The Beauty in Boredom

The beauty of BOREDOM

“I’m Bored!”

The dreaded two words of school holidays, weekends, sleepovers and play dates, the list goes on!

It is definitely relevant to feel a sort of social pressure when we look on social media for activity inspiration and see activities which require the purchase of three quarters of a Kmart store or perfectly placed colours, pastels and paints with little to no mess. These days children’s parties have even had pony rides in the costumes of ‘unicorns’ in these perfectly placed colours and pastels. 

Living in such a sleepy town, we do feel quite lucky (I am yet to go to a child’s party where Camel rides are a thing), however with lots of activities rescheduled or cancelled there has been an increase in two words being reported in households around town, “I’m BORED!”.

Well here is a little secret of ours. These two words are two of the greatest words to assist with teaching points for creativity, resilience and resourceful kids.

Being ‘bored’ allows children to have to use their imagination and creativity in play. It teaches children to go outside, to make friends, to have a scavenger hunt in the backyard or build a cubby house.

With an increase in screen time, computer time, afterschool activities, there has been so many little ones with fully packed schedule.

One beautiful thing to come out of the past few months, is the amazing creativity we have seen with families doing wonderful activities together.  Whether it be building projects, art projects, scavenger hunts – the importance is that the activities were created and inspired TOGETHER. Children learn through role modelling, this much we know. Spending the time to play and imagine together is so very valuable for nurture.

These are the amazing ideas that have come out of this new, slowed down way of living.

And whilst we are as excited as anyone for our favourite café’s and playgrounds to open, let’s not forget this wonderful time in which we helped shape our children’s imagination and creativity through the beauty of so called ‘boredom’.