European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 9, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                To idleness All work and no play really can make Jack and Jill Dull kids by Kenton Robinson. The Hartford courant Versi Nee Aesop idleness has had a bad rap the Grasshopper who fiddles while the ant a toils starves in the end. Open any thesaurus  will find that virtually every synonym for the idler is. Pejorative he is a Loafer a Lounger a sloth and a sluggard a goof off a do nothing a Neer do  but How grim would be society if we All lived As ants do. How still would be  if the Grasshoppers dropped their bows. A. And How sad is  whose parents never let him learn the skill of being Idle.  parents who stuff their children s Summers with to Ball. Day Camps and dance lessons Are doing them no favors. Certainly if you work you have to arrange for your child to have some things to do this summer. But even these children need some Idle time. Indeed psychologists will Tell you parents May be depriving their children of the Chance to develop what Robert louts Stevenson called Quot the faculty for idleness Quot a All fall Winter Spring children go to school to learn the lessons of numbers and letters and of sitting up straight in a hard chair. Summer is the season for another kind of lesson one that can Only be self taught. From idleness a child can learn How to stretch and relax How to amuse himself and How to enjoy the Small Sweet Joys of life the Grasshopper s chirping song for example. He can learn to reflect to look inside himself and to discover who a apart from the crowd a he is. You want to be a Good Parent to give your child every Opportunity to discover and develop every one of his or her latent talents whether they be in Art or literature music or sport a a. Quot some parents think that the More of these things you get them signed up for the better parents you Are and that s not necessarily True Quot says Louise Bates Ames of the resell Institute of human development in new Haven a Conn. R. Quot you know that old line where did you go out what did you do nothing there should be More children who could just say i went out and i did t do anything they Don t have to be occupied every single minute of the Day. They have to have some time for reflection just walking around and thinking about  a. A a a a a a 1 but Ames who has studied childhood development for. More than 60 years says Many parents today driven by their own personal demons drive their children too. J Quot i think parents do As much As they Dolor . One is they feel guilty especially if they re working parents. A second reason is that a lot of people Don t believe in nature. They Don t really believe that children can develop without a great Deal of help from  / and then Quot there Are always the people always have. Been always vill be it who think they can Speed things up if they get in there and get their Little paws on the  these Are usually the same people who exhibit what might be called the Genius syndrome As in Quot my kid s a Genius because he could ,. Quot fill in the Blank when he was Only. Fillin the Blank years  about them Ames simply says Quot sometimes the less secure you Are about your own. Intellectual activities and your own Success in life the More you push your. . On the other hand Quot parents who believe in giving their children a great Deal of Freedom tend to have creative children Quot writes Teresa Amabile in her Book crowing up creative when Amabile a professor of psychology at Brandeis University was researching her Book she interviewed a number of creative people. One of them was novelist John  he told me he was grateful that he was not scheduled into endless lessons and Camps and that sort of thing Quot she says. Quot and that he was allowed to sit for Long periods of time in his room. To the outside world it looked like he was just sitting there staring out the window but what he did during those times was to make up stories Quot and that was in fact his favorite thing to do when he was a kid. He would Tell these stories to his friends when they were walking to  Amabile who has devoted much of her career to studying creativity in children and adults says Irving s experience illustrates the importance of giving children free time. Quot it is important for children to have time that in t Quot is important for children to have time that in t scheduled up Quot said psychologist author Teresa Amabile file Quot there should be More children who could just say i went out and did t do anything Quot said Louise Bates Ames of the Gesheit Institute of human development scheduled up Quot she says. Quot children and adults will be most creative when they re doing something that they enjoy that they care about that they find involving and interesting and satisfying and personally challenging. Ant they will be less creative if they feel they Are doing something under duress under constraint simply Becaum they have to do it. Quot i have a serious concern that when children Are scheduled into a number of sequential activities and the have very Little time on their own they May begin to feel controlled by their schedule and begin to feel that those activities Are no longer fun Are no longer interesting to  besides creativity solitary play also develops the child s sense of identity the Quot sense of who you Are Independent of the crowd Quot says James Loomis director of outpatient psychology services for Newington children s Hospital in Connecticut. Quot identity really comes from two places. One a lot of the sense of who you Are comes from How people respond to you but the other part of it is the kinds of things you do by yourself and the kinds of ways you experience yourself in Reading in playing in developing Mastery with crafts or toys or games and things like that. Both parts Are important and you want to make sure to have the solitary part As Well As the other part Quot Loomis says. A. A. A a a. Quot it is important for identity and a sense of. Independence that you can go off to your room and entertain yourself. Ultimately it s us by ourselves and How we feel about ourselves alone that really  All of this does t mean you should t sign your kid up for that swimming class. Even if you Don t work it s necessary to arrange for your child to have some things to a do just to save your own sanity. Quot you be got to have some shape for the child summer Quot says Ames. Quot it s not a Good thing to have a child just hanging around the House even if you re Home All summer Long saying t have nothing to do and then you improvise and say Well Why Don t you go to Susie a or Why Don t we go on a Little picnic i mean you can t do it Day by Day you will be worn  but for your children s Sake give them time to learn the lessons of idleness where doing nothing is doing something important indeed. A Well developed Quot faculty a for idleness Quot will serve them Well throughout their lives. Quot extreme busyness Quot wrote Stevenson Quot is a symptom of deficient vitality and a faculty for idleness implies a Catholic appetite and a Strong sense of personal  and woe to those who do not develop it. Quot As if a Man s soul were not too Small to begin with they have dwarfed and narrowed theirs by a life of All. Work and no play until Here they Are at forty with a listless attention a mind vacant of All material of amusement and not one thought to rub against another while they wait for the  los Angeles times Washingion Posl news service Fita some research indicates a that the time children spend alone is directly reefed the creativity they exhibit As adults. 16 the stars and 5tripes saturday july 9, 1994 the stars and stripes