I’m amazed when my boys tell me they’re bored. Bored? With all the options they have today? The best response I ever heard to a kid saying “I’m bored” was “No, you’re boring.” A brilliant response from a parent and I wish I’d said it first. It is not our job to be our kid’s entertainment coordinator.
When I was a kid, we played. Seems kind of quaint. We made up games. One of my favorites was called Mongoose, where we took two books and hit a ping-pong ball back and forth between them with the object to see how long we could keep it going. Then, they’re all the adventures we’d go on in our own Huck Finn way. Places to explore, bikes to ride, trees to climb.
Today, kids seem to only have their screens. We need to get our kids to discover the joy of play. Everyone knows the obesity statistics for kids. Why? Because they’re sedentary and definitely watching too much TV. I’m not accepting my kids ever saying they’re bored anymore. Go outside, read a book, draw, write a play, build something, take the dogs for a walk, clean your room, practice cartwheels, use your imagination, or just play.
Maybe they literally have too many choices and I’m being too critical. After all, life can and was easier in the past when choices were fewer. I’m not being sarcastic with this thought. Are our kids so overwhelmed that they’re essentially stuck? With the Internet alone, they have the world literally at their fingertips. But, what do I know, I’m just a guy.
