To Dread The Words “ I’m Bored”?

[Bunnylady54]

All kids say this but DD11 is in a league of her own! We’ve had so many arguments. She gets bored very easily & I find myself immediately trying to “ fix” things. Whatever I suggest she will dismiss & sometimes she gets really silly eg saying she has no friends or that they’re not available before she’s even asked. It’s hard to explain how difficult it can be. She’s an only child which adds to it. I love spending time with her, don’t get me wrong, but it can be exhausting trying to keep her entertained. Can anyone sympathise with this? Hoping halfterm won’t end up being a battle!

I read somewhere to say 'I'm sure you' ll think of something to do' and leave it at that. Took me a while to stop making suggestions but they tend to find figure it out now

Had this for years with ds. He needs to be busy and needs a lot of excercise or will just veg out on you tube . So I take him out walking and lots of sports. The holidays are bloody hard work ! So much time to fill every day and he's an only child

My boys quickly learned that if they whined about being bored I'd give them a job to do... Wiping the skirting boards or something equally dull.

Some children just can't choose something to do because there are so many options. They need help chunking the time up.

WE have a 'bored box' squares of card with different things written on them. Some chores, clean the mirrors, hover your floor, some activities read for 30 minutes, make a friendship bracelet, make a model from lego only using blue and yellow blocks etc. DD takes 3 out of the box and then chooses one to do. It chunks up the task and doesn't require any real adult intervention other than to help her find the material for her activity if necessary. More often than not it Sparks her own imagination to entertain herself.

I agree with suggesting some chores. That's what my mum always did, and if we were genuinely bored, we got on with them reasonably happily. Otherwise, we "remembered" something we'd forgotten upstairs.

DH is a nightmare for this in our house. As soon as the kids say they're bored, he takes them out to the park, swimming, soft play, whatever he can think of. Its a nightmare if he's off for a couple of weeks and then goes back to work, because they're really whiny for a week or so, expecting to be entertained by me.

Yep I was given chores if bored. Soon learned to read, paint , draw, write, sew etc instead. I like the box with suggested activities to give ideas. Being bored allows the devopment of creativity, imagination and hobbies.

These replies are the sorts of things I always heard if I'd read all my books, watched TV until my eyes blurred, played with the dog, played with the cat, combed the fleas out of each's fur, drawn enough pictures to fill the National Gallery or ran out of paper in my one sketchpad for the year, read the incredibly unsuitable medical dictionaries, read the bible, gone through (and abandoned in disgust) the shitty Mills & Boons, watched another unsuitable film, had my recorder taken away from me because it was irritating and still had another six hours to go until bedtime on the first day of the holidays.

What it meant was 'watch some more telly and shut up or go and stare at the ceiling in your bedroom'.

She had no interest in going out. She had no interest in doing anything. I wasn't allowed to leave the house. I wasn't allowed to clean the house skanky hoarder she was As far as I was concerned, every six-seven weeks of freedom were interspersed with at least 7 days solid of being trapped in my chair.

Mine still laugh about this. They never ever said "I'm bored" because if they ever, just once, tried it I would say brightly Right! You can empty the dishwasher! Or I would offer them a maths practice paper. I would follow it through as well. Sod thinking of entertainment!

What secondaccount says! I will say 'great because we need to...' and watch them scatter to the wind full of things they can suddenly find to do . Has to be genuine though.

I learned very quickly never to say I was bored as a child, as my Mum would always say “If you’re bored of all your toys and books let’s have a clear out and take them to the charity shop”.
(I plan on using this with mine now!)

I say “that’s wonderful, the best ideas come when you’re bored”

My children hate me.

I was once told that only boring people get bored....

I raised Dd alone as an only child and I have to say I agree with pps!

Stop placating her and make it her responsibility - because it is!

I wonder does she have a mobile phone? A tablet a computer?

I would imagine she does and that you have internet? In which case absolutely NO excuse to be bored.

There are literally millions of games she can download, but you may want to encourage more educational quizzes and things like crosswords and scrabble. She can read via kindle app, I was a big reader as a child and would happily have my nose in a book for hours. At that age I was really too old for colouring BUT I found a way around that by drawing my own "designs" of clothes I'd like to wear (I rarely showed them to anyone as I'm not a great artist! But it kept me occupied).

My parents were great ones for puzzles and mum still gets puzzler every month, we were encouraged to do crosswords, word searches, word and number jigs etc I am a particular fan of logic puzzles which teach logical thinking, problem solving and excellent reading comprehension skills.

We'd also do things like knitting, cross stitch, making greetings cards etc including my brother who is a super speedy knitter now, making seasonal decorations (Christmas and Halloween are the obvious ones but we'd also do this for Easter and people's birthdays)

But also certainly at 11 she should have chores that are her responsibility anyway, her room should be tidy including dusted and hoovered, she is also plenty old enough to

Do her own laundry (and maybe even some of yours?)
Tidy, dust and Hoover other parts of the house
Cook meals

But also it's actually really good for their mental health to learn to relax! To not be over stimulated and always need that, they can maybe be helped with this with guided meditations and junior yoga.

Around this age my dd found she really enjoyed a good walk! She'd just zip off out with headphones on and walk around the park or along the seafront. She loved doing this and found it cleared her head, also helped calm her if she was stressed or angry. Good exercise too if they get a good "stomp" on.

My DM was also of the "only boring people get bored" school of thought, adding, as I got older, that the verb is reflexive in French; "Je m' ennui" translates literally as "I bore myself", but I was usually canny enough to avoid raising the topic, as there were always useful chores to be done.....
In school, I used to agree with the bored child, saying that I'd be bored if I'd done so little -do much less and they might stop breathing. It didn't go down well; neither did the reserve practice worksheets I had lined up, or "I'm a teacher, not a Butlin's Redcoat."
Although I was once gobsmacked by "Choir is boring. All we do is sing songs!"

Yep, agree with PPs. "Bored" kids in our house get the choice of chores or going outside the first time they whinge about being bored. They inevitably choose going outside, then magically find things to do. I live in a subtropical area though, so it's easier than in a European/American winter.

If they are silly enough to whinge a second time in a day, they get the worst chores. I don't want them to associate cleaning their room, helping with dinner etc with punishment - so I give them the really bad chores like cleaning walls that are necessary but that everyone hates - esp me

No further discussion is ever entered into. You must be consistent if you want this approach to work.

It's all the screens they are on these days, I tell ya. My DD (9) is similar, gets bored very easily. I dread the half term.

Kids these days are always on screens watching fast moving games or videos that they can't cope with the 'not doing anything' or doing slower paced activities like reading a book, playing with toys, puzzles etc..

my response to my 10yo
"only boring people get bored"

YANBU.
Sounds like my DD.

YANBU. My reply to this one is “only boring people get bored. Find something to do or help me with the house work your choice.” My boys soon find something to do.

Hah- DD aged 7 tries this sometimes. Responses from me include - think of a homework project for this terms topic
Go do some piano practice
Oh good, dishwasher/tumble drier needs emptying
And her most hated response
Skirting boards need cleaning, thank you! 😁

I’m not a paid up entertainer!

I saw a thing (probably on a very worthy parenting blog) about giving them a jar that they can fill with bits of paper which they've written activities on, and then whenever they're bored they can pick one out and do the activity.

It has worked well so far. Pro tip, though: don't let them write all the activities on their own. The first lot had things like 'go to Legoland' on. I had to scale those down to 'go to the PARK!!' (caps my own).

Also, make sure there's a whole load of things in there they can do by themselves, or you're just making work for yourself (and check none of them involve glitter or kinetic sand or you'll have to burn your house down after).

To be honest, just filling up the jar with the bits of paper saw off a couple of hours quite nicely.

My DD is the same -and also 11 and an only child. She seems happy to sit like a zombie on her phone but when she's told to put it away she struggles to think of thi gs to do, and often my suggestions go down like a cup of cold sick. Get pretty fed up of doing her thinking for her and have told her as much. I think part of the issue is her phone is addictive and every other activity pales in comparison in her eyes - would love to throw the thing in a lake.

Being able to amuse yourself is one of the big pluses of being an only!

I thought the standard parental response to "I'm bored" was a list of household chores that are waiting to be done.

Yes, she does need to learn how not to be bored. It's a life skill.