I'm bored...

Andrea Clifford-Poston
Wednesday, June 8, 2005

When children seem lazy and unmotivated they may be trying to avoid painful issues, explains Andrea Clifford-Poston We are born curious, as anyone who has ever watched a baby will know. Even very young babies observe, 'push and pull' their own world in an often furious attempt to learn about it. And well into their first year mothers will declare, with a mixture of pride and exhaustion, 'Oh, he's into everything now.' So in this sense, a lazy child is a contradiction in terms. And yet it is a relatively common experience for playworkers to have to cope with a child who seems unmotivated and disinterested.