I had my toilet flushing post all ready for "Works for me Wednesday" and low and behold there is a topic for today. Tips for handling summer boredom.
I have a great one: embrace it, celebrate it, let it come and sink in, don't fight it.
My kids have the great honor of attending a Montessori School that we as a family have enjoyed and benefited from for 4 years now. The headmaster, owner Mrs. Fridmann has offered me little nuggets of wisdom over the years that ring so true. I refer and depend on her wisdom and experience often.
Mrs. Fridmann must be in her 60's she has owned and operated her Montessori preschool for nearly 35 years and of course she is a parent and grandparent to many. I think she is a trusted resource.
Mrs F. doesn't think we allow our children to get bored enough.
"Our" generation of parents acts as if boredom is a bad thing, something to avoid at all costs. In reality, as she reminded me - boredom is the birth place of so many skills, beautiful lifelong skills.
I was raised by a single working mother and I assure you I spent a lot of my childhood summers and days after school good and bored. For that I am eternally grateful. I learned how to entertain myself. I learned resourcefulness, I gained unspeakable creativity and I taught it to myself. I created worlds for myself to live in and play out for weeks at a time. I could focus on a creation for hours, days, weeks. I am so grateful for this skill now, I can entertain myself, find peace and joy in being by myself. I can't think of a time when I ever ever felt lonely - but rather simply adore and celebrate being alone.
Boredom is where imagination begins, boredom is a beginning.
I try so hard to get my kids to be independent, to foster their creativity and hope that they too can slip away into their own realms the way I had the opportunity too. To do this I know they have to get bored.
The process of getting bored can be painful - but I have found that if you suffer through it - the result is priceless. Ignore the whining, do not honor the requests for help, do not offer solutions, set boundaries (sorry boys, you must stay outside) they will slowly slip into it, they will figure it out on their own. The key is letting them and giving them the space to do so and not mucking it up with your solutions.
Let them be bored and let them practice it often! A happy summer it will be!
