BOREDOM gets a bad press. It's always portrayed as a hateful thing, like some sort of dreadful lurgi that could lead to the end of the world as we know it if left to its own devices.

The idea that our children might be bored for a single nanosecond fills parents with a cold dread, much like the idea that the little devils might never leave home, leaving us in a boredom-busting spiral of constant activity until we turn up our toes and have a well-earned rest in the hereafter.

In the meantime we scurry about desperately trying to find things for our beloved offspring to do.

We arrange outings for them, we help them to bake endless piles of squashed, slightly soiled looking butterfly buns, we even roll up our sleeves, cover the entire house in polythene sheeting and encourage them to do some painting.

All because we can't stand the idea that they might not be stimulated to the point of spontaneous combustion.

And heaven help us if a teenager is allowed to become bored for more than about 13 seconds.

Leave them without a useful purpose and, before you can say "bring back conscription", they are vandalising the nearest shopping centre and pushing over random old ladies for the sheer hell of it.

That is why 24-hour, multi-channel TV is a must for every home; every child must have constant access to a Playstation or similar game-playing gadgetry; teenagers must be allowed hourly telephonic communication with other teenagers, even if only to say "nothin'; what you doin'?"; and parents must be on standby at all times of the day and night to ferry their offspring to whichever Wacky Warehouse has the newest, most twirly slide. These are all absolutely essential tools for a happy family life, aren't they?

Maybe not.

Maybe, and I'm not sure I should be saying something as controversial as this in a pleasant, easy going family newspaper such as this, but maybe we should just let the little blighters be bored.

Come on, now, I know this is a shocking concept, but there's no need for histrionics. Put your head between your knees for a few minutes then read on.

After much thought and far too many hours spent scraping glitter paint off my dining room chairs, I have come to the conclusion that a bit of unadulterated boredom could be just what modern kids need.

When I was growing up in the 1970s we didn't have 24-hour TV; we had about eight hours a day, and seven-and-a-half hours of that was so boring you would rather gnaw your own leg off than watch it.

We didn't have high tech computer gizmos; we had Cluedo. We didn't have mobile phones; we had penpals. And we didn't have Wacky Warehouses; we had a can of Fresca in the car while mum and dad nipped in the pub for a shandy.

Add the fact that all the shops shut promptly at 5pm and refused to open at all on a Sunday and you have a recipe for endless hours of mind-numbing, brain-curdling boredom. As far as I can remember, few of us went on a mad rampage as a result.

In fact, I think we might actually have been all the better for it. When you're not watching telly, texting, gaming or shopping, you have time to think, to read a book - heck, you even have time to write a book if you want to.

Maybe if we didn't insist on entertaining our kids to within an inch of their lives 24 hours a day they would actually find something more meaningful to do than download ringtones.

We've got another week before our beloved cherubs go back to school. Let's give them an unexpected holiday treat - boredom.

It could be the making of them.

Updated: 10:03 Monday, March 28, 2005