The following excerpts were taken from the Boston Globe, written by Barbara Meltz for full article see link below.

"If you want to raise children who can think critically, who can solve problems of all kinds -- and we do, that's our mission -- they need the chance to think uninterrupted," she says.

That's rare these days.

Beginning in infancy, children are bombarded with noise, stimulation, and instant gratification, from crib mobiles with flashing lights and music to DVD entertainment systems for the car. Quiet time? It's virtually programmed into children never to have it.

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"The gadgetry may distract a baby from crying, but does he ever discover his toes?" wonders Wheelock early-childhood educator Diane Levin.

She means that on two levels. Literally, the fussy baby who is left alone long enough to find his toes (not more than a few minutes, after all) is making the first step in a long journey. "He's figuring out that he can entertain and distract himself," Levin says. "He's also learning something profound: that he has the capacity to solve his own problem."

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"It's been happening ever since children started watching more TV, about 20 years ago," says Levin. "As the process for interacting with the world becomes more passive, children are robbed of the process of being an active agent in their own lives."

There are no statistics or studies on this yet; it's something that will play out as time passes. Researchers and educators do know, however, that children learn best by initiating, manipulating, and observing cause and effect.

Levin has coined a term: problem-solving deficit disorder. Minneapolis psychologist and author David Walsh, founder and president of the National Institute on Media and the Family (mediaandthefamily.org), has one, too: mental operating software.

"It's as if this software is wired into them in the crib that sets an expectation for entertainment and instant gratification," he says. "As a result, when things get tough, children are more likely to throw up their hands and throw in the towel than figure out what to do."

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Indeed, Levin says problem-solving is a cumulative skill that gives a child a sense of inner power.

"The more you do it, the better you are at it and the more you feel good about yourself as a learner, a social being, and a thinker," she says. "A problem-solver is someone who says, `I can affect the world. I can figure out how to build this tower so it won't fall. I can tell the teacher there's a problem on the playground.' "

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Olfman wonders if we are seeing more children labeled with Attention Deficit Disorder and other behavioral and cognitive disabilities as a by-product of inadequate problem-solving skills.

"There's no question in my mind that we have more restless, agitated, and unhappy children because they are dependent on instant gratification," she says. "Life is boring when you haven't acquired the capacity to solve problems as basic as knowing how to fill your own time. Why wouldn't that lead to acting-out behaviors that get you labeled at school and eventually even medicated?" Olfman is editor of the "Childhood in America" series (Praeger Press).

http://www.Boston.com/yourlife/home/articles/2004/01/22/there_are_benefits_to_boredom/?page=2