I am the parent
of two of the brightest candles on the cake, two of the sharpest knives in the
drawer, and two of brightest bulbs in the marquis of motherhood. These future
captains of industry, United States presidents, Nobel Prize winners, or better
mousetrap builders are, in my humble opinion, destined to accomplish great
things. Why, just look at their picture!
How is it then, that these two mothers of invention (Sydney, age 15 and Jon, age 13) can’t come up with one simple plan to alleviate their occasional run-ins with
boredom? Why is it their mother, not nearly as clever as they, who is expected to come up with the solution?
Jon actually
had the audacity to tell me one day that he was so bored, the only thing
keeping him awake was the discomfort he felt from being bored.
“Read,” I
suggest to them. They say. “Nah.”
“Let’s go for a
walk,” I offer. They say, “We don’t feel like it.”
“Go do something
together,” I urge. They gasp, “Yuck!”
One day, after
an exchange very similar to those above, I shared with my offspring what Sr. Martha used to tell us back in high school: “When you’re bored, you’re
boring,” she would say.
As I quoted Sr.
Martha to the kids, I thought how cleverly I was throwing the ball back in their
court. Throw a ball; no, they'd shoot that idea down. Skeet
shooting; hey, how about that? “Too loud,” they’d complain.
Even Sr.
Martha’s retort, enough of a verbal slap back in the day to straighten my friends and
me right up, was met by my youth of today with sullen, unfazed silence. If Sr. Martha was right, and Sr. Martha was always right, then my kids can be a couple of real snoozers.
Though their
boredom is neither my responsibility nor my fault, I am endeavoring to come up
with a list of activities guaranteed to blast out the bilge of boredom and
restore the busy bee buzz that happily engaged kids generate. Following is the
list I’ve come up with so far and I can be ready to implement it at a moment’s
notice.
Mother Teece’s
Boredom Busters:
- Make water balloons and use
them to play dodge ball.
- Paint each other’s faces
with washable markers.
- Groom the cat - a
friendly and patient cat (or dog) is required for this activity since
trips to the E.R. do not constitute good boredom busters.
- Script and then shoot a
movie using their phones, laptops or cameras.
- Make a house of cards.
- Visit an elderly
neighbor and offer to help with errands or yard work.
Now . . . following is an alternate list that I often wish I could trot
out. I call it:
Mother Teece’s House
of Horrors Boredom Busters
- Force your children to sit through every Barney, Blues Clues, and Dora
the Explorer episode you had to watch with them when they
were toddlers.
- Make plans together for
you to ride the bus with them to school, then coordinate your outfits just to make the trip more fun.
- Hold hands with them and skip past the basketball game the kids up the street are playing.
Granted, my real list isn't very lengthy, nor, you might argue, as inspired as my alternate list, but I plan to keep working on both until they're as long and as priceless as the Mayflower Madame's client register combined with Heidi Fleiss' little black book.
Other parents no doubt can come up with even better ideas than these, but if they're ever feeling stuck, they can borrow my list. EITHER ONE THEY WANT.
