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Tea with Julie

Welcome to "Tea with Julie," a weekly missive by me, Julie Bogart. My wish is to give you food for thought over a cup of tea to enhance your life as an educator, parent, and awesome adult. Glad you're here. Pinkies up!
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Cincinnati, May 23, 2020

Hi Friend,

Let’s look at how to address some of the boredom and crankiness that visits the various ages and stages of children in your house.

A 4-5 year old who is bored is much easier to rescue than a teenager who feels suffocated and has decided to challenge the values of the family. Yet the underlying feeling is similar—it’s unhappiness—and we can facilitate a huge turn around in how our kids experience our homes and “schools” if we help them become peaceful, cooperative, empowered-from-within, happy kids again.

Tuning into your child

Any child who is unhappy needs a parent to tune in and take notice! You’re the adult: you get to set aside your agenda to find out what your child needs.

The toddler often needs physical touch and space to express energy to get the adrenaline flowing, to feel reconnected, to up-end a mood.

  • Hugs
  • Tickles
  • Eye contact
  • Being flipped upside down
  • Wrestling
  • Chasing
  • Jumping 

And sometimes food, sometimes a nap, sometimes cuddles on the couch are enough.

The young child benefits from focused attention on his or her specific interests. Too much time spent on your agenda will lead to tedium and crankiness. Too much time alone feels lonely. Look for ways to help pull the young child out of the helpless, resentful mood of too many days in a row of someone else’s agenda.

  • Play a board game
  • Run around the back yard
  • Sit in your lap for a picture book
  • Help you set the table for a snack
  • Play on the floor
  • Sing to a CD

The middler needs a dedicated time regularly (every day? every other day?) where there is no limit.

  • Read as long as he or she likes without having to shift gears or being required to sleep
  • Play a computer game without a timer ending the turn
  • Watch TV on the couch without having to get up
  • Be allowed to finish the entire math book because he’s on a roll
  • Dig a hole in the backyard as deep and wide as she likes
  • Take a scandalous amount of time to organize a bookshelf or rearrange the bedroom furniture
  • Practice a musical instrument for an entire day

Middlers are curious. They benefit from indulgence in their curiosity and they especially appreciate it when you “get it.” If you notice that a particular child is obsessed with a hobby right now, take advantage of that white heat of passion and let them go! Add meaning and energy to the passion.

  • Buy a book
  • Binge-watch a series
  • Purchase new equipment

And yes, the Wii, XBox, online gaming, and Play Station are on this list of “passions” just like pining for American Girl Doll accessories while scrolling on a cell phone. Good stuff can come from these deep-dive pursuits.

The young teen is often the most moody and the hardest to cajole out of the mood. We’ve got hormones raging and they're old enough to feel the “been there, done that” of homeschool. They’re looking for adventure, yet they're not quite old enough to take charge and make it happen.

Try a conversation about BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). Ask them if there were no monetary limits and no time limits and no travel limits, what might they like to do? You might find out that your teen wants to take piano lessons for the first time, or wants to join a sports team, or a theater troupe, or learn Klingon, or go to Space Camp, or become expert at fashion.

You may not cure the moodiness, but you can facilitate a brand new, grown-up adventure to buffer the sense of tedium that encroaches at ages 13-14. Talk to the teen! Find out what’s missing. Do the best you can to help it happen (you might need that teen to earn money or find someone to drive them or to start small and build—but put that goal somewhere visible and all of you work toward it).

Even if this time of pandemic makes it difficult to go to the adventure, knowing it's on your list for when the chance comes is a way of giving a teen hope during this time of isolation.

The older teen is nearly at adulthood and feeling the tug between wanting a “mommy” and wanting to be respected as a “fledgling adult.” Risk and adventure. That’s what they need.

Let them lead you into conversations.

  • About their interests,
  • their viewpoints that aren’t yours,
  • their opinions,
  • their anxieties...

These conversations happen best one-on-one, with yummy food or drinks. Make time for the older teen and remember: in ordinary times, they are gone A LOT! So if one comes home at midnight ready to talk, you get the toothpicks out to prop your eyelids open and you sit on the bed and talk. Today, since they are home a lot, don't take these times for granted. Watch their favorite movie series, make a big meal together where they lead and you help, learn the Role Playing Game and play it.

The older teen sometimes needs to challenge how he or she was raised and you need to go soft inside and let those words slide over you. They aren’t the final verdict. They are the words of a “near adult” trying to find his or her way this week.

  • Be interested
  • Be quiet
  • Be curious
  • Be gentle
  • Be willing to take it

Bottom line

Rather than abandoning your child to his or her boredom, help your child to reinterpret the space. You don’t have to make suggestions (bored kids are notorious for shooting down each one as tedious, too difficult, not interesting). The suggestions feel coercive to the bored person, and not like they will create the relief being sought.

Rather, boredom can foster creativity if the parent wisely redirects the child into reflection combined with seeing the old with new eyes. 

Your role in facilitating creativity is to help foster an environment that awakens curiosity to explore a new function or new pursuit, that relieves the mundane from its tedium and leads to new uses of old things. Your job isn’t to solve the boredom with a scripted activity.

If after giving your kids incentives, they continue to look bored, just know that this is the quiet, evolving space that leads to a new idea. You can offer comfort for the process:

“I bet it’s frustrating when nothing interests you… no matter what! I hope it doesn’t last long. Let me know if you need something from me.”

Then move on.

It won’t be too long before the new interest arises.

Take care of you

You need to be happy too: vitamins, exercise, therapy (it helps if you need it!), time alone, a passion or hobby, a good relationship with your significant other, and a source of joy each day (tea, flipping through Instagram, bubble bath, chocolate, gardening, your favorite rerun on TBS, your spiritual practice).

Remember, as the chief role model of adulthood and learning, what fascinates you and draws your curiosity is irresistible to children. By attending to your own capacity to learn, you live a learning journey in front of your kids. And sometimes, they want in!

You give them a model of what it looks like to go from no interest, to curiosity, to interest, to applying yourself to learn something new.

You can do it!

Warmly,

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P.S. Catch up on all the “Tea with Julie” emails here!

Julie Bogart
© 2020 Brave Writer LLC™
help@bravewriter.com

 

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