Episode 383 Transcript
Hello it is Rachel, and welcome to episode 383 of Your Parenting Long Game. As I’m recording, summer is around the corner, which means there’s a very good chance you’re about to hear a lot more of the, “I’m bored. There’s nothing to do.” “This is boring. Can I have my iPad?” “Can we go somewhere?” “What are we doing today?”
Because during the summer, especially as the novelty wears off, kids do get bored.
Now usually when we think about the topic of boredom, at least one person will say, “Well, boredom is good for kids.”
And honestly, I agree wholeheartedly.
Boredom can lead to really wonderful things: Creativity, problem-solving, initiative, imagination. Those are all valuable skills.
But I think there are two really important things we often miss in this conversation.
The first is that when kids are bored, they don’t generally automatically think, “Wonderful, I shall now go build something creative,” or, “I will use my imagination,” or, “I’m going to go solve a problem.”
That’s not what happens.
Instead, when they’re bored, their automatic reaction usually is to bother a sibling, or start arguing, or follow you around the house, or ask for screens every three minutes, or start things they know they shouldn’t do but might get a reaction from you.
And parents in this situation often think, “Well, they just need to learn to entertain themselves.”
And again, while I don’t disagree, this is easier said than done.
Because again, not only are these negative behaviors just easier and more natural to them, but there’s a second piece that’s specific to kids with big emotions (kids who feel discomfort quickly and strongly, maybe kids who have ADHD or sensory issues).
For most of our kids, boredom is actually way more than we realize.
In fact, boredom can feel physically uncomfortable inside their body. It’s a restlessness, but it’s more than that.
A lot of kids who describe being bored, when asked what it’s like, they’ll describe things like agitation, and skin crawling, and internal screaming, and a desperate urge for stimulation or relief.
So for kids who feel boredom so viscerally and so strongly, just telling them to go entertain themselves isn’t going to work.
Because when a child is deeply uncomfortable like this, they’re not sitting there calmly thinking, “Hmm, maybe I should do something creative.” They’re actually too far gone.
The discomfort they feel when they’re bored puts them into fight or flight, so by the time they’re bored, they’re in Yuck, and their fight or flight response has already kicked in.
Their brain is focused on, “Get me out of this feeling!”
And honestly, this does make a lot of sense when we think about the world kids are growing up in now. There’s constant stimulation and scrolling and gaming and videos. There are fast dopamine hits and very little practice sitting in discomfort.
So when this stimulation disappears, some kids’ nervous systems panic.
(This may also be the case when you ask your child to go to bed and they keep getting out of bed. They’ve had all of this stimulation coming in all day, noise and light and interactions, and now all of a sudden light is removed, noise is removed, people are removed, and they feel so incredibly antsy. They need to relieve that feeling, so they keep getting out of bed!)
Now, none of this means that boredom is bad, and it does not mean that we rush in and entertain them all summer. I’m going to repeat that. This does not mean we rush in and entertain them all summer.
But it does mean that we stop seeing these behaviors as “My child is spoiled,” “They want to do something all the time,” or “They’re trying to annoy me,” or “They should just be able to play by themselves!”
And instead we can recognize, “Oh, wow, my child is really uncomfortable, and they don’t know how to handle this feeling maturely.”
They are actually handling the feeling by the behaviors you see. They’re handling it by bothering a sibling or bothering you or doing something they’re not supposed to do.
But ideally, we want them to handle it more maturely. And we have to teach them to do that.
So we stop trying to eliminate boredom and focus on teaching them skills. In order to teach them these skills, one of the first things we can do is help them understand what’s happening.
We don’t say to them when they’re bored, “You’re fine,” or, “Go find something to do,” or, “You have plenty to do.” We can talk to them about this feeling that they have, but I highly suggest you don’t do it in the moment (by the time they’re already in a state of boredom).
Because again, at that point, they’re already in fight or flight, and they won’t be able to hear anything you have to say.
But outside of the moment, you can say something like, “Do you know when there’s nothing going on and you really have nothing to do? Do you feel anything when that happens?”
If they say they don’t feel anything, say, “Okay, well, what if we did that all day long? What would that be like for you?”
And then they can imagine the discomfort, and they’re likely to tell you how awful that would be. We want them to identify that feeling and even name it. We can say, “This is boredom,” or, “This is restlessness,” or, “This is a type of discomfort.”
Being aware that this is happening is the beginning of taking different action in that moment because if they don’t even recognize it, they won’t know how to do something different.
Now, in order to tell them what to do with that feeling…If we’re being honest, they’re not going to do something different than what they’re already doing, (bothering a sibling or bothering you or doing something they’re not supposed to)…they’re not going to change that behavior unless there’s a reason to.
So this is partly limit setting and saying “There are going to be times of the day where there isn’t going to be someone there to entertain you.”
And then you can ask them, “Do you want to make situations like that less bad?” Or, “Do you want to make situations like that less uncomfortable?”
Notice I didn’t say, “Do you want me to entertain you?”
Because our job is not to remove discomfort. We want to tell them there are times when entertainment is not available.
But we also want them to have an awareness that in these situations they may be more easily triggered and there is something they can do about it.We want them to recognize, “Oh, these are the situations where my brain starts looking for stimulation.”
Now, once they have that awareness, then we need to teach them how to be bored. And there are a lot of ways to do this, but one of the most common ones I teach my clients is something called variations. This works really well for kids who struggle to generate ideas independently.
The idea behind this is we take something they already enjoy and create a variation of that so that they know, when they’re in a situation where there isn’t entertainment, they can use this variation.
For example, if your child likes Legos, we (and then eventually they) can create different variations.
Maybe one day the variation is: Build a tower using only red bricks. Another day the variation may be: Build a Lego city called Autoland. Another may be, can you build a town that includes the smallest houses possible?
Or another example, if your child likes drawing You can say, “Can you do a drawing that only has round objects? No lines and no edges.” Or, “Can you design a restaurant for monsters?” Or, “Can you redraw your favorite character as a baby?”
What we’re doing is we’re helping them come up with ideas without needing constant outside entertainment. And over time, children slowly build the ability to address their boredom without panicking, without going into fight or flight. And because they’re not in fight or flight, you don’t see those negative behaviors.
This is how resilience is built. Not because they never feel uncomfortable, but because they can say, “I know what this discomfort is, and I know what helps.” And honestly, our job as parents is not to constantly entertain, and it’s also not to tell them they shouldn’t be uncomfortable or this should be easier.
It’s not to make summer magical every second, but it’s also not to tell them that they should be able to figure this out. Our job is to help kids recognize what’s happening and slowly learn what to do with these feelings because that’s what really empowers them.
And that’s what helps them build the ability to handle discomfort without needing immediate escape every time they feel it.
Now, one thing I want to leave you this before we end: If your child is struggling with boredom and other uncomfortable situations, they may have what I call a narrow zone of tolerance, where discomfort builds fast and turns into arguing, negativity, impulsivity, or even emotional explosions more quickly than you might expect.
That doesn’t mean anything is wrong with your child, but it does tell you what they need from you.
Because when you understand how much discomfort your child can handle before they go into fight or flight, it becomes much easier to respond in ways that help them build resilience instead of accidentally increasing their overwhelm.
So if you want help understanding your child’s current zone of tolerance, I have a free resource called How Wide is Your Child’s Zone of Tolerance? It’ll help you start recognizing what overwhelms your child, how quickly their nervous system tips into yuck, and this will help you and them identify what actually helps expand their ability to handle discomfort over time.
That resource and everything I do is meant to help you build your parenting long game.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you again soon.
FREE RESOURCE: Does your child have a narrow zone of tolerance?
