When Dr. Danielle Kassow was growing 7 up, every now and then she’d grum- ble, “I’m bored!” Few things irritated her mother more.
“My mother would tell me, ‘Go play, go find something to do!’” says Kassow, research and development manager for Thrive By Five Washington. “Parents feel 8 that kids are lucky to be kids.”
Not much has changed since Kassow was 9 a child. Parents still loathe hearing the “B” word, and kids still pull it out of their com- plaint repertoire. Even in an iPod, Xbox,
DVD world, “boredom” persists in the tot- through-teen lexicon.
What’s more, the word “bored” means different things to different kids—at differ- ent times. When Dr. Danielle Kassow was growing 7 up, every now and then she’d grum- ble, “I’m bored!” Few things irritated her mother more.
“My mother would tell me, ‘Go play, go find something to do!’” says Kassow, research and development manager for Thrive By Five Washington. “Parents feel 8 that kids are lucky to be kids.”
Not much has changed since Kassow was 9 a child. Parents still loathe hearing the “B” word, and kids still pull it out of their com- plaint repertoire. Even in an iPod, Xbox,
DVD world, “boredom” persists in the tot- through-teen lexicon.
What’s more, the word “bored” means different things to different kids—at differ- ent times. “Sometimes children say they’re bored because they need direction or activ- 10 ity ideas from their parents,” Kassow notes. “And sometimes, it’s a child’s way of telling a parent, ‘I want you to pay attention to me.’” 11
“If a very young child says she’s bored, she often means, ‘I don’t like what I’m doing right now,’” says Leslie Meisner, program manager for early learning in the Tacoma School District. Then it’s the parent’s job to come up with ideas.
“Devise a list of conversation starters,” Meisner says. “Ask your preschooler, ‘What’s your favorite book? If you could buy anything at the grocery store, what would it be?’” Give her little projects, such as counting how many...