Answers for when you child says she is bored and has nothing to do?

[ImFab]

Even though we have lots of books ("I've read them all three times at least"), colouring, puzzle and work books, farm yard, jigsaws, duplo, lego, garden toys, games, etc etc etc.

Ouch, I couldn't say that to her she would never forget it and would quote it back to me a lot. Memory woman that she is.

She is 7 so very capable of writing anything.

you seem to know my daughter!

my mum always said she'd find me something to do if I was bored - invariably it was some sort of housework - amazingly I'd suddenly find something more appealing to do (much like now..... )

I tend to find "well go and tidy your room" soon gets rid of a bored child

Dd1 (7) has been saying 'i'm bored' all day, i tell her to 'go and find something, you have a room full of toy's, if you don't start playing with them then they are going on e-bay' .

We tried sticking boxes together yesterday, lasted all of 5 minutes .

Today i asked her 'would you like to bake cakes with mummy', she replie 'no, but let me know when they are ready to eat?' .

As it's half term, could she have a friend over?

The tidy the room suggestion never goes down well. the housework offer is a great one. She might have a friend over later in the week but MIL wants the kids at some point too and dh is having some time off.

Maxpower Are you my sister under a new name?

That was my mother's response which would be swiftly followed by an instruction to weed the path or something equally thrilling. It's a technique I'm using with my own DCs .

Mine love dusting and spraying shed loads of polish over everything, housework generally seems to go down well here.

only boring people get bored

go to your room and find something to do

OK clean your room up

All great ideas!

Cooking/go for a walk/put on music and dance/have a friend round/sleep over/cutting and sticking out of catalogues/make up a show, make invites for it/

My comments range from 'only boring people get bored', to 'you are an intelligent young girl I'm sure you can find something to do' to the favourite 'well, you could always tidy your room'.

Funnily enough both dd's enjoy dusting and argue over who is going to do it1

With my son, I go to the stash of cardboard boxes in the garage, get out a marker pen and some scissors and say "what are we going to make then?"

Sometimes it's a shield and sword, recently it was a wendy-house (got a bit carried away with that one, velux windows and everything think they got bored of it before me!)...

Another thing he likes is drawing a treasure map.

These are all desperate measures mind, usually it's the same benign neglect responses above

Same here maxpower, my mum's cure for boredom was to find us a REALLY boring job to do.

We quickly learnt never to complain that we were bored .

Actually another couple:
in the summer we play garden explorer where he has to go out and find me three interesting things in the garden, or take a pic of them with his Kidizoom camera.

I also periodically buy cheap party bag toys from Ebay/Elc for when boredom strikes. This weekend I broke out the sticky men that flick-flack down the window.

if my dc start going on about being bored i ask them to play the bored game with me.
(i get them to sit down and be very quiet)
the first and only time we have played this game it only lasted for 5 mins before they decided there was something they could be doing and they weren't bored at all

That is brilliant!!!

Ah Reality, I opened the thread ready to say exactly that and you beat me to it, by a mile. Tis what my Dad always said to me.

I tell my DC being bored is good for them and I'm sure they're intelligent enough to think of something they can do with all the toys they own, or perhaps they don't need them anymore....

Reality exactly what my mum used to day, and what I now say all the time! (am turning in to her)