“I’m bored.”
Two little words. Spoken in our house with quite some frequency. It is heard on car trips, at meals, in the stroller and basically anywhere and everywhere we go with our children.
And you know what I say every time single time the girls utter those two words.
“Good!”
That is right, it makes me happy that our children are bored. I am a firm believer that children need to be bored from time to time to learn how to cope when there is not direct stimulus or entertainment. It is my “job” as a mom to make sure that the girls have the opportunity to be bored.
The latest chorus of “I’m bored” (because they never say it ONCE) came last Friday when I had the audacity to let our youngest child choose a restaurant and did not go with the opinionated dictatorship of the 4-year-old. Our three-year-old had politely requested a cheese quesadilla and black beans. So off we went for some yummy cheesy carb goodness and big sis sat in the booth and sulked, refused to eat anything and glared at us all while proclaiming how bored she was.
Later that afternoon I relayed this fun mother-daughters outing to my husband and told him about how I am so glad that our children experience “boredom.” I was standing in the kitchen ready to hear his positive words of affirmation at my fabulous parenting skills. However, no glowing words of, “You are the best mom ever” did I hear and all I got was, “Why, you are never bored. You hate being bored, and so do the girls.”
I wanted to argue back. I always want to argue back, however, I bit my tongue (which is very very unlike me) because the truth was, he was right (also a rarity… I jest… sort of), I am never really truly bored.
When we are in the car and my husband is driving I am usually on my phone. Our children have no screens in the car which is way more of a financial restriction rather than a parenting philosophy. So while the kiddos sit in their car seats and stare out the window, I am happily checking Facebook statuses and hearting beautiful Instagram photos. In all honesty I am not sure I even know how to be bored anymore. I need to step off my high horse and take a dose of my medicine and embrace some boredom. Maybe I will ask the girls how to be bored. (I jest…sort of.)
When was the last time you were bored?