Boredom No Excuse

“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” teachers were fond of saying 30 years ago as they dished out homework.

Idleness, it seems, is no less a problem today than it was then, and so is boredom, the child of idleness. During the past year, idleness or boredom has been blamed, at least in part, for activities that led to the death of one San Diego area teen-ager, severe brain damage to another, several assaults and a series of burglaries and vandalism.

A police investigator described as bored the three boys who built a pipe bomb that killed one of the youths last July. Whoever hit 16-year-old Jennifer Pratt in the head with a 2-by-4 as she rode on the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle hasn’t been caught, but many in her North County community suspect bored, partying high school students.

When several San Dieguito High School athletes were arrested on assault charges, the mother of one of the boys later convicted said children have no place to go except unsupervised parties.

Most recently, 27 young people were arrested in Ramona on suspicion of a series of burglaries and vandalism. What did the teens and their parents blame? Idleness, boredom and frustration over the lack of a skateboard club and other recreational activities.

We find these reasons deeply troubling. Boredom has long plagued adolescents. Ask any parent, or even the parent’s parents. “I’m bored” is a favorite teen-age response, even when there is plenty to do. It probably will always be part of being a teen. But is it an excuse for senseless violence and vandalism?

For many of today’s adolescents, however, boredom is exacerbated by something their parents, by and large, did not have: affluence. An old-fashioned way of saying that might be to use the word “spoiled.”

Spoiled children, mixed with cars, money, idle time, lack of supervision and, too often, drugs and alcohol, is a formula for trouble.

Teen-agers will always get into trouble, some of which will be destructive or dangerous. And supervising children today, from infancy on, is a growing problem as the number of single-parent and two-career families increases. Working parents often are too busy, too tired or otherwise too preoccupied to take charge of their children.

But what are we teaching our children when we rationalize their destructive and dangerous behavior by blaming boredom and idleness? Adults may not be able to cure boredom, but it would seem that idleness could be alleviated. Surely some of the traditional solutions--homework, chores, part-time jobs, volunteer work, school clubs--are still available.

How do we expect children to learn accountability if their parents don’t hold them accountable?