Mom On TikTok Urges Parents To Let Kids Do Nothing
Could we improve our kids mental health by worrying less about how they spend their time?
Who among us doesn’t love a good rot (aka a time when you just hunker down and do nothing productive for an hour or a day or a weekend)? The magical benefits of rotting are obvious to anybody who’s taken the time to do it, and TikTok user @ciaoamber who posts about parenting, homeschooling, and the joys of being Italian-American, agrees.
In fact, she thinks one group in particular should be doing more nothing: kids.
“For a society that is so concerned about mental health ... I can’t believe we don’t prioritize just having kids do nothing—giving kids space to just do nothing, without being told what to do, without being in school, without learning something, without being in an activity, without having a coach, without rushing around. I mean, adults don’t even like the level of busy we are, adults can’t even handle it, but we think kids can.”
Amber went on to recount talking to a friend (whose children attend traditional school) about Amber’s homeschooling day. Amber mentioned doing schoolwork in the morning and then taking time afterward to do an at-home workout while her kids had time to “do whatever they want.” The friend then attempted to assuage Amber that that downtime was fine, likening to recess, but Amber needed no such reassurance.
“No, no, no: that’s by design,” she says. “I want me kids to have hours in the day where they can do whatever they want: to be creative, to come up with things.”
“We have been hardwired as parents to think we constantly need to be entertaining or doing an activity with our kid,” she continues. “All of us need to have space to breath, especially little kids. ... So we’re so concerned about mental health but we’re stressing the kids out!”
Understandably, this message has resonated with parents on the app... probably because we’re the ones carting our kids around to their various activities or feeling totally unfounded guilt if we’re not.
“It’s OK for kids to simply do nothing,” agrees one commenter. “I see it as problem solving on their own. If they are bored my child figures out what they want to do to entertain themselves.”
“I vividly remember not wanting to do too many after school things because I just needed a break from DOING all day,” says another. “We ALL need mental rest.”
Others recognize themselves in the cautionary element of Amber’s message.
“I needed to hear this. I’m always so worried we aren’t ‘scheduled’ and I’m failing,” they observe. “I’m so guilty of over-booking him.”
Another commenter succinctly sums up the video by noting that unstructured play is “the gift of time.”
Of course, for some families, scheduling kids morning-noon-and-night isn’t a matter of mom guilt or Keeping Up with the Joneses: it’s because we have to work to survive and we want to provide structure, care, and entertainment for our children. It’s not neurotic or oblivious to the needs of our kids: sometimes “overscheduling” is our best possible option. Still, this video can be an important reminder for those among us who, perhaps, could stand to do a bit less of it to reflect on how our kids are spending their time and why.
So maybe next time you’re struggling to figure out what to do with your children to keep them entertained or busy, maybe take a step back, take a breath, and just give them the space to figure it out for themselves.
