Children losing imagination in overwrought culture

Joseph is 8. And he's bored. He wants more time with video games, and I say no. And now he's bored. Restless. Whiny.

And I go back in time ...

I'm 8. And I'm bored. But I'm smart enough to keep that to myself. Because, in this house, you so don't want to let Mom and Dad know that you're bored. Because, in this house, boredom is simply, unequivocally against the rules.

Just try it. Go tell one of my Parental Units that you're bored. The first thing you'll get is an empathic, but noncommittal "Wow. That doesn't sound like much fun. Better find something to do."

Complain again, and you'll be tossed outside to fend for yourself. Keep complaining, and my parents will be genius at finding you a list of odious chores that will immediately solve the problem of your boredom.

I admire my parents for this clear, firm, enlightened intervention into the malaise of my boredom. I admire it because it put all the responsibility on me! No one else. Turns out I'm not the center of any universe. The world doesn't stop turning when I'm bored.

And, invariably, I would begin to play. Yep. Seal off all the escape paths from the work of confronting myself, and, voila, I suddenly found the energy to occupy myself. To energize myself. To mobilize my best and oldest friend -- imagination!

As far back as I can remember -- age 3 or 4 -- my parents would take me to restaurants. It was simply expected that I would eat, talk and then sit respectfully, self-contained, until it was time for the family to leave. I don't know how they did this. I'm saying it never occurred to me that I had the option of being bored, restless and holding the entire restaurant hostage with shenanigans, whining or tantrums.

Same with traveling. It took 2 hours and 30 minutes to drive from our house to the family cabin in the Arizona mountains. And, quite without electronic games or even magnetic chessboards, I sat in the back seat with my sisters and occupied myself. We sang silly songs. We played word games. Counted Volkswagens. Maybe had some Crayola crayons and a coloring book. We pulled over when my older sister made her signature move: car sickness. The family related. Again, it never occurred to me that I had the option of countermanding the family vacation with boredom.

And I didn't die. And it didn't injure my psyche.

Modern children live increasingly in a world where they do not learn to occupy themselves. And, sadly, fewer and fewer modern parents expect them to learn. In its place today is the anxious rush of anxious parents to soothe and placate a bored, restless child. To take responsibility for the child's boredom. To fix it. Often with electronic distraction.

DVD players in cars. Game Boys. Cell phones. Oh, yeah, it stops the whining. But it prevents the learning of occupying self. And it replaces that learning with entitlement to ready stimulation. We might as well dart them with Thorazine.

This child-rearing culture fosters artificial expectations for stimulation. And all the stimulations are outside-in. Can we be surprised that children reared to normalize this "psychic laziness" also have an unprecedented vulnerability to attention deficit? An unprecedented vulnerability to compulsive behavior, especially drug and alcohol habits? That an unprecedented number of adults exhibit moderate to severe signs of depression?

This frantic, hurried culture has virtually forgotten the necessity human beings have for the discipline of contemplation. The quiet focus of the mind, from whence imagination comes.

Imagination stimulates the human mind and heart from inside-out.

So I give Joseph the ol' heave-ho. Outside. He leaves, scowling.

And, mere minutes later, I see him out the kitchen window. He has donned his Transformers blanket as a hood and cape. In one side of his jeans is thrust a yellow whiffle ball bat. In the other, a piece of PVC sprinkler pipe I'd left in the yard. In his hands is a Nerf Ball Gun. He's stalking some make-believe enemy around the trampoline.

When I step out onto the back porch, he tells me he is The Swordsman. And the next thing I know, I'm playing the part of a warrior from the Sudu tribe. (I made that up on the spot.)

We play the scene again and again. Each time The Swordsman kills me. And then I spend the rest of the night itchy from Bermuda grass.

But Joseph's boredom evaporates into thin air. My boredom, too.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.