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Nothing to Do
Helping Your Preteen Beat Boredom By Sue Marquette Poremba
Curbing the BoredomSo parents first need to provide their adolescents with free time, but then they need to help their children to learn how to keep from being bored. Every parent has heard their child whine about boredom the moment they have free time (and the parents usually complain that with all the toys, books and electronic gadgets in the house, no child should be bored).
However, most children equate boredom with having no companionship at that particular time. Adolescents will reach out to friends when they are alone to keep from becoming "bored," and when adolescents are together without supervision, they become more likely to experiment with risky behaviors. An adolescent alone is less likely to misbehave.
"At this age, it is important to help kids develop interests and explore different activities," Caldwell says. "Parents can be helpful with that and help them learn to persist with an activity over time."
Gary Delafield of State College, Pa., says his four children have diverse interests: "The kids did a lot of reading [when they were preteens], some writing. My middle daughter worked at French and art, and my son liked computer games and for a short and really noisy time, the drums." Delafield and his wife encouraged these interests even the drums to allow their children the opportunity to discover their interests.
Sherry Tatar follows a similar path. Her one daughter is a writer, so Tatar provides both verbal encouragement and writing supplies. The other daughter is interested in fashion design, so Tatar has the girl enrolled in sewing classes.
Activities that parents support become meaningful to the adolescent. In turn, the adolescent will savor free time to pursue their interests.