Mom, I am Bored.

"Mom, I am bored."

What do you do when your child says she is bored? Do you:

1. Reply back saying "Come lets do something together" and decide on an activity.
2. Ask her, what she would like to do and do it with her.
3. Provide Technological entertainment.
4. Tell her to take a break, relax and figure out something on her own.

Most of us feel responsible when we hear this from our children, esp when we have a single child, and want to solve the problem right away. We do it either by technological entertainment or some structured activity. Rarely do we allow them to encounter the unstructured time, time when they have nothing to do, the free time.

Aanya often comes to me asking "Now what should I do, Mumma?" and initially I would just leave whatever I was doing and play with her or suggest something for her, so that she could play on her own. Over time I realised, she can't decide for herself how to use that period of free time. And it confused me. How can she not decide when we do almost same activities every day. She can simply pick one and carry on. Then I thought, her time has always been so structured that she isn't used to finding fun things to do with her free time and or she is used to parental attention. 

She is growing and I don't want her to have trouble managing her time later in life. One of the biggest challenges we face as adults is proper time management. Other than this, getting bored is so important. It challenges people to explore their passion. If we always keep our kids busy with school or other activities or fill their 'free= bored" time with screen entertainment they will never learn to respond to the feelings of their own hearts which might lead them to catch butterflies, build a castle from bricks, paint amazing things or even write essays.

As Nancy H. Blakey said, “Preempt the time spent on television and organized activities and have them spend it instead on claiming their imaginations. For in the end, that is all we have."

So now, How do I respond to her boredom?
1. I ask her to go and relax for 5-10 minutes in her room doing nothing. By the end of 10 min or less she will probably have some idea what she'll like to do.

2. I tell her to enjoy her own time is her job, though I would be happy to brainstorm about possible activities.

3. I refuel her love tank by a short chat and snuggle.

4. If she still whines and refuses, I announce loud that everybody will do their own work for half and hour and after that we all will play snakes and ladders ( or anything) together.

5. And when it really seems like there is nothing to do, I turn on a video of limited length. That ways its easier to eliminate resistance when I turn it off.

And now, a glimpse of what all my girl has been doing in her free-unstructured- without supervision time.