Too Many Activities

Except at our house. Here, we wing it.

Photo by Nelson Ndongala on Unsplash

On the weekends in our neighborhood there’s not a kid to be found outside.

Not One. Well, except ours

I can see in the wintertime when everybody is inside - but now that it’s nice out you would think that there would be kids everywhere.

Nope. Not one.

This begs the question? Where are they?

Activities, I would guess. Softball, Swimming, and Soccer would be the main attractions for this time of year, but there’s dance and ballet and who knows what else - is bowling still a thing?

Meanwhile here at home in our incredibly quiet neighborhood, we hear crickets. Not one kid can be seen or heard of all weekend.

Maybe because she has more time than most kids, as we have her in one activity and that’s learning to swim Sunday mornings. That’s it. I don’t think that watching YouTube kids is considered an activity, but she only gets one thing to do each weekend.. We’re not going to be the parents to schlep her around all weekend from soccer to ballet, etc.

There’s a downside to this approach.

This means that we must entertain her. But do we? We have a park across the street for her to play in and lately if you wander around our front yard, you’ll find a frog, or we have a dog that loves to run in the back yard. And did I mention we have a new swimming pool and if that’s not working for you then there’s the sprinkler?

Lastly, we have crayons. LOTS of crayons.

There’s lots to do if you look, I tell her.

She’s still got a few days left of no bike and no scooter after her fall so that would entertain her too if she were allowed to ride them. Next week she can get back in the saddle so to speak.

There’s a limit to how much tablet time you can have and frogs you can find, and with no friends around she comes back inside and wants to be entertained.

Every parent knows (and hates) this phrase: “I’m bored”

What to do? I don’t think we have to entertain her every minute of the day and be her playmates. Some weekends, the most excitement around here is the laundry. Not every weekend, but some weekends are quiet here for all of us.

We can’t go get ice cream every weekend or cough up the dough to go to the bouncy house place she loves.

It’s my thought that she needs to learn to be bored.

I read a NY Times article about summer camps this year and a lot of parents are opting out of costly activity filled summers. They’ve named it kid rotting. and I think that’s an awesome name for it.

Is It OK for Your Kids to ‘Rot’ all Summer? - The New York Times

I think it’s okay for her to rot some weekends too. Sometimes, especially this time of year, there’s just too much to do here at the house. Every day can’t be a day at Disney World.

She might whine for a bit, but eventually she’ll find something to entertain herself with and make up stories in her head to pass the time. Last weekend we found her in front of the house with an inflatable ring as a “boat” in a very big puddle in front of our house from our sprinkler. I forget the plot, but she had a blast making up the story in her head.

Making up the boat game in a humungous puddle was the activity. It teaches her to be creative and think for herself.

It’s too bad her friends missed “the boat”.

If only they didn’t have so many activities.

Maybe next weekend.

Until next time,

TH and Co.