself entertained and not say I'm bored. But there is some benefit to being bored, right? I mean, because look at that. If I wasn't bored and alone, and since I didn't have a device in my hand, all these kind of things, it sparked that interest and I got to know who I am with me. Like this is the things I like to do that I don't have to do with a group, right? I don't need a group for it. You know, I don't know. That's that's just my thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Sometimes, like I think when my son says I'm bored now, it just means I'm not being distracted by those other things like the screens or whatever. But I also think that, you know, we as parents and as adults have to be mindful of making sure we support Sam used the word spark, the the individual sparks that our kids have for interest for different things. And so one of my sons is a creative kid, and so I'm going to provide things like, you know, things for him to do his artwork or he does stop motion stuff. And so we're gonna have things around for him to to use his curiosity and his creativity to be able to do those things. And so I just think, you know, because kids can get bored. And so I think if we have, you know, positive things for them to fill that time with, to grow their creativity, their imagination, all those things is helpful to them.

SPEAKER_05 23:52

You know, I mean, Josh and I were talking about this because we're we're Gen Xers. We talked about this the other day and how when we were kids we had to we had to kind of figure things out, right? And so certainly when I'd come home sometimes and my mom is at work, yeah, I'm bored. You know, I if I don't have a thing to do or instructions left for me, I gotta figure out what to do. But here's what that did. You know, I it really sparked a lot of problem solving for me. Like I had to figure it out. That's what we talked about. We I had to figure things out, and I not necessarily cook. Mom usually had me covered, but I did, you know, the problem arose, I had to know how to pick up a phone or call somebody, leave, or whatever it is, right? You know, you have to you have to figure it out. So I got a lot of independence out of that, you know. It also let me let me learn that, you know, I I can be okay with being a little uncomfortable. Right. Because when you're bored, you know, it's not doesn't mean I'm just sitting around, but you know, a lot of times that sitting around gave me an idea. Oh, well, I can just go do this, or let me figure out how I'm gonna go do that. And like hence the hence the little board game. But when I was a teen, I had all a whole more complex ideas and I'd go figure things out, you know, and I already have a phone or I can I just I don't know. I you just have to it was okay though. It was okay. It wasn't like the end of the world for me to sometimes just sit around for a couple of minutes and have nothing to do, and then I just go find something to do. I I thought it was pretty neat actually.

SPEAKER_04 24:59

Yeah, I think there's something I think I don't know, don't you think that boredom really oh does kind of maybe serve a purpose in that there's it is okay to learn to just to be. And that's it's kind of an unhealthy thing if we can't ever just be. Yeah. So it's kind of that rhythm of engagement, disengagement, kind of a spiritual uh rhythm. But then uh the other thing that emerges out of it uh is that if you just allow children with the right things in their environment where they're safe and have some things, if they can start to figure out something to do that is creative or that's satisfying that by their own initiative, that that's gonna serve them well throughout the rest of their life. And the and the thing, the temptation, especially right now, is if I'm bored and then to have something that just instantly gives you a little what I guess a dopamine hit or whatever, it's just all it's just very primitive and it's not sophisticated at all. It's just kind of an addiction to some kind of stimulation, and we can easily go down that road if you if the word boredom just frightens us and we want to try to fix it like that, right? Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_05 26:06

I think if I didn't know how to be bored as a kid, I wouldn't have made it to the military. You know, because we had to stand around a lot, wait around a lot. I mean, there's and so I was kind of prepared. Like, I'm ready to go. I can sit here wildly for a while.

Brain Science Calm States And Closing

SPEAKER_04 26:17

When I was a kid, one of the the when I was a little child, I had a friend who lives out in the country, and and the greatest Saturdays were when we would go out there because my mom and his mom would drink coffee and they'd like so those are the greatest Saturdays. Hey, we're going out to to Perry's house. Well, this is how it always started. We're bored. We don't have anything to do. Every single Saturday, that's how it started. And you know how it ended every single Saturday? We had to go home just when we're starting to have fun. And oh, why do you always have a sleep right when we're well, you'd see what we were doing was a little bit of boredom always opened up into starting to try new things, experiment being creative, and and so it was really a good thing, but we didn't understand at the time what was happening, but it was it was it was a lot of good unstructured play that was happening. And and I know I don't think we've mentioned this, but I know all three of you are gonna know what so much more about this than me. This as far as neural connections that are formed in in a child, this unstructured play is gonna be huge. Is is that not right? And that's gonna be foundational as far as to be a resilient human being later in life. And if you just and if you just let that shit pass you by, that's really gonna be to the detriment of the child, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 27:34

Yeah, I think so. For healthy development, for resiliency, you need some stress, small amounts, in order to help yourself develop resilience to that. Just like becoming immune, or your immunity system, you need some of those things to happen in order for your your system to get stronger. And I would think, Josh, would you say that?

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Oh, yeah. What I was running through my mind is the arousal continuum, thinking about how what Dr. Perry says is that we're always either at a state of calm, alert, alarm, fear, terror. And that a lot of times actually we don't create environments for our kids where they're ever in a state of or boredom where they can actually access the highest parts of their brains. When you're in a sense of calm, that's when your cortex can be engaged. And a lot of the stuff you learn throughout the day doesn't really get organized and processed into long-term memory unless you're in that state of calm where your cortex can process that. So I think we're doing a disservice to our kids by not providing them times where they can have some boredom and just be able to get to that state state of calm. I think we always have to feel like kids have to be programmed, whether they're doing a an activity, a structured activity, or they have some type of screen or music or earbuds. I mean, it's pretty rare if you look at kids that they never have like an earbud in their ear listening to something, which means they're never getting to that state of calm because there's something bidding for their attention.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

And I think as as parents, we have to kind of do some self-evaluation for ourselves because sometimes our tolerance for our kids' unstructured play may not be in the right spot. And so sometimes if we're not careful, we're going to hamper that unstructured play.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

You mean that we'll jump in and like, hey, you're doing it wrong, or hey, you're being either that or you're being too loud, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:15

Too too wild, too crazy, whatever that might be.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

All right. Thank you for listening today. Before we send you outside for some free playtime, I want to make sure you all have subscribed to Brain Paced Parenting and give us a five-star review. Until next time, you might have to loan out your co-text today. Just make sure you remember and get it back.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Thank you for listening to Brain Based Parenting. We hope you enjoyed this show. If you would like more information about CalFarley's Boys Ranch, are interested in employment, would like information about placing your child, or would like to help us help children by donating to our mission, please visit calfarly.org. You can find us on all social media platforms by searching for CalFarley's. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.