The Fruits of Boredom

Sometimes I feel like a bad parent when there are a lot of things for me to take care of and I tell my kids to find something to do, something to keep busy.  It’s easy to have all sorts of ideas in my head of things that I should be doing to entertain my kids, especially my youngest kidlet, but the reality is that I don’t always have time to implement all those ideas, and I resort to “Find something to do” while I finish my something to do.

However, there are fruits to boredom.  When they are truly bored, when they’ve whined about not having anything to do and I’ve given them about 237 ideas of something to do, none of which sounds very exciting to them, that’s when they start getting creative.  They start making things out of cardboard and duct tape.  They go outside and play with sticks or build obstacle courses.

This last week, Mr. TOF resorted to building a “critique office” out of dining room chairs.  He sat in the “office” and quietly evaluated piano students with a clipboard, paper, and pencils.   The piano students had no idea they were being critiqued and it totally kept him busy.   Then he set up a second office upstairs in my office, complete with an array of office supplies (which he stole from my desk . . . nothing is safe!) to run a pizza delivery service.  He was the manager.  Part of his job description involved inventing new pizzas.  He was very excited his sister gave him permission to use her briefcase, and he really liked the latitude to use the stapler an unlimited fashion.  After a few hours of that, he though it would be fun to pretend to be a janitor, and went around emptying all the garbages and recycling containers in the house.  I liked that job a lot.

It would, of course, have been no fun at all had I suggested it.