Every mother has heard her child whine that phrase at some time or another. Sometimes you seem to be hearing an awful lot of complaints of boredom. Is it a problem that your kid is bored and, if so, what should you do about it?

A child complaining of boredom can actually mean several different things. It may mean they want some attention from you. It may mean they feel a little blue, a little anxious or restless or even just some overall "blah" feeling that they can’t really identify. Often when a child (and actually an adult too!) feels nervous or sad, they are so uncomfortable actually knowing how and why they feel that way they try to push away the bad feelings with constant activity. Once there isn’t some distraction for a few minutes, the bad feelings start to creep back in and they experience boredom.

Alternatively, in this day and age of highly structured school, after school activities constantly and endless video/TV entertainment, many children are hooked on constant stimulation and are unable to create any entertainment of their own. There are two problems here: The inability to tolerate down time and the loss of creative potential. Finding personal solutions to manage and even enjoy alone time as well as tolerating moments of frustration are very important life skills your child will need later in life.

Expanding his or her ability to be creative and imaginative are also skills you want them to have for their adult life. Telling your child “With all your toys you can’t be bored” or “Then go clean your room or watch TV” is not going to help them figure out how to manage their feelings or the use their imagination. The key is how to slowly build a child’s own sense of resourcefulness.

So what can you do when your child is moaning "I’m bored?"

1. Limit house screen time. Your kid can play video games or watch TV whenever they have any down time, but this will not help them be creative or manage alone time. If you don’t limit their overall screen time per day, they never have to learn how to come up with cool ideas for entertainment and never get to feel good about whatever they did figure out or do.
2. Keep tools around. Keeping a stash of the rudimentary building blocks for imaginative fun will encourage them to create cool stuff. Paper, glue, paint, scissors and “idea” books for projects will help stir their thoughts on what they can do. Outdoor projects like “mud concoctions” can be encouraged too. Have rules for where mess can be but then allow mess for fun as it is part of being creative.
3. Structure unstructured time. Telling your child, “you can figure something out” will frustrate them and they won’t do it. Instead keep lists of different ideas that they might want to try and keep that list all the time. Then when you hear “bored” ask them to refer to the list. Help them to see how they can organize things to do without it being provided by a teacher, or you.
4. Check emotional temperature. If you are hearing a fair amount of, “I’m bored” then it may be a cry for some help. Talk to your child about whether something is in fact bothering them. Are they sad or worried? Do they feel like they really need a little more attention from you? Getting to the route of their feelings may help them address what’s really bothering them and stop their assumption that they are bored.