‘Mom, we’re bored’ I hear one of my children scream as I take refuge in my peaceful ‘kid free’ home office, cowering under my pile of old ‘Parenting Life’ pages, hoping, that if I stayed quite still and quiet, they won’t find me. But alas, it’s wishful thinking on my part, the gang troop in and stand before me waiting to be entertained. Yes, the kids are home for the holidays and my problems just got bigger.
The first few days of the start of the holidays, I let them do whatever they wanted. This meant T.V on all day, copious amounts of unhealthy TV snacks consumed resulting in grumpy, unruly kids at the end of the day and a whole load of timeouts issued on my part. It wasn’t fun.
This is not good parenting I thought and so for the next couple of days I had organized schedules for them, I took them places, we saw movies, went to amusement parks, and had impromptu shopping sprees. But at the end of this whirlwind week I was mentally and physically exhausted. My nerves as well as my purse strings had severely taken a beating and if I heard one more angelic voice asking me ‘Mummy what are we doing today’, I feared my sanity would have taken a nose dive. But in my ‘low-mummy’ moment, I had a revelation. Kids should be bored, and it shouldn’t be my problem.
As with all circumstances in life, we as parents need not solve our children’s problem. The best we can do is to show them the way and let them take reign of the situation, whatever age they might be. Boredom could turn out to be a positive thing.
If I took away the easy options like T.V, computer and Gameboys, they would be forced to use their wits and commonsense and occupy their time sensibly. It wasn’t easy but here are some of the things the Jayasinghes got up to this summer.
Day Trips – A summer holiday would not be complete without a day trip. I specifically say ‘day trips’ because this involves only a day’s commitment and you can have several throughout the whole summer and everyone can take part whatever their schedule is like.
Go somewhere nearby, it doesn’t have to be very expensive, get the kids to pack a picnic basket, visit a historic site that the kids can learn about.
Top up the art and craft box – You don’t even have to get involved in this activity, accept maybe to act as judge and evaluator of the wonderful crafts that your children have created.
Playing with clay and making models has been a big craze in our house, with the children spending at least an hour each day finger deep in squishy clay.
Get busy with the news -If you have older kids get them involved about the current newsworthy items, having the Olympics on this summer was a godsend and since I have avid swimmers in my house, they all watched in awe as Michael Phelps swam himself to gold. From this they were inspired to be better swimmers and thus began the early morning swimming sessions!
Develop an interest -My older two discovered the world of creepy crawlies. Having spent time wondering around in my parents garden, they befriended harmless insects such as millipedes and other stick insects, and there arrived Mr. Nibbles, our friendly garden variety millipede into our household.
He was duitally fed with leaves and sometimes Pringle chips while my children spent hours reading up on the World of insects. Excellent science lesson accomplished and I had nothing to do with it!
Learn a skill – My daughter, now that she was a little older, was finally allowed in the kitchen and chopped and mashed the daily meals to her hearts content. We humored her with her first cups of tea making, going from a sugary coma inducing sweetness to finally getting the right balance. Success on all fronts, my daughter is on cloud nine with her new skill and I have an obliging tea-maker on hand.
Before we knew it, the holidays have come to an end. Infact I feel it was quite an eventful summer, no we didn’t do any trips abroad, there were no cruises or Kenyan safaris, and all the fun was had locally. My children all grew an inch but they also learnt a new skill, to not be afraid to entertain themselves.
They learnt to be independent. All in all it was a great summer, but I’m not going to complain about school starting next week, for then starts my vacation. Hello teachers, they all yours now!
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