I {Mostly} Don’t Entertain My Kids.

I talk a lot about special things that we do.  The big things, the fun things, the cool things.  But today, I wanted to let you know that in a typical day at our house, my kids play, or look at books, or just sit and stare at the wall if they want to.

Independently.

Yes, yes, I get the crayons off of the top shelf if they want to color… and that little one goes into her highchair to keep the “artwork” contained.  I pull Tate’s play house out for her and help open the box to her My Little Ponies.  I choose to keep the TV off during the day.  I ooh and ahh over their Lego creations.  {Hint: Tate’s is always a tower.}  Then, I answer emails, work a bit, do dishes, make breakfast, or overhear them getting along for a fleeting few minutes before they are annoyed with each other again.  We sit and read to them daily, but the vast majority of the time on a typical day, they entertain themselves.  {Tate is younger so obviously her attention span is a little shorter, there are more stories and song singing and snuggle breaks with me when Finn is at school and she is here by herself.}

I fondly remember as a kid playing Barbies or He-Man or Star Wars.  Playing with our Strawberry Shortcake dolls.  Playing school.  Building things with Lincoln Logs.  Playing church when I was the priest and smashed up white bread was communion. {Weird kid.}  Playing house and making my cousin be the dog every time.  Pretending my sister and I had a cooking show.  Searching for coins in the couch, buying a packet of Kool-Aid for ten cents, and having a lemonade stand.  Playing store.  Playing bank.  Playing roller rink in the back yard with those ridiculous plastic skates that you’d put on your shoes. 

Playing.

I don’t remember adults having anything to do with what we played other than making sure we didn’t hurt ourselves.  No one scheduled out every second of our day with activities and cookie baking and elaborate art projects and sensory tables with summer camp worthy zeal and told us how to have fun.  Other than my mom writing a pretend check for us to play with at our bank, we didn’t even want adults hanging out with us.  We wanted to play and build forts and make up dance moves to Janet Jackson songs.

Clearly, we were the rad-est.

At our house you won’t be constantly entertained, or watch tv, or sit on the computer or complain incessantly that there is nothing to do.  Really? Look at all these toys you can play with!  There are also chores, but that is a discussion for another day.  It’s not because I don’t love and want to spend time doing fun things with them, there is plenty of that as well.  I think that I was inadvertently telling you the fun part of our life and not realizing that you don’t see the day to day. 

I am not their daily cruise director, I am their mom.  I think a lot of my generation has that bit wrong.  When my friend started staying home and we had a play date one morning, she asked if she had to schedule an activity for them to do.  Uh, no, unless you mean sending them outside to play in the backyard?  We think we’re failing our kids when we don’t have them enrolled in twelve activities, have them creating masterpieces hourly, and have their daily schedule rivaling a CEO’s.  Screen time is replacing face time and human interaction.  And I realize that as they get older, it just gets worse.

Frankly and probably selfishly, scheduling out activities from day until night for my children is exhausting for me.  And I feel like I’m putting their imagination to sleep a bit when I do.  When do they get to just be kids?  How are they ever going to come up with crazy games if I’m constantly telling them what to play and how to play?  Or allowing them to sit in front of the TV all day?  Or taking them from one activity to the next and spending our day in the car?  I want to see them figuring out their own ideas and even being a little bored. 

Yep, I’m going to say it, boredom is ok for my kids.  It gives them a little time to rest their brains from the constant stimulation of everything around them.  And that is a good thing.

Believe me when I say I am not a Puritanical parent.  My kids have  both watched TV before they were two, they both play games on the tablet.  They fight and whine and they are normal kids.  There are days when they stay in their pjs and watch 5 episodes of Phineus an Ferb capped off by Tangled.  They eat junk sometimes and hear me swear and do things that make Dave and I nuts.  They tell me that they are bored.

And I then tell them to go play.