My 8 year old is so bored now

[Lovingmylife]

The novelty of lock down has worn off for my 8 year old. He is being bad tempered, controlling, lashing out and cannot entertain himself. He refuses most school work. I manage to get in spellings and a bit of maths each day. There is always craft stuff or baking etc but he wants me to play all the time. Or if he and DD are playing, he wants his way with the game and they end up fighting. I can't even unload the dishwasher or go to the loo without them wanting to know where I am.

He has been really playing up squirting water round the house, winding DD up, etc and I know it's boredom.

I need some new ideas for activities because I'm bored too which isn't helping. I want the house to go back to being a calm zone, not ww3!

All suggestions welcome!

Go for a really long walk. Take a football and some bats and balls maybe take a picnic. Get him to burn off some energy in the sunshine.

My 7&9 yos need a good walk each day to burn off their energy. I really notice a difference in them after missing a day. They're up to 8 miles at the weekends now!

I'm finding that they're getting more into snggling up for a read and needing a bit more comfort than usual.

7yo is trying it on with his moods, and trying to get rude and arguementative... it's not his style though and I'm defusing it by comedy love bombing. He rants "I HATE YOU!" I answer back in a simpering, high pitched voice "I wuv you!" He can't keep it up for long

I haven't done it yet, but his classmate is a neighbour and they are up for football in the park at the same time as us. DS and their 7yo are both quite good at understanding the distancing. I'm fortunate that my two are close in age and interests, but they can't meet the full social need of the other, especially for DS2.

Yeah, I can't imagine having only 1 child to entertain. It must be more difficult but definitely long, long walks.

Oh god I could have written this today. I went to bed at 8, along with DS as he has me mentally drained today.

He’s really fed up at home, missing his friends and school. I can’t get home to do much of his chill work anymore and he lashes out then cries quite a lot.

We take a walk at lunch time... makes no odds. I think it will be just as bad trying to get him back to school (which is hopefully soon)

Boredom is no excuse for fighting. I'd cone down hard on that especially if DD is younger.

Household chores are a great way to combat boredom in an 8 year old why can't he empty the dishwasher?

Does he have a checklist of what work needs to be done each week? I find my two prefer to see what they've done and what's left. If DS hadn't done his work, then no screens until he had.

Agree with the others about going out every day for walk or run around etc (we've no garden so park).
Make a list of what he could do
Jigsaw puzzle
Play Lego nicely with DD
Play board game
Clean the windows
Draw a picture/learn how to draw favourite character
Fold the laundry
Modelling clay
Random craft
Tidy bedroom

Strangely enough my DC always manage to find something to no not involving cleaning! (I would make him clean up any mess he's caused though)

Yes , my ds is 8 in 3 weeks time. We're not doing much schoolwork because what they are sending is very dull (eg 15 identical word mat activities yesterday...we did 2!) but I'm trying to embrace this time with him and make it something positive. He is still reading a lot. We're doing things like cooking meals and baking, we started couch to 5km yesterday, and we're going to make a stop motion video as well. The difficulty is finding things he can do without too much help, that is interesting enough and also that his younger brother doesn't always insist on being involved with. He just misses his normal life so much.

My 8 year old is similar. She’s ok with some 1-1 attention, but this is tricky with DH and I both WFH. DS(11) is far more independent. We also do a lot of walking in the evenings!

I could have wrote this. I only have one ds 8 9 next month but he is exactly the same and is constantly bores. He wants constantly entertained from the minute he opens his eyes and it's mentally exhausting. We go on a 3/4 mile walk a day and it makes no difference he is still bored, huffy and out of his routine

Household chores are a great way to combat boredom

this ^.

Doing them together, while the quality of the result may suffer a bit, is a great way to get them to talk.

Sometimes, they may suddenly realise quite how 'busy' they are if you ask them to do something more boring.

Another possibility would be to get them to do some useful things, where they enjoy the outcome and start to see the point of chores. We are always allowed to make cakes if we first cleaned the kitchen and then cleaned it back to that standard again.

Taught me so much about cleaning as you go with cooking which DH, while a better cook, really really missed out on.

Another possibility would be to let them choose and make a meal, perhaps breakfast to start then lunch when they have the hang of it.

So many useful things I learned from my mother in this way. Never really gave her credit for it either as I just absorbed the information.

Thanks everyone. He does love a job and to be helpful. We are having a calmer day today as got out for some exercise this morning.