Time for ... boredom! 2017/05/11

Like each evening, after playing, I go to the kitchen to prepare the dinner.

My eldest daughter is quiet, she generally takes notebooks and markers to color, while the youngest starts skating or takes a balloon, other times she lays on the couch with her legs in the air, singing some songs and turning her feet. When I watch them I think about their so different characters and I observe how they spend their time “alone”.

Aside from school, our children’s agenda is richer than ours: catechism, sports, music and other courses... all of the activities that mom and dad have chosen for them.

All of this requires commitment, implies sacrifices, demands tests and results.

Us as adults ask too much and all together at the same time: in school you have to be good, sport is good for you so you have to do it, the foreign language you must learn first is... We constantly dictate rules on how they have to behave, where to go and at what time, without noticing that our children also need to get bored.

Yes, you got it right: they need to feel and try this sensation of emptiness of “I don’t know what to do” and “I’m bored”.

The sensation of not knowing how to use time and its duration without doing anything help our children think and reflect. Think and reflect FREELY in alternatives of how to use their time instead of complaining (never resort to TV or a tablet!!).

Initially it could be a game or suggested activity, but little by little you’ll see that the children themselves will be who will start, in an autonomous way, to take the initiative of doing something to not get bored because the boredom moment creates new interests, increases curiosity and imagination.

Let’s remember to appreciate the effort that our children make more than the result, above all having genuine interest on it, this way we will increase their self-esteem and their wish to make, showing themselves increasingly more confident in our eyes.

There is nothing more “nurturing” from the psychological point of view of a child, than seeing their mom and dad admire them sincerely by what they do. The more a child’s imagination is stimulated, they become more curious and make more questions feeding their interests and knowledge.

This way boredom works for resting and thinking on how to avoid it and this becomes constant training for their little minds and their forming identity.

Let’s let our children get bored, let them complain about “what can I do” and “I don’t know what to do”: sooner or later they will get tired of feeling like this and they will go in search of something new. This way, we are helping them grow!