Posts Tagged ‘boredom’

How to Love Your Child’s Summer Vacation, Pt. 2

In yesterday’s post I proposed the first three of five tips to help you with summer vacation activity ideas. These are meant to ease your mind and equip you with helpful ideas if you’re one of many parents wondering how you’re going to fill the vast expanses of hot days with “bored” kids… retain your sanity… make it fun and nourishing for all… and maybe even stumble upon some calm, confidence and joy in the process. (What a concept!)

I covered:

  • How to avoid one of the most common pitfalls when transitioning to summer vacation
  • Why “boredom” isn’t lethal to your children ~ just the opposite!
  • Ways to use summer as a “refueling zone” ~ nourishing presence & connection

Today, onward! (more…)

How to Love Your Child’s Summer Vacation

How to Love Your Child's Summer Vacation | Marcy Axness, PhD

Along with your child’s school summer vacation, the summer season itself brings many natural cues to slow down: the warmth, the longer days (more time = less need to do things fast), and the luscious grass or warm sand that beckons, Lie down!

But the approach of summer can also strike terror in the hearts of parents. Are you quietly (or not-so-quietly) dreading your child’s school summer vacation — wondering how you’re going to fill the vast expanses of hot days with “bored” kids? How you’re going to stick to your values about screened media, while retaining your sanity? Oh, and by the way, hopefully enjoying some semblance of calm and enJOYment?!

Here are five guidelines to help you not just survive summer, but actually cultivate more ease & harmony as you “wire” yourself and your children for joy & wellbeing in the coming year! (more…)

How Boredom Builds Brains… and Screens Can Drain Brains!

(Part 3 of my 5-part series at DrGreene.com) I’m not talking about the deep, serious kind of boredom associated with neglect, poverty and anguish. I’m talking about that “I’m not being distracted / entertained / stimulated at this very instant and I don’t know what to do with myself” kind that I fear is becoming more and more common.

I’ll let you in on a little behind-the-scenes shock I had while searching for a photo to illustrate this article. I searched the term “child relaxing” and I kept finding these gorgeous pastoral scenes of a child in the middle of a lovely meadow… using a laptop!! Or a child kicking back in a hammock… using an iPad! 

And why would that distress me? Read on…

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Improve Your Parenting & Enrich Your Life With This Simple New Year’s Resolution

I noticed something distressing as my plane took off from JFK last week. It was the first gorgeously sunny day in over a week, there was an amazing view of Manhattan / Brooklyn / New Jersey as we climbed skyward, and everybody had their window shades closed!!

Have we become so blasé that soaring over one of the most astonishing cities in the world doesn’t even warrant a glance?! Are the games we play on our smartphones (in airplane mode, for heaven’s sake) that important or captivating that we can’t spare some attention for a breathtaking aerial view? Can’t 22 Jump Street on your personal entertainment screen wait till we’ve reached altitude? {Read more at mothering.com}