It’s hard not to love the movie Babies. That’s what I chose to do for my Mothers’ Day observance.  It was kind of like eating chocolate… all good! There were none of the not-so-fun parts of babies, like colic and diarrhea and sleepless nights. Just one oooo and ahhhhh after another.

 But the cute is not what stuck with me. Several days later, I am thinking about the stark contrast in the way the Japanese and the American babies were parented compared to the African and Mongolian babies.  The African baby was gnawing on a fat stick he plucked out of the dirt. Splinters, dirt, ants, fungus…yuck! Obviously teething, he chewed away. Flash to the sanitized environment of the American baby in his Parent and Me class, daddy swaying to the song about Mother Earth, as they sat on their acrylic carpet squares.

 Then there was the Mongolian baby who appeared to have more animals than adults in his life. Like self rising flour, he seemed to be raising himself amidst the raw life on the plain.  He crawls through the obstacle course provided by the legs of  a herd of calves, and the audience waits for him to be trampled.  Contrast that scene to the Japanese baby who is under the constant eye of her mommy or daddy or Gymboree teacher, getting her prescribed movement experience.

 In the past weeks as I have launched my new book, I have been speaking to parents all over the country. Among the many points I aim to make, is the need for parents to let go of their death grip.  How can young children ever cultivate independence and self reliance if parents are holding on so tightly? Children need to struggle and fall in order to learn how to pick themselves up and survive.  Dr. Spock said, “A child who has not been well bandaged has not been well parented.”

 I am not suggesting that you place your children’s dinner of mush down on the floor and let them all go for it in a giant feeding frenzy, including smushing the white goo on the youngest sibling’s head. Nor am I condoning a child sharing his bath water with the family goat. I am abundantly grateful for all that we, in our disease free, safety precaution filled America, are able to offer our children. But Babies sure made me think twice about the good parts of what children learn when they are sometimes left alone.

“What are we going to do today?” pleads the child as he climbs into the car after a full day of school.  What is that about?  Is it that the child has come to expect that every day brings a new form of parent-organized, post school entertainment – music lessons, sports lessons, art classes, dance classes, “enrichment” classes, and playdates?  And I wonder if maybe, in our mission to make sure our children don’t miss one minute of mind and body improvement, we are forgetting the  importance of doing nothing.

“Doing nothing” is not that at all. Experts tell us that unstructured time is vital for children’s development cognitively, emotionally, physically, and even socially. Peter Sheras, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the University of Virginia, says “Children need [unstructured time] to recuperate from the more structured part of their day and to just veg out.”  The chance to recharge their batteries that unstructured time allows is a crucial part of child development.  “When children amuse themselves, they’re actually exercising a different part of their brain than when they’re engaged in an organized activity, “ says Dan Rees, PhD at Western Maryland College. “They grow emotionally and intellectually; kids who have ample opportunity to make up their own rules and fantasies are cognitively way ahead of those whose time is always structured.”

Children need time to process and practice what they learn during the structured times, formal activities, even the socializing of their day.  They need time to use creatively the new skills they learn from teachers, coaches, and friends.  They need space and time to try out that which they simply observe others doing. It’s kind of like microwave cooking.  After something cooks in the microwave, it has a “standing time.”  The learning goes on and on, long after the direct instruction time.  When we have our children’s days completely programmed, either with extracurricular classes or with parent-generated activities, when is the standing time?

Children’s days need “unplanning.” Our children have become so reliant on others for stimulation, they don’t know how to entertain themselves.  Doing nothing encourages children to be resourceful. Some parents fear that children, left to their own devices, will become bored. Some parents feel that any activity that doesn’t seem to lead in some measurable way to advancement or direct results is not a good use of time. So, in their zeal to give their child every opportunity to learn, they are robbing them of something much more valuable, the growth that comes from doing nothing.

Maybe it’s time to get busy doing nothing.