To tell him to leave me alone? 10yo

[Mamato3boysand2dogs]

My youngest son is driving me insane and I don't know if it's me, or him ... or what other mums are doing!

Basically bored 24/7 unless actively entertained. We have to be "doing" something all the time or he just roams around, bored, which distracts me and means i cant get on / or relax. He has all the gadgets. His own room, full of "stuff". I take him out a lot. Yesterday seaside, Saturday alton towers. In between the days out , i always try and invite one of his mates to play, or take them out, to keep him busy. We bake sometimes, he has plenty to watch on TV and a big garden to play in, should he choose.

Yet it feels like he is slowly squeezing my head in a vice. When nothing is going on and im wfh or just pottering, he mopes around with a look on his face. Bored.

Ive just told him to leave me alone and now i feel guilty .

Mums of 10/11 year old boys... is this normal????

This thread is getting derailed by bickering.

OP, like you said you've made your life difficult by pandering to them. He'll have to learn how to entertain himself, maybe give him a couple of suggestions and let him get on with it. If not, give him some chores.

Would you want someone to shout at you if you had a grumpy face? He's allowed to have feelings. Even negative ones. Same as you are allowed to have them - and boundaries.

That aside, I would spend 15 mins in the morning playing with him, whatever his choice, have fun together, fill his cup. It is hard for kids to have their parents there but not available.

Also make a jar of activities he can do together. Write down as many as you can think of on bits of paper and put in jar. When he's bored he can pick one out. He might feel overwhelmed if he's got too much stuff.

Mine started playing Dungeons & Dragons about a year ago (in person, his dad runs a game with a local club)
We now have a different issue which is that he follows you round the house talking about home-brew characters and NPCs and I don't even know what.
Genuinely no clue what he's talking about but it's better than "I'm bored...."

@Mamato3boysand2dogs I know it isnt the done thing but I immediately recognised the username because what struck me is that actually what he is doing is mopes around looking bored. Doesnt ask you for anything just walks around with a look on his face.

Which makes me think that you are so conditioned into seeing that kind of look and then the behaviour that follows that you cannot handle it on your son. Because you have seen what it means in his Dad - so you try and stop it

But it is ok for him to sometimes mope around looking bored - that is life in the school holidays.

Mine was 12 last week by the way!

My nephew aged 9 is like this. He requires the full on focussed attention from an adult at all times. It was pretty grating at a recent family meet up of people we rarely see. He also talks non stop and dominates every conversation. Mine are older but pretty sure they were never that high maintenance when they that old. We left early in the end he was doing my teens heads in.

The only response ours have been given to saying “I’m bored” (from the age of about five when they were large enough to push a hoover round) is “well you know where the hoover is”. I think each of them said it a couple of times, were immediately sent to hoover the front room and then they learnt - Boredom = you hoover.

They are both now mid-teens and have always been perfectly capable of entertaining themselves.

So stop pandering to him! The next time he says it, smile, hand him the hoover and make him do one room. He will learn soon enough to find other things to occupy himself.

You're being quite unpleasant....no need for that at all.

Only boring people get bored! Just ignore him. Nothing wrong with being bored and you soon find something to do when you get bored of it. The idea of parents providing constant entertainment for their kids fills with terror.

It's not meant as an insult, though - people seem to be taking it far too literally.

The "being bored at the GP" scenario is also irrelevant here, really. This isn't a child stuck in an empty room with no entertainment available.

He's moaning he's bored when he's got access to games, books, crafts, activities, screens, gadgets and gardens - so, really, he has no genuine reason to be bored, he just can't think of anything to do or is so used to someone entertaining him that he doesn't know how to do it himself.

"Only boring people get bored" really means "you have no reason to be bored - there's loads to do, you just don't want to do any of it".

Like a PP said, what's the point in spending a fortune on games, toys and activities for children if they're not capable of actually using any of them without constant supervision?

My father an only child has fond memories of his beloved now deceased mother telling him to “get out from under my feet” a phase that needs resurrecting!

This. It’s what my parents used to say if we ever dared say we were bored. They’d not just threaten, that actually insist we did the chore…but that was 1960-1970s
we soon learnt to keep our mouths shut and find something at least more interesting than ironing, sweeping the paths, cutting the lawn, prepping veg for that days dinner ….
stop indulging him
it is actually good that kids learn to love with boredom and figure out how they can deal with it

At that age ds was either out all day with friends or would spend spare time on his games console talking to friends; he craved human contact (not with me! 🤣) which I think is very normal at that age.

He had a non-smart phone so he could contact friends and we live in school catchment so most school friends lived very local in the child friendly housing estate, or he would play with other kids that lived in the surrounding streets.

Does your ds have the means to get out and about and to contact friends?

Like a PP said, what's the point in spending a fortune on games, toys and activities for children if they're not capable of actually using any of them without constant supervision?

@sunsetsandsandybeaches right… that ‘PP’ was me too…
All I’m saying is it’s just an eye roll kind of comment. I think it’s cringey. It’s the kind of thing a parent will say in the hopes of one upping but you just come across as a bit of a pillock really because it’s blatantly bullshit. A child will either think ‘ok whatever’ or ‘bloody hell mum, that was a bit uncalled for…’
As I said, being bored is fine - expecting others to fix your boredom is not.

Why can't he just go and play with one of the many items he has to play with?

Why has someone else always got to entertain him?

Of course it's cringey - so is a lot of parenting, but it definitely worked on me. I knew complaining wouldn't get me any attention - just a list of jobs or daft comments like that. It certainly never upset me or made me think my dad was a pillock.

For me, it diffused the situation - normally made me laugh and I always ended up finding something to do.

Give him a box and tell him to fill it with things (his things only) for the charity shop and come back to you when it is full.

Blimey.
If you're reporting that, then AIBU isn't really the place for you

Well I must be the worst of the worst because mine gets told to bugger off regularly. “I’m bored.” Gets met with “Go and find something to do then.”

Children of that age shouldn’t have just their parent for company. He needs friends. More than just the odd day having one round.
Get him involved in sports clubs or something and lots more socialising.
You aren’t his friend, you’re an adult.

😂

Yes exactly

assign paid employment. write a list(as detailed as possible-or video exactly what standard expected\method. ...start with maybe kitchen cupboard clean/skirting boards if wet out.garden tasks or give own allotment space?
doesnt he read- my ds1 got out every chore going cos his nose was in a book(just graduated english masters degree)my younger one-is more arty involved. anything but chores .

Bored Jar. A jam jar filled with slips of paper with activities from the pleasant ( read a book for half an hour) to the less so ( clean the loo). “I’m boooored…” = one dip in the jar each time.

Yep, I heard that phrase a lot growing up too.

Lots of children seem incapable of amusing themselves without constant adult supervision though - my parents would have told me to bugger off if I'd expected all this constant entertainment