Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing

by Olga Mecking

De-schedule Your Kids It’s not just adults who benefit from niksen. Kids do too. Not only does resting or getting bored have benefits for children, it actually affects them more than it does adults because it teaches them from a young age to be more self-reliant and independent. Also, their brains are more adaptive than ours are and the benefits consolidate more quickly. Niksening will teach your children to sit with uncomfortable feelings instead of immediately acting on them. “Making more niksen time means setting boundaries around how you spend time, not negating responsibilities that need tending to. How each family sets their boundaries is up to them,” says Juli Fraga. Some of her ideas include reducing the number of weekend commitments and scheduling time away for doing nothing. “Call me lazy, but I have a lot of niksen time on the weekends. I make zero plans, relax on my couch with my favorite blanket and my cat, and enjoy observing the thoughts that travel through my mind,” Juli Fraga says. Some may call this spacing out, but Fraga prefers to call it tuning in. To her, the benefits are visible right away. “Doing nothing isn’t ‘nothing,’ and it can end up being an enormous something when we see how pulling back on busyness can bolster our physical and emotional health,” she adds. Giving children the experience of doing niks, and letting them create and imagine what to do with that time, isn’t optional, “it’s a required experience for a child,” believes Tony Crabbe, ...