Helping Kids Survive Summer

For many children, summer opens the door to more relaxed schedules, travel to different locations, visiting relatives, and expanded time to choose their activities. Initially, this freedom is a welcome relief from the constricted settings of the school year. But after a brief honeymoon period, many parents start to hear the dreaded words, “I’m bored.” The first response may offer possible solutions, activities the kids enjoy or have been talking about, options to visit friends, things that need to be done for chores, or self-care. Kids might reply with silence or say that the suggestion doesn’t sound good or fun. Children can stay in this state of tension for hours, torn between wanting something to do and not finding anything satisfying enough to actually pursue. It’s painful for everyone.

Bored Child Playing

Source: Dmytro Sheremeta/Shutterstock

The literature on emotions and where they come from offers some tips for how to think about and manage this complicated situation. There are two key emotions likely contributing to how children behave in these situations: boredom and interest. Boredom emerges when the environment is not a match for our goals, and we don’t care about anything that is happening. This can be because nothing is happening, but people can also feel bored when a lot is happening—they just don’t care about any of it. Boredom is painful to experience, and motivates people to seek out something (anything!) new and different. Interest arises when there is something new, and people believe they have the ability and resources to explore and cope with whatever is new. Interest signals that there might be opportunities available, and motivates learning and exploration. If you imagine someone sitting quietly in a safe space, you can think of interest as the carrot that entices them to leave the shelter because they see a new opportunity, and boredom as the stick that drives them out of the shelter—they cannot take it anymore.

Although both emotions motivate people to change, they probably very rarely occur at the same time. People feel bored when there’s nothing they care about, and they have to care about something to feel interested enough to pursue opportunities. This complexity leads people to become entangled in an emotional snare that is hard to emerge from. They’re bored and want to do something different, but nothing seems interesting enough to do. This happens to everyone, but it’s particularly hard for kids who are still learning to regulate their emotions.

What can help children struggling to manage their boredom?

1. Emotions are signals, not cages. Boredom can feel like a cage that is hard to get out of. It’s painful and uncomfortable to experience, which often makes kids reach out for help when they feel it. They don’t know what to do. Replying calmly by labeling the emotion as a signal helps set the stage for them to see it as temporary and controllable. “You’re feeling bored; that usually means you don’t care about anything you’re doing right now.” Rather than giving specific suggestions, giving them a prompt about past success can also help them figure out how to untangle themselves. “What do you care about that you could do now?” The age of the children matters for how you talk about it, of course, but this combination can help them. Once they figure something out, they might need to fake it until they make it by just starting the activity, or they might help start the activity, but that little spark of interest can be enough to draw them in.
2. Play or laughter can be a quick shock treatment. Play, and the joy associated with it, has been proposed as a basic emotion or drive that is present across species and ages. Play releases endogenous opioids (our natural pain killers and mood lifters). People and animals seem driven to play, and if deprived of it for a period, they will seek it out. There’s also evidence that play is beneficial; it increases learning and overall positive well-being. If a child can be engaged, even for a few minutes, in play, it has the potential to shift them out of the painful state of boredom. Getting a child to play or even just to laugh can shift their mood and focus radically. Be prepared that this might not work immediately, and they might react with irritation at first; parents might need to try a few different things and give enough time between each attempt to let children recalibrate a little. Other options include physical movement of some kind or the parent laughing engagingly at something happening.
3. Modeling before the child is bored can set the stage. Most children are excellent observers and watch what their parents do. Parents can help set the stage for children to regulate their own boredom by intentionally modeling their own regulation of boredom. Parents talking out loud about what they’re doing can help give kids a framework to think about boredom. “I’m starting to feel bored, I’m going to do some jumping jacks and then call my friend for a few minutes, and then figure out what I want to do.” These types of statements label the emotion and responses, without getting caught up in the drama of feeling trapped in boredom. It shows that stepping away from boredom for a minute is an option to reset feelings before figuring out the next steps.

Boredom is probably inevitable; it seems to be felt frequently throughout the day for most people. But that does not mean it has to trap our kids or us. When children face the struggle of boredom and reach out for help, parents and caregivers can help them escape. Learning this young can set children up for a life where they are better prepared to face challenges and take on new opportunities.