30 Things to Do When You’re Bored
So I’m in my oldest daughters room and I notice a list on her bulletin board that says, “30 Things to do When your board.” (I didn’t correct her spelling). In our house boredom is not something you want to publicize… if my wife or I hear this from one of the kids we are quick to give them something to do to save them from the doldrums; say like clean their room, or the family room, or even as fun as clean the toilet. Like I said – not too publicized. So when I saw the list from my daughter I had to laugh – this was her solution to avoiding extra chores due to telling mom and dad she was bored. In fact this was the second response I had from my kids lately to the boredom chores; my oldest son came to me just a few days ago stating, “Dad…I can’t think of anything to do…,” then quickly followed by, “But, I not bored; so I don’t need to do any chores…I just want something fun to do.” My son’s approach didn’t work – he still has things to learn from his sister.
Now before I go much further… feeling bored is not something I get much of a chance to enjoy but I think it’s fun that my daughter made a list and who couldn’t use a list of things they enjoy doing for ideas from time to time…or perhaps list a list that prioritizes those things we enjoy or love. I’ll share my daughters list, I know it’s a bit heavy on the video games, but it’s her list – I didn’t ask here to make it…she did it on her own (my comments inserted):
30 Things to do When your board (again her spelling)
- Play Nights Journey of Dreams (Wii game)
- Play Kingdom Hearts (2 different PS2 games)
- Play Party games on Camden’s Sonic Secret Rings game (Wii game belonging to my oldest son)
- Play Lego Star Wars (PS2 game)
- Play with friends (I’m glad at least something other than a video game was in the top 5)
- Play hide and seek
- Draw
- Build with blocks
- Play outside
- Play Wii Sports (more Wii)
- Play Wii Play (and more – and the end of the video games making video games 6 out of the top 10 – file that under bad parenting…)
- Read (yay – actually she does a lot of this)
- Make a fort and play in it (one of my favorites as a kid)
- Tag
- Play a game of Pokemon (the trading card game – one of my favorites – see my Pokedad post)
- Make a deck (I am assuming a Pokemon deck)
- Organize your binder (again assuming she means her Pokemon Binder)
- Organize your bookshelf (it is quite organized)
- Play chess
- Play Chutes and Ladders
- Play Trouble
- Play Scrabble (she plays this with my wife – I am a horrible speller)
- Play Clue (by far my favorite board game)
- Play Clue Jr.
- Play Battle Ship
- Play Monopoly
- Play Canada-opoly (both Lynette and I are from Canada and my parents gave us Canada-opoly one year for Christmas)
- Play Balloon Lagoon
- Play with Barbies (# 29 on the list…at almost 10 she is finally starting to outgrow them – the other day she also told my wife she wanted less pink clothes – someone is changing)
- Draw on white board.
Now when it comes to myself; what kid of list would I make? I immdediately think of the things that I kn0w I should do or should enjoy doing and just how I should prioritize them if I made the list. Lots of shoulds… My daughters list was sincere, in the order that they came to mind; listing some led her to think of others and you can see that in the list. Some that fall on my list, and I will not list them in priority, and I am trying to be sincere – fun things too – not duties or chores or have-to-do’s, or honey-do’s:
- Watch one of the TV shows (on Hulu) I never have time to watch like (in order of preference) Chuck, Heros, Legend of the Seeker, Fringe, Burned, or Psych.
- Play Pokemon with my kids
- Dance with my hot wife
- Just dance…with kids or even just myself
- Play in my garage – wood, metal, tools, cars…
- Run – I love long runs on mountain trails
- Bike – road or mountain
- Surf the web
- Blog – I find it reflective
- Read – lately I have been reading all the James Bond books
I know it’s not 30 – it’s a start… What would be on your list? Share with us your ideas – perhaps it will remind some of us of things we loved to do once or give us ideas for when we’re bored…so we don’t have to do chores.
Nester Dad out…
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