Learn How To Be Bored!

Wow. It has been a LONG time since I've written anything.  Life sure gets away from a person, that is for sure.  My latest rant, it seems, is the concept of being bored and dealing with it.  If you ask my children, namely my oldest, "What is your mom trying to teach you these days?", he would say in an annoyed tone, "How to be bored". 

We have a rule at our house. No electronics (DS or Kindle) on weeknights and at social gatherings. It seems everywhere we go, all I see are the tops of people's heads because of the increased use of technology.  It also makes me sad when during performances, people are more interested in their technology than what is happening right in front of them. Matt and I choose the penny phone every time it is time to get new phones. Let me call and text, and I am good to go.   I do have to admit a smartphone of sorts would be handy during road trips when Matt and I have differing answers/opinions to a question.  For now, we just phone a friend...or ask Cooper.

Anyway, we've been to different gatherings where there is idle time and during that time, several passive comments are made over and over again. "SURE wish I had my DS", "The Kindle would be handy right now", "Wish I had something to do, like the DS or the Kindle". My response is always the same. "Learn how to be bored!". This happens at Church, and while we are waiting for almost anything that takes longer than a few minutes and it drives me nuts!  The difficult part is trying to explain why every other child surrounding us during events are using tablets and other technology. Then I realized that I don't need to explain "why" the other kids get to do that because that is the choice of that family. What I need to do is explain "why" I feel the way I do about the situation. 

Poor Cooper has to withstand my random rants. He looks up at me with those big, round, now hazel colored eyes and I know he is thinking, "This is it. She has officially fallen off of the deep end!" The latest rant happened at Muffins with Moms. I was one of the helpers and in between cleaning up and the bell ringing for the school day to start, Cooper had to deal with some idle time.  After about a minute it started. "Now would be a REALLY good time to play my DS, if I had it".  I turned around and said, "Cooper, you need to learn how to do what?!" He says, following a sigh, "Be bored".  He then asked, "What does that even mean?".  That is when I explained the concept of doing nothing and dealing with it.  I told him how when I was younger you just had to sit, be patient, be bored, and deal with it.  I told him I felt it was a good skill to learn because eventually it will help him with attention span, ability to regulate in uncomfortable situations, and just "be". 

It is official. He thinks I am crazy and I am OK with that.