I have a ten year old son who has a distaste for being at home. He frequently complains and whines saying he’s bored and asks if my husband or I could take him somewhere. We take him out when we can (we usually take him to parks, malls, libraries, toy stores, and out on our errands), but we can’t be out and about all the time of course. When we go out, my son wants to see, hear, touch, and smell EVERYTHING. I swear he never gets tired! When it’s time for us to go home, he gets upset. I don’t understand why he’s so discontent at home. He has so many toys and video games to play with at home, I’ve told him that, and I’ve also encouraged him to use his imagination to come up with ideas on what he can do for fun at home, but none of this has worked. It’s gotten to the point where I just bluntly tell him that some days, we have to be home, and he has to deal with it. The only other place he doesn’t like to be at is school (we’ve had issues with school refusal, but that’s another story).
Any thoughts on why my son is like this, and what we should do about it? Nothing bad is going on at home. Our home is small, but it’s nice and cozy. And like I said, he has so many toys and video games to play with at home. He has no reason to be dissatisfied at home. I just don’t understand this extreme wanderlust behavior.