Q&A: bored kids

Kari writes:

"It's only the end of June, and my 5-year-old and 3-year-old are already complaining that they are bored. There are no day camps for kids this young in our area. I'm hoping you and your readers will have some ideas to keep us all from killing each other before school starts again at the end of August."

I'm not sure I'm the person to ask about this, since my solution has been to cram the whole family into a rental car and drive all around the Midwest for five weeks. (The trip odometer flipped to 1800 miles yesterday, and we still have two weeks left of the trip.) My kids haven't had time to be bored, what with the confusion about whose house they're waking up in this morning, the vague stomachaches from too many brats and frozen custard, and all the lake sand in their cracks and crevices.

When I'm in NYC, we just spend all day long at the playground, going inside at midday to get out of the sun a little. If I lived in a house with a yard, I'd probably do what my parents did, which was designate a big corner of the yard to be a dirt pit. All the kids in the neighborhood used to congregate in our yard to dig in the dirt and mud. My parents had a crappy-looking yard, but the kids were happy (and practicing teamwork), and my parents always knew where we were.

In theory, I'm completely in favor of boredom for kids. It forces them to be creative and come up with things to do on their own. But the "I'm bo-ored!" refrain can really get on your last nerve. So maybe you can make a weekly plan for one activity a day, whether it's a trip to the library (library reading contests can take up lots of time, and get your kids excited about books) or making a volcano in the back yard (or on a cookie sheet with a lip in the house--if you do it outside, you can use dirt instead of the doug to hold the bottle) or doing some cooking project (homemade bread takes a long time and needs no specialty equipment) or having a playdate with another kid from school. That one activity can give some structure to the day, and the kids can fill up the rest of the day with free play.

If the complaints get too hot and heavy, you can always confuse them by using the line my dad always laid on us: "Boredom is the soft underbelly of insensitivity." By the time they figure out what it means, they'll be leaving for college.

Readers, help us out, please. How do you keep your kids occupied enough but not too scheduled in the summer?

Comments

[SheilaC]

Rotate the toys. Bringing out something they haven't played with for a couple of weeks (or longer) may spark a lengthy play session.
Rotate the story books too, according to a theme you are interested in.
- Have a teddy bear picnic, indoors or outdoors.
- Make a parade, with musical instruments, dress-up clothes, and all the toys lined up as spectators. Play some marching music.
- Do a messy craft outdoors: paint pictures, or rocks, or scraps of wood. Paint your fence with a big paintbrush and a bucket of water! Make sand art, or playdough. Enjoy the easy clean-up!
- Have a backwards theme day. Eat supper in the morning, and breakfast in the evening. Wear pyjamas, or backwards clothes. Do other silly things.
- Choose a colour theme of the day, and dress and play accordingly, and serve coloured food.
- Choose a letter theme of the day. Do activities and eat foods that start with that letter. Make a scrapbook with pictures cut from store flyers, and stickers, and simple drawings of words that start with that letter. (You could get through the whole alphabet by September, if you are enjoying it! Some letters have a lot more words than others.)
- Make a pretend lemonade and cookie stand, and serve all your stuffed animals. The 5 year old could use pretend money - make your own with paper, or use marbles or buttons, whatever.
- Build a race track for toy cars outdoors. A long piece of lumber, a length of eavestrough or garden edging might work to make a ramp running down from your deck onto the grass. Or race them down your slide. The kids can help build, and decorate the track, and have a race day.
- Get on your bikes and take a picnic to a local playground. Let the kids help pack the food, clothing and some toys. Meet a friend there?
- Go to your local museum, or art gallery. It is probably cheap, stroller accessible, and air conditioned. Ride around and look at things, talk about the colours, shapes, and what they imagine. Stop in the cafeteria for a drink, and let the kids make crayon pictures in response to what they've seen.
Have fun!

[joline]

I have 2 that are nearly 3 and one who is four so they are a little younger than yours but waht really helps the boredom is if I initiate play. I dont even have to play with them for long. But it seems that whenvever they are left to their own devices for long they do sort of run out of ideas. And for whatever reason they often forget about favorite toys until I sit down and get them started.
So on days when we stay home all day (we have playgroups usually twice a week) and things start looking a little hairy, I can usually get things going by suggesting (and starting) any type of play or activity that they havent done in a while.
Sometimes it is just getting the box of puzzles down spreading them all over the table and helping them with the first few pieces.
Sometimes it is dumping the blocks on the floor and building my own tower. Sometimes it is giving them their own spray bottles of vinegar water and rags and having them help me clean the house.
Even after I get up to do laundry or dishes, they will usually stay occupied with that activity for some time.
In our home however this is how it is year round, and not just summer. There is never really a time where they get accustomed to a more activity for an extended period of time.
Joline

[liz]

More outdoor activities:

Tie-dying t-shirts (you can buy the dyes cheap at most craft places and the t's cheap at Costco or equivilent.

Dying eggs, it's not just for Easter anymore!

Hopscotch.

Washable, non-toxic Finger paint on the drive way (it'll hose off!)

Buy some unglazed ceramic mugs and paint them (craft store again) - get a head start on Holiday presents.

Make and break a pinata.

[carmie]

I used to be a foster parent, and had TEN kids living with me for 5 weeks one summer. They were "stair-stepped" in age - as in one kid per age starting with 5 and going to 15. They were all really good kids, with minimal behavior issues, but I did get pretty overwhelmed. I was on my own, so I had to get creative. We fought off the boredom monsters in a lot of ways:

1. I rotated meal duty between kids, and had 2 kids help me make food per day. They had a lot of fun.
2. Uno! Every kid of every age could play it, and we gambled for M&Ms.
3. I put quarters in plastic Easter eggs and hid them all over the house. Then I had the kids clean the places I hid them. Eggs in the clean laundry basket were a big hit.
4. I couldn't drive anywhere because I didn't have a schoolbus, so we walked to a nearby park every day in the morning. We played capture the flag. The older kids had to humor the younger kids, but everyone still had fun.
5. We had story time every afternoon. I read a chapter from "Trumpet of the Swan" by EB White.
6. Homemade Playdoh.
7. Sidewalk chalk.
8. Water balloon fights.
9. Movies every night from Netflix. We watched every Miyazaki film ever made.
10. Modeling contests using the stack of clothes going to Goodwill and a pile of old wigs I had. Even the 15 year old boy had fun.

[Asha]

The kids (6 1/2 and 3) and I made a list at the beginning of the summer of all the things we wanted to do by the day before school starts. Entries were as simple as "fly a kite," "play in the fountain," and "go swimming," and as elaborate as day-trips to local attractions or the beach. We've been ticking off each item one-by-one. The kids love to look over the list to see all the fun things we've done, and we rarely have an excuse to get bored. I also designated one day a week for errands, which helped with the whining about getting dragged to the grocery store.

Something else that has helped: I've maintained a semblance of a routine for our days. Get up, make bed, breakfast, brush teeth, morning activity or errands, lunch, afternoon nap for little one, rest for big one, then afternoon playtime, TV while I cook, dinner, evening playtime, bed. Not so different from the schooltime routine, but relaxed enough to make space for spontaneous summer fun.

Happy vacation, Moxie and family!

[Meira]

Boredom is the soft underbelly of insensitivity.

What the hell does it mean? lol

[deezydubya]

Check your public library. Many of them run reading programs and story hours for kids as young as two.

Some of them also have puppet shows, plays, movie hours or other kid-fun stuff to do.

Some community centres also run similar programs for kids. There's always city playparks, splash parks, etc, which often also run programs even for little bitty kids like the writer's. Even if they don't run programs, you can always take them to the community paddling pool and let them splash around.

The writer should check out her city government's website - most cities put a list of fun free stuff on the website under the parks department or culture department.

[Jill Urbane, The Mentor Mom]

Argh! I hate hearing "I'm bored!" My kids are 5 and 8. When they were a little younger, I decided I did not want to be responsible for helping them figure out how to spend their time. I don't know about you, but any suggestion of an activity seems to be met with, "naah" "I don't want to do that" "that's boring", etc.

As a result, "I'm bored" now means "I really want to help you clean mom." I haven't heard it since we started the rule and we are going on about two years. When left with the choice of 1) clean the house or 2) find something else to do, they always seem to manage to find an activity. Good luck!

[Janine]

Hey Jill, I'm with you on this one. I taught my nine year old this in the past year and then all I have to do is say "you're BORED?" with a big grin on my face...which causes her to literally run screaming "noooooooooooooooooooooo" upstairs.

Too late. Boredom has been invoked! mwaaahahahahaaaaa! LOL

However, today I'm having the opposite problem. Both of my children (5 and 9) have suddenly become fascinated with the concept of laundry. Now they're squabbling as to who gets to 'flip it'. Who gets to push the buttons. And *I'm* the one saying NO MORE LAUNDRY! LOL

Btw, I'm finding that they will do anything with ME these days. If I'm playing, they'll play. So much of it is about my attitude. If I'm having fun with them, most times they're happy with it. And yes, even if we're cleaning out a toy box.

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