Is My Kid’s Endless Doodling a Waste of Time? What I’ve Learned As A Teacher Mom
I was folding clean socks last Tuesday, leaning against the dining table, waiting for my 10-year-old Lila to finish three math word problems so we could head to the ice cream shop down the street. After 40 minutes of what I thought was quiet working, I peeked over her shoulder. The math page had one problem half done. The entire back of the notebook was covered in tiny, identical cat heads: same triangle left ear, same gray stripe down the tail, same dot for an eye.
I sighed, and didn’t even try to hide my irritation. “Lila, that’s 40 minutes for three problems. All this drawing—isn’t that just a waste of time?”
She pulled the notebook close to her chest, like I was about to tear it up. “It’s not a waste. It helps me think.”
That line stuck with me, because just two weeks earlier, a parent had pulled me aside after my 4th grade back-to-school night and asked me the exact same question, about her son who drew Pokémon on every worksheet. “I tell him to stop wasting time, but he just can’t. Is he distracting himself? Should I be worried?”
I’d given her some vague answer back then, something about “kids fidget different these days,” but I hadn’t really thought about it through my own mom lens until that Tuesday with Lila. I’ve spent years telling my students to put their pencils down when they’re done doodling and pay attention, same as every other teacher. I’d always assumed any activity that wasn’t the assigned work was time you couldn’t get back.
A year ago, I had a student named Javi who drew race cars on literally everything: reading handouts, math tests, permission slips, even the back of the lunch menu I passed out for our field trip. I’d stop by his desk every other day, tap the drawing with my finger, and remind him to focus. His test scores never dropped, but I was convinced he was missing half the lesson, that he’d hit a wall eventually when the work got harder.
Then we did our big group project on the water cycle, and Javi’s group was stuck for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to split up the work and order their presentation. Javi grabbed the poster board, flipped it over, and drew 6 race cars, each on a little stretch of track marked with a step: research, draw the diagram, make the labels, practice. He assigned each group member a car, and 10 minutes later they were done, ahead of every other group. When I asked him how he thought of that so fast, he shrugged and said “I was drawing cars while you were talking about the project, so I just kept thinking about it.”
That’s when I started paying attention. I started asking kids who doodled nonstop what the drawing did for them, instead of just telling them to stop. I kept a little mental note over the past year: how much work did they get done, how much of the lesson did they retain, when I let them draw instead of forcing them to stop.
What I found surprised me. For about 7 out of 10 of the kids who doodle regularly, it’s not a distraction. It’s a regulator. Their brains need something low-stakes, repetitive, and hands-on to chew on while the other part of the brain works through the harder, boring stuff. If you take that away, their brain wanders off to daydreaming about recess or video games instead, and that’s way more of a waste of time than drawing cat heads.
After Lila told me it helps her think, I decided to test it for a week. I didn’t bug her about doodling while she did homework, I just let her draw whatever she wanted on the back of her notebook. I timed her every night. Before, when I’d make her put the drawing away and only focus on math, she took an average of 32 minutes to finish her nightly homework. After, when she could doodle while she worked? Average 21 minutes. She still got the same number of problems right.
I’ve put together a few small things that work for me, as a teacher and a mom, when I’m tempted to call a kid’s doodling a waste of time. First, instead of snatching the paper or snapping, just ask one question: “Can you tell me what you’re working on right now?” 9 times out of 10, they can repeat the assignment, tell you what problem they’re stuck on, and prove they’re still engaged. If they can’t, that’s when you talk about adjusting, not before.
Second, if you’re worried about it taking over the whole page or distracting other kids, just give a designated space. Tell them they can doodle all they want on the back of the notebook, or on a small sticky note taped to their desk. That way it doesn’t bleed into the actual work, but they still get to do it. Banning it entirely just makes them sneak it, and that’s when they’re more focused on hiding the drawing than they are on the work.
Third, if it actually is a problem—they’re drawing the whole time and not getting any work done—try 10 minutes of dedicated doodle time before you start homework or class. Have them draw whatever they want for 10 minutes straight, then put the paper away. A lot of kids just need to get that urge out first, instead of holding it in the whole time they’re supposed to work.
I still have days where I look at Lila’s notebook and think, that’s a whole lot of time spent drawing the same cat over and over. Couldn’t she be using that time to read, or practice piano, or do something that feels more “productive”? Last week, she brought home her science test. She got an A, and the entire back of the answer sheet has 72 tiny cat doodles. Her teacher wrote a little note in the corner: “Great work! Love the cats.”
It doesn’t work for every kid. My best friend’s son can’t focus at all if he has a pencil in his hand to doodle, so they ban it at their house, and that works for them. I don’t think there’s one right answer. I still catch myself defaulting to the idea that any unassigned, “unproductive” activity is a waste of time. It’s hard to unlearn that, when we’re all so focused on checking boxes and getting things done.
Last night, we were waiting for our pasta to boil, and Lila grabbed my crumpled grocery list off the counter and started covering the empty margins with cats. I didn’t say anything about wasting paper or wasting time. I just pulled the pen out of my purse, drew a lopsided dog next to her last cat, and leaned against the counter with her, waiting for the water to boil.
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