A fellow reader asked a great question the other day. "How do you teach your kids to be bored? Mine hate boredom." It's a great question because it's a timeless complaint parents have heard, magnified in the age of instant gratification and digital entertainment.
The foundation for this answer comes first in communication and cooperation between all child caretakers, be it parents, grandparents, or whoever is watching the child for a reasonable amount of time. Boredom is an itch that everyone wants to scratch. Adults can scratch the itch of boredom for themselves, but kids typically rely on adults to help them scratch it. So if a single adult in the room caters to the child's complaint of boredom and immediately scratches their itch, that adult becomes the path of least resistance, and the child will always go to them in the future. A unified approach is critical to implement good habits.
Once all primary adults are aligned, then the real work begins. The first is to limit how many cheap distractions a kid has. Today's toys are frequently gimmicky and designed to give instant novelty dopamine hits while lacking depth in experimentation. Play with it for 15 minutes, then throw it away and buy something new. It's impossible to avoid all the cheap, gimmicky toys, but my wife and I try to prevent first acquiring and then quietly throwing away any that do make it into the household. With the marketing put out convincing our kids of the imperative nature of owning the latest fad, it's a struggle, and I'm not sure how successful we are, but we at least both acknowledge we should minimize these toys and make an attempt at it.
The best solution to avoiding the gimmick is implementing a chore-based allowance system that puts money into their pockets daily, assuming they complete their chores. Then, they must purchase all the toys they want themselves. They can still buy the gimmicky, but sometimes, explaining how they spent weeks saving up to buy a toy they'll play with for only a single day hits home. It doesn't happen every time, and sometimes they still buy the gimmick, especially our youngest, but over time, it's been sinking in. We are equipping them today with the mental mapping they need to make good purchasing decisions in the future. Prepare them today with insignificant low-cost toys so they are ready in the future when they make large-dollar purchasing decisions.
Instead of those cheap-thrills toys, we try to get longer-lasting toys. Legos do the trick, especially free-forming collections of loose pieces, so the kids have to build from their imagination. Colors (crayons, colored pencils, markers, etc.) and creative supplies are great too. Even the furniture can be creative. We got our kids The Nugget (https://nuggetcomfort.com/), which they use to build forts, go indoor camping, build reading dens, use as a coach, etc. We also like science-based or learning-based toys too. Although those tend to be a single-use experience, they are learning in the process, so it is forgivable. Books are the same way, and the library is a cheap way to get those single-use items, so we take the kids about once a month to renew their literary collections.
In general, we tend to find reasons to purchase these toys ourselves: birthdays and Christmas, treats for doing something well, or any excuse to maintain the system of them buying their toys while bending it to encourage them to get toys we feel are better for them.
Once you've minimized your collection of gadgets and tried to gear it around more complex or creative toys, the next thing is to limit the most dominant must-have instant gratification items. For us, it's screen time, specifically an iPad and Nintendo Switch.
To counter these two, we have a few systems in place. First is that they have to earn their screen time. They must do two screens and two year-round educational activities each day: DuoLingo and Kumon. Both are only 15-30 minutes, so they are manageable daily. The rule is that after they do one of their educational activities, they can use one of their screens. If they've been highly unruly recently, they must do both educational activities before either screen time. Depending on the teacher, homework is a third educational activity they must complete during the school year. They can watch me play the Switch if they complete this third activity.
There are a few reasons why this last way is essential. It's beneficial because although I stopped playing games long ago, it helps me destress to pick up a controller. It's an excellent motivator for me to put down work on days I'm especially swamped. We also play games outside, board games, and do other things, but screen time especially motivates our youngest, so he's guaranteed to be insistent on unlocking this bonding time. But here's another crucial reason why I like them watching me. It teaches them social watching. Exposing them to games they might not usually be interested in is a benefit. Watching someone else click all the buttons while they sit back and observe teaches them patience. My favorite type of game is the story-based RPG game, which typically has a world to explore, so it teaches them good co-piloting skills. I put a world map or dungeon map in front of them, and they direct me to where I need to go. Overall, it is a great bonding exercise.
We now have established a reward system for screen time. Next up is limiting screen time per session. Parental controls make setting up the screen restrictions easy. The iPad and Switch have built-in screen limits, so we set both to 30 minutes. That way, no one has to keep a manual timer. It's all built-in, and when it's over, it's over.
All the prep work is now complete. We've minimized the cheap-thrill gimmicky toys. Instead, we've focused on creative, mind-utilizing, and longer-lasting toys. We've implemented a reward system while putting automated timer limits on their screens. We have to funnel everything into this system, which is the hardest part.
When they come up to us complaining about the itch of boredom, we do not want to scratch it for them. That's the easy solution to appease them and make the complaining disappear. Still, it only teaches them to rely on external toys for entertainment and external people to facilitate them to play with those toys. Instead, we point out and provide suggestions for their creative toys to help spark something to do. If they say no to that, we point out that with a room full of toys and items, if they can't figure out anything to do, we suggest we go through what they have and get rid of things. Fear of losing their gimmicky toys can sometimes motivate them, which, ironically, they never play with but have difficulty getting rid of. If they still need to do their educational activities, we suggest they do those to get the screen times. Sometimes, we only tell them to go into their rooms to figure it out independently. And leave it at that. It sometimes feels like lousy parenting because we ignore their complaints. But it's forcing them to scratch their itch and exercise their creative muscles. After we've told them this, we've often seen our youngest sitting on the bed, staring into nothing. It could be better, but hopefully, something is brewing. At this point, they usually figure something out: reading, napping, colors, or Legos being the current trend.
It's not perfect, nor do we flawlessly execute. But it is gradually working, and over time, it hopefully continues giving the kids the versatility to avoid the easy instant gratification way out of boredom and instead embrace it and channel that energy into something more beneficial.
