The Boredome Factor – 1
THE BOREDOM FACTOR
Most of us as parents have felt overwhelmed by the prospect of several weeks of having to entertain and be available to children more than usual in the school holidays.
School holidays can be a time of despair about having to find resources from within us to manage the children needs and demands as well as juggling the daily routines of work and finances. That spare bit of money to do activities can be out of reach for many of us leaving us feeling quite sad and stretched to the limit after hearing “I’m bored” for the 100th time.
Firstly a note about….“I’m bored”.
When a child says “I’m bored” I think they are telling us “I’m not connected with myself and my needs right now.” They tell us they are bored as a way of asking us to fix this feeling that is not enjoyable. This non-engagement creates a feeling of dis-ease and this can cause the whiny voice or the annoying behaviour. I think they are feeling disconnected from themselves, and possibly us as well, and are looking for a way to re-connect.
Ideas for the….“I’m bored.”
For children aged 5+ my first suggestion is to gently reply to them by saying something like –
- “So you feel bored and can’t think of what to do right now, how about you look at your Activity List and see what you fancy.”
AND/OR, if this doesn’t help-
- “It is your job to find something to do now, if you really can’t think of something you’d like to do in the next 10 minutes and your Activity List isn’t helping, come and I can help you decide.”
At this point it is helpful to wonder about how dis-connected from you your child could be feeling. It maybe that offering to play with them or have them join in an activity you are doing could help. If you have access to a timer on the microwave or some such appliance, this can be a useful way of giving the situation a few more minutes to sort itself out.
This parenting step is about helping your child build resilience to entertain themselves. Being able to do this is a great way for them to develop concentration and become resourced in managing their emotions.
If they need you to help them decide what to do next, try and give them possibilities and encourage them to make the decision.
(NOTE TO SELF – One day my children will be making decisions about drugs, alcohol and many other life choices…if they can start with making good decisions about managing these kinds of situations and their uncomfortable feelings they are taking a great first step)!!
TO BE CONTINUED…NEXT POST ON WEDNESDAY JULY 20.. WHEN I NEED TO HELP THEM DECIDE, ACTIVITY LIST AND MORE!
Anya Godwin
Children’s Counsellor
Home and Family Counselling
Poke a hole in it
Putting things off
We all do it. Especially the big jobs that we don’t want to do for various reasons.
Some common reasons for putting things off are:
- it seems too big
- it feels too hard
- we don’t fully understand how to do it
- we aren’t any good at it
- we don’t have enough time to do it
This often applies to writing reports, studying, big tidy-ups, big projects.
Some helpful ideas for getting past our reluctance!
‘Poke a hole in it’
1. In other words just start.
- Don’t worry about where you start, just do something towards what you have to tackle.
- Don’t worry that you only have ten minutes – start
- Don’t worry about getting all prepared to do the task – just do a bit of it.
- Don’t worry about scheduling it into your day/week/weekend
Grab the computer/ cleaning cloth/ spade, secateurs or whatever you need to make the first move.
2. When you run out of time/ ideas / energy or get interrupted just stop.
3. Start again the next time at 1.
Need help with the Job?
If it’s something that you are unsure about how to tackle:
– who can I ask for help
– who can give me (free) advice?
A report to write?
- Start writing anything. Don’t worry about an introduction, you can do that later. Start anywhere. You can cut and paste it later.
- Don’t know how to put your ideas down on paper? Try saying out loud to someone (imaginary) what you want to way. Try to write down the words you have just said.
- Are there examples of similar reports that you pick up the idea of a framework from? What about on-line reports or templates?
The key thing is to Poke a hole in it!
Mary Gray
Executive Director
Home and Family Counselling
Welcome to our blog site
Home & Family Counselling is keen to promote ideas and articles that help people to get along together better! Building a happy community is the essence of counselling- healing past hurts, getting different perspectives on ourselves and how we are operating in the world, increasing our communication skills so that we can say what we want to in a respectful or non-hurtful way are all aspects of how we live our lives that come up in counselling.
But they are things that come up all the time for us all! So through our blog we hope to share our ideas and generate discussion; to hear from you your thoughts, topics which you would like us to discuss, and ideas that will help us all build ourselves, our relationships and our community.
Our first contribution to this dialogue is our free ‘E-book ‘ which is designed to help parents talk to their children about keeping safe from sexual abuse. A tricky topic to broach with young kids! Our children’s counsellor, Anya has written this book because she recognises that parents don’t always know what to say or how to talk about this with their children. The book has instructions for parents as well as stories for children and pictures for them to colour in.
We are releasing this E-book next week, during Counselling Awareness Week, ( May 9 – 15) another of our community initiatives. Many of you have already signed up, and for those who haven’t, the signup form is available at http://homeandfamily.org.nz
Welcome again to our blog site and we look forward to hearing from you.
Mary Gray
Executive Director
Home and Family Counselling
