Summer holiday activities and boredom

The summer holidays are upon us. One glance at your socials is enough to bring you out in a cold sweat.

Everyone is having lavish holidays and doing expensive day trips. While you’re juggling child care by using school clubs, cashing in on owed playdates and calling in favours from your family and friends. All whilst trying to hold down a job.

Surely not everyone is having such an amazing time? You furiously scroll further down hoping to see someone similar to you. Aha. This family looks like they are doing a normal activity. They are just enjoying a nice lunch together. Upon closer inspection you discover the bread is homemade. As in grew the wheat and ground it themselves to make the flour etc. Seriously? Even normal isn’t normal anymore. Aghhhhh.

The first wave of mum guilt washes over you. You want to give your child magical experiences and make memories together but there is no time or money.

Do you want to know a little secret?

You can provide your child with a magical childhood without having to spend a single penny and in way less time than you think!

What your children are craving is you. All of the expensive stuff we throw at them is to assuage our own guilt as deep down we know connection is all they want and need. We constantly raise the bar competing with ourselves and those around us to buy them more and more stuff. All this achieves is a huge mess in your home and to make your children more demanding and less grateful.

Too many toys actually stifles their creativity and decreases their happiness.

I see you rolling your eyes thinking there is no way this would ever work for your child. You once tried to take away some of their toys and they moaned they were bored, unleashed a meltdown of epic proportions until you promptly returned all of their toys vowing never to try anything like that ever again.

The magic lies on the other side of boredom. They will rebel as they have never had to use those skills. How often do you allow yourself to be bored? Probably way less often than you realise. Every time you are bored you reach for your phone or turn on Netflix. There is a high chance that when your child announces they are bored you rush to either be the entertainment or steer them towards their pile or toys, TV or devices.

Boredom is a gift. If you allow your children to be bored, and once they realise you aren’t going to be the one to distract them, they decide to use their imagination and play.

Entertained children aren’t the ones exercising their imaginations. Just like us, children’s brains are bombarded with information all day long. By taking away some toys and physical distractions (games consoles and TV) children are able to quiet the outside noise and focus inward giving their mind a rest. This results in rises in creativity and allows children the opportunity to use their problem solving skills. If you give a child a box and craft tools before too long they will have turned it into a boat or rocket and be off to explore the world.

Having been privileged enough to carry out many observations of children playing I can testify that the quality of their play greatly improves with less. Children who are given a toy phone will pretend to make a call. The quality of the conversation is very poor as they have no stimulus. Give them a pile of sticks and they will make a call to someone to rescue them because they are stuck in a forest and their den isn’t strong enough to keep out the monster that is trying to attack them. The stick’s potential is limitless. It can be a phone, an oar to row with, a sword to fight the monster, part of a den etc.

Boredom also gives us the kick up the bum we need to go and do something. Do you think entertained humans would have invented ships to explore what was beyond their immediate environment? A great many inventions owe their existence to boredom.

Boredom is the push we need, to go and make living our best lives a reality.

Once your children learn the ability to play and entertain themselves with very little, they stop pestering you every second. Their world expands and a universe of wonder and opportunities awaits them. Just half an hour of your time suddenly feels like hours to them.

They appreciate simple activities and time spent with you.

Honestly, if they can’t learn to find enjoyment in the simple everyday things they will never be happy. If they have to keep having more to experience joy then they will never have enough. As they grow up there will always be a bigger house, better car, higher earning job etc. They will waste their life chasing after bigger and better things until one day they realise time has run out and they didn’t allow themselves to enjoy any of it.

This is just as true for adults too!

When planning to do my suggested activities with your children remember to dial it down. These activities are designed to be short and sweet. Mum guilt makes you think that a trip to the beach must be an all day affair including expensive plastic toot bought from the beach front shops, followed by a constant stream of candy floss, ice creams, drinks, fish and chips etc. You’ve tried this approach before and know that it leaves a hole in your bank balance and often bratty unappreciative children and you with the raging hump wondering why they aren’t satisfied. Save yourself the heartache and expense as in reality they will be happy to just make a sand castle, followed by a stroll along the shoreline collecting shells to decorate their castle with you.

Ready to get your copy of my 'activities to give your child their best summer ever' ideas?

Click here to request a free copy.

If the issues around having less toys for your children has sparked your interest and you want to find out more about how to go about this, I highly recommend checking out Dawn from The Minimal Mom. She has a website, blog and lots of videos on YouTube that I have personally found really useful and think that you might too. Not affiliated in any way, just an appreciative fan.