14 Ways to Overcome Boredom in Children

Perceiving Children as an Open Book 

Children are always energetic and enthusiastic. They always want to explore new things and idea. They are innocent as well as open minded too. Children and tweens are curious about new toys, games, making new friends, meeting new people, enjoying jokes as well as telling and listening to stories. As technology is available at finger tips along with gadgets, children are free to explore the news and technological updates happening across the world. A child with average intellectual capacity can know more from educational websites and videos than they are delivered from school.

They are like an open book. The blank pages in this beautiful note book has to be filled in with interesting, original, safe and relevant details as well as information. It has also to be taken care of to erase or delete any errors or wrong information and data scribbled. This is why parental supervision and guidance becomes important and significant. Without expert guidance of a teacher or guardian, the blank pages in this open book can get tampered or misused which later on becomes unerasable and deep rooted.

Children tend to believe whatever is shown to them by social media or peers to be true in the absence of parental supervision. There are innumerable fake videos, hoax, edited animations as well as age inappropriate contents in social media platforms which your child may tend to believe as original and true. Some science related videos or websites even tend to be unauthentic and erroneous. 

Extra Brilliant Kids 

        On the other hand, at the very vulnerable age of childhood or just before the onset of adolescence, parents also complain about the difficulty to handle their child's curiosity and extra talent. Many parents approach us with the problem of their kids/tweens completing any school work or task or game or activity given to them extra quickly that they don't know how to deal with the kid's free time (leisure time) further. Eventually the parent finds it difficult to handle the double quick approach of their children and end up giving television remote or a mobile phone game to satisfy their curiosity further. 

This is the point were the creativity, curiosity and intelligence quotient (IQ) of the child is not effectively balanced or satisfied with the resources of play or engaging physical activity available at home. Children with above average level of intelligence (IQ- intelligence quotient) and common sense (CQ- common sense quotient) tend to be smoother in understanding and grasping things and act fast paced than expected in cognitive abilities. This is the reason why they tend to finish any tasks or activities or chores or homework or story books or creative block play swiftly, putting parents at the juncture of what next !! Instead of being happy, the parent starts worrying and feels under pressure as they are unable to control the screen time of their lovable kids.

 In the counselling sessions it often happens that some of the parents even tend to misinterpret their kids' brilliance to be hyper active or attention deficit !!!!! This is because, extra brilliant kids easily get bored of conventional play methods and are always thirsty about switching between activities or playful study methods.

Dealing with the Creative Minds of Children

Cognitive ability of a child is the psychological outcome of processes such as learning, reasoning and perception. Genetic organization and intelligence of the parents play a significant role in determining the intellectual capacity of the offspring. Studies show that a child starts picking sounds and learning tastes of his mother from the womb itself. 

Childhood is the period when children open up their eyes, ears and brain towards learning and understanding various things happening around them. 

Here are some tips for parents to help deal with talented minds of kids during free time.

1. Talk to your children about what they want to do during their leisure time after they have finished school work. Listen to their opinions no matter how smaller their age is. Asking for opinion gives them a sense of inclusion and consideration as an individual with identity.
2. Provide a fixed duration of quality time for child parent interaction and bondage. Encourage them to tell about their day at school, what they did at sports period or any other topic of their interest. Tell them or read out stories. Encourage them to tell you back one story too. This will make them think and imagine. This activity is very important for child- parent bondage built up. This activity also encourages them to share their problems with you later on in future during teenage or adulthood. Kids at the age group of 3 to 7 are more interested in talking and listening. If they are not good at writing skills, always use playful method of encouraging pencil/color pencil usage.
3.  Play with them. You need not have a fixed time or duration to play with your child. But find at least one hour every day to play while interacting. A split up time of twenty minutes to thirty minutes duration can also be thought about. It can be coupled with the Story time as prescribed above or as separate play time. The intention of playing together is to enjoy, laugh out loud and strengthen the love bond between the child and parent. (Our kids do not measure the duration their parents spend with them. If the parents are extra busy with work, it is for their convenience that the minimum duration of quality time is specified. Kids value the presence and interaction with parents as the most valuable gift. Do not miss it !!!) 
4. Role of fathers: Studies shows that paternal bond plays significant role in boosting self-confidence and resilience in children through teenage as well as adulthood. Studies show that for kids, whose fathers spend enough time in playing, nurturing and communicating with them, are excellent at developing better cognitive abilities, intelligent quotient and verbal as well as communicative skills. Such kids are mentally strong as teenagers or adults and are good at reviving from trauma or stress. They will be developing better value based understanding skills in childhood towards others too. 
5. Toggle between tasks and activities. Switching between activities or play types or tasks or playful study methods help decrease boredom in children or toddlers. Each child's attention span depends on the way the playful activity or task is presented before him/her. Some kids have increased curiosity and enthusiasm towards certain ways or methods and tend to be more attentive. For some children, the activities they have been doing for long can be of lesser interest and evoke less curiosity resulting in lesser attention span. For such kids it is always good to keep multiple activities ready to switch in between.  
6. Changing the order of tasks. Change the order of kids' activities everyday or introduce new chores in between. You can choose a reverse order or a random order from the list. As you see your child's interest is decreasing over one, be prepared to adapt to a newer one. Inventing new creative tasks or role play or even fireless cooking, knifeless cutting etc., can be one among such chores. It is highly recommended to avoid the introduction or usage of electronic gadgets as a new activity.
7. Encourage kids to involve in time consuming creative activities such as imaginative story writing (involving superheroes or favourite cartoon characters), comics reading, daily diary writing etc. Activities such as preparing their time plan or schedule for a day, creative drawing, coloring etc. as well as playing with building blocks, board games like snake and ladder, ludo etc., are good options. Word games, word puzzles, crossword puzzles etc., inculcates greater attention span, critical thinking and vocabulary skills among kids. Concentration improvement games such as 'beads to chain', crafts or origami making etc., can also be added to the list. 

   

   Creative painting by 4th grade kid

   
   

   

   Word puzzle game boosts thinking, vocabulary skills

   
   
8. Reward them by 'points' or 'stars' for their finished/half finished works. Rewards can also be in the form of positive affirmations such as a whole hearted "Praise". Praising is a wonderful way of rewarding that encourages kids to redo the activities with more patience. Praise also helps in boosted self-confidence. Collected points can be used to fix their rewards such as a family outing to park, watching a movie together or a planned trip to a favourite destination etc. 
9. Do not shame them in front of others. To err is human, then why not children!!!!! At the age of childhood through teenage, children tend to do a lot of mistakes which are most probably not purposeful. It is the aim of good parenting to correct them and to inform them about the seriousness of the consequences if something goes wrong. Whether it be a random task or that related to studies. Many parents find solace in publicizing their kid's mistakes in front of relatives and family friends. This act brings huge shame to the little minds. Rather than introducing any positive effects, such practice of shaming will only result in kids withdrawing and not trying to redo the activity with confidence. Shaming act marks a scar on their individuality and self-respect (yes ! children do have self-respect like adults). Kids will end up believing that they have done something absurd and non-sense which lacks the approval of parents. They may tend to feel useless, worthless and helpless at the same time. The purpose of correction will be easily served if the parents rectify the acts with some positive affirmations at the beginning such as "You tried really well" or "Good Effort !!" and then proceed to rectifications.
10. Do not use fear as a tool / technique to make kids obey. It is good to inculcate discipline in children. When they are not up to your expectations, some parents shout or yell out at children to make them obey. Some even terrify kids with the fear of police or monsters if they do not score good in exams or do errors even playfully. This kind of parenting will have only temporary effect of an hour or two on children. Not only it doesn't serve the purpose of a permanent positive change in the child's behavior, but also, will have a negative impact on their bondage with parents.  
11. Give proper significance to physical activities. An outing or a walk at the beach side with parents or grand parents, playing at the children's park, joining outdoor games or sports, activities like indoor sports, swimming, cycling etc. helps in boosting feel good hormones. Exercise is already a proven methodology of lifting mood up along with general muscle strengthening. Involving in such physical activities help in child's physical development as well as mental refreshment. For kids, playing hide and seek or running around is far better than playing video games or following sedentary life styles.
12. Spend quality time with grandparents. Studies shows that spending effective time with grand parents have significant role in positively developing a child's behavior. Children who freely mingle with grandparents develop faster communicative and vocabulary skills and are smarter at oratory skills. Grandparents are excellent story tellers and help in instilling the sense of belonging and safety among children. They are more understanding as well as affectionate towards children. UNICEF itself recommends and recognizes the effective role of grandparenting during childhood. 
13. Stress busting free hand relaxing play such as clay modeling, wonder sand shaping, fireless safe cooking, cutting or chopping vegetables or fruits etc., are excellent stress busters for kids during free time.  Activities such as welcoming guests, preparing welcome drinks or involving in household chores such as vacuum cleaning, washing dishes, folding dry clothes etc., inculcates sense of responsibility and care giving mentality among children. It also gives them a feeling of others accepting their individuality.

    

    Boy cutting vegetables using slicer

    
    
14. Take care of yourself. Most importantly parents forget to take care of themselves. Loving oneself is the first step towards loving others. If you want to be physically and mentally healthy and stress free, it is utmost important that as parents you take care of your mental and physical health. Children easily absorb the happiness or distress of their parents and are very sensitive. Especially mothers are stressed out after work, hormonal issues, taking care of kids and find less 'me time' for themselves. Their stress and tensions are easily passed onto kids who end up bewildered. Emotional stability should be ensured by both parents by taking care of themselves and that of their partners too. 

Bottom Line :-

        There is nothing known as perfect parenting. All parents make mistakes in parenting. Similarly, all kids are not alike. They are unique and precious. The talent hidden in them needs to be nurtured and brought out to the world. Over-corrections by parents can result in negative effects forcing kids to withdraw from their natural instincts and creativity. Leisure time is the perfect time for kids to bring out the hidden potential and skills in children. 

Soap making experiment by a 10 year old kid

            As parents, we are too busy with work and often tend to mix up the pressure of office work with family time or time with family members which needs to be checked. Stress and pressure of parents should not be passed upon kids. Extra brilliant kids are mostly at stake as busy parents often fail to understand their brilliance and start thinking their kids have some issues intellectually or with short attention span. 

            Kids' brains are just at the developmental stage and they need time to settle their behavior and pattern of intellect as well as understanding. Giving them enough time with positive affirmation based parenting can work wonders in the developmental stage of a child through teenage to adulthood.  

Be happy with extra brilliant kids. happy parenting !😉

Dr. Sheena Latif