The Blessing of Boredom

I don't like to hear the words, "I'm bored." For one reason, my children are blessed and have an abundance of things to entertain them. Another reason being I think that hearing those words is an indicator of depending on things too much for entertainment and sort of "forgetting" how to occupy and entertain oneself. Unstructured play is far too undervalued today as our society plugs our children into activity after activity and allows far too much video game and TV time without limits. Play is becoming a lost art. My usual response to "I'm bored" is to offer a job to do. (That's such a MOM thing, isn't it?) But it often produces the desired effect of getting my kids to come up with something to do on their own. Now I am not saying I am trying to get them to leave me alone but rather I want them to come up with an idea of entertaining themselves without my input. This week it was Timothy who was bored. And the blessing came in him digging around in his toys to find forgotten joy in a set of handy man toys. They kept him busy for quite some time and I was blessed to enjoy watching him pretend. I even got to suggest things around the house for him to "fix"