Some days you won’t be emotionally, physically or financially able to keep your children entertained every waking second. When we were kids, we always found something to do. Our parents certainly didn’t drop what they were doing to play with us or whisk us out of the house to a movie or playdate. I had hours where I had to entertain myself, often quietly because my mother was resting or unwell. I learned to be with my own thoughts, to read a book, or play games on my own, and it never crossed my mind to tell my mum I was bored. My brothers were at school so I had to find something to do by myself. Often times I cleaned the house or picked something from the garden.
If your kids are bored, they can find something to do, if they don’t I’m sure you can find a chore for them to do to fill their time. They usually figure something out themselves by that time! Sometimes my kids would wipe the walls, they already had their own chores so wiping the walls was the extra thing I could get them to do if they were being annoying, plus it was useful and they messed it up themselves in the first place. Just saying.
I used to tell my children “only dumb people get bored, if you have a brain you’ll think of something to do”.
When my child was 3/4 I used to take him to the office in the last week of the month because I would not be able to pick him up from nursery on time, see I work in finance and end of the month is always very busy with management accounts, payroll and other payments and what not. Anyway, I digress. Everyone was always very impressed at how he was able to entertain himself for hours at such a young age. Every couple hours he’d come to me and I’d give him a hug and a cuddle and join him and we’d play for about 10 or 15 minutes. That made him happy and kept him going for another few hours. He knew I was there if he needed me. We had lunch together and went for a walk in the field after lunch, then back to work. He loved going to work with mummy and never once complained of being bored.
See, the point is...
I often think I’d get really stressed if I had a child constantly telling me “I’m bored” but then I remember that actually, children's behaviour are often a result of our own teaching and doing. So, I’d probably not have a child of mine that’d be constantly telling me “I’m bored” because I teach them early that being in their own company is an amazing privilege. And if you get bored of yourself then everyone else will too.
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