I’m bored…

Those are prob­a­bly every mother’s most despised words. Well, at least they are up there with “He’s touch­ing me!” or  some­thing along those lines. They really get me riled up. They cause me a moment of panic, to be hon­est. How am I fail­ing my chil­dren to give them the oppor­tu­nity to feel bored? Am I not chal­leng­ing them enough? Not offer­ing enough insight and purpose?

bored: adj; feel­ing weary because one is unoc­cu­pied or lacks inter­est in one’s cur­rent activity.

I haven’t had the lux­ury to be bored in a few years. You know: chil­dren, home­school­ing, home busi­ness and all. Lazy at times, per­haps. Bored? Not so much. I’m sure every mother can relate to that sen­ti­ment. Our work is never done, so if we are lack­ing some­thing to do, we just need to look beyond our noses to find the next thing.

When I am faced with these words as they pop out of the children’s mouths on those rare occa­sions they didn’t think before they spoke, I just cringe. What? Don’t you know that this moment, right here and right now is a gift? Don’t you know that you are not guar­an­teed the next minute? How on earth can we waste our exis­tence by being bored? If you knew you only had 2 days left to live, would you be bored right now? What would you do that would glo­rify God? Go do that!

I cer­tainly under­stand the moments of the loss of focus. I think most of us have had that hap­pen. But, what a shame to let those moments define our days.

As we are enter­ing into the sum­mer months, that temp­ta­tion to be bored is ever present. How can we spur our chil­dren on to redeem the time rather than waste it on friv­o­lity? I’m not say­ing that we ought to remove all plea­sure and enter­tain­ment from their lives. But, again, it shouldn’t define it either.

Lately we’ve been inspired to get some sort of fam­ily econ­omy going, where the kids are inte­gral in it. We want to teach them how to run a suc­cess­ful busi­ness. We just need to find some­thing that they can prac­tice with, take respon­si­bil­ity for, and not worry (too much) if it flops. The main thing will be to teach them the account­ing, the drive to seek out busi­ness, the cre­ativ­ity to think out­side of the box, and the gump­tion to do it even when it is hard. Per­haps that Fam­ily Eco­nom­ics Con­fer­ence we went to inspired us more than nor­mal. I’m excited for the chil­dren in this endeavor. They have all tried a few things, like dog walk­ing and yard care. But, we live out in the coun­try, and we only have a hand­ful of neigh­bors. Most aren’t in the mar­ket for these things. And, if they are, well, there are only a cou­ple of peo­ple. Not really the mak­ings for a boom­ing business.

The inter­net is avail­able, which is really excit­ing. It really opens up doors for us that might oth­er­wise be unrealistic.

So, what ideas do you have? Reselling seems pop­u­lar. I’d love to find some­thing that the kids could really get behind (but not want to keep it all for them­selves!). Any cur­rent or upcom­ing fads we could get in on? I’d love it if they came up with their own idea. Doesn’t that sound fun?

Another way we can quell the bore­dom is by min­is­ter­ing to oth­ers. Some ideas I have include vis­it­ing nurs­ing homes so the girls can play their musi­cal instru­ments for the res­i­dents. They haven’t quite mas­tered their harp yet, but it’s hard to make a harp sound bad. It is just so sooth­ing. They can offer to walk the neigh­bors’ dogs, rake up pine nee­dles, bake cook­ies or breads for friends as a sur­prise to them, or write let­ters to grand­par­ents and cousins. I think I may put a list on our refrig­er­a­tor for them for those moments when the “b” word nearly slips from their lips. They will have a go-to place to find some­thing prof­itable to do with their time.

Faith prac­tic­ing her harp

Please, share ideas that you have. I’d love to get more items on my list for the kids. What are you going to do to bat­tle the bore­dom bug?

Photo credit: Con­law­prof / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA