This might be boring -- but that's okay!

My mom has a saying, a bored person is a boring person and when I was growing up, boy did I take that seriously. I spent a lot of time afraid that I might be bored -- which would lead to something even worse: I might be boring. I was pretty desperate to keep myself entertained or entertaining at all times. It turned out to be a good thing in the end because I was easily entertained, always a cheap date and didn't require much upkeep, but the attitude did leave me a little twitchy in the duller moments of my childhood.

I passed this same attitude along to my children for a number of years. It seemed like a pretty good plan. Then, when I was a preschool teacher, I had the good fortune of taking a seminar from a wonderful woman named Bev Bos. I won't go into too much detail here about Bev, but trust me, she's one of the most inspirational speakers you will ever have the pleasure to hear. She is the teacher and director of Roseville Community School in Roseville CA and lucky for us, she also lectures all over the country talking about early childhood education.

One of the things she talked about that has really stuck with me is that boredom is a developmental phase all kids must experience. Kids need to learn how to be bored. Boredom is not bad, its an opportunity to find something else to do! She gave us a wonderful phrase to take back to our preschools (and homes) to use the next time a child came up to say "I'm bored".

"You're bored? That's GREAT! Now you get to decide what to do next!"

The first time I said that to my kids (instead of a bored person is a boring person) they looked at me like I was crazy. Then they waited for my customary list of ideas. I didn't give them any.

"What should I do?"
"I don't know."

It took a while for the kids to realize they were going to be largely on their own to work through this "developmental phase". Well, not so much on their own. They did have each other.

The following is a short list of things the kids have come up with on their own while they were "deciding what to do next". Lucky for me, they often took pictures while I sat back and ate bon bons.

Send me examples of what your kids get up to when they are bored (or you get up to, for that matter)

Superheroes:



Home Office:

United States of Pillows (only made it through the west coast)

Starburst wrapper hat:

Jump over stuff on your bike:

And of course, jump over brother on your bike: