How To Deal with Summer Boredom?

“Boredom teaches us that life isn’t a parade of amusements. More importantly, it spawns creativity and self-sufficiency.”

When I was a little girl, I would occasionally whine to my mother during the long summer months about being bored, to which she would reply, “Go outside and play with your brothers and sisters” or the old chestnut, “Read a book.” And that was the extent of my mother’s (who was hardly known as the Love Boat Cruise Coordinator) repertoire. I did learn to entertain myself, for which I am immensely grateful. While reading wasn’t always my choice du jour as an adolescent, something stuck as I became a lifelong reader, always finding time to engross myself in yet another gateway into creativity and education.

Years later when I lived in Rhode Island in a small cottage on the edge of a pond, my two older children entertained themselves by gathering quahogs, biking, kayaking, reading, and simply playing. They had bikes and a fair amount of autonomy which sparked their well-managed independence. Leisure time also gave them contemplative time and it sparked many conversations beginning with, “Why?” I loved their sense of adventure as summers were happy and more leisurely, even old-fashioned, and they flourished.

When we moved back to the suburbs of Philadelphia, life was different and faster-paced for all of my children. My youngest, who was nine at the time, immediately signed up for soccer and lacrosse camps, followed by sleep-away summer camp for seven weeks. He loved these structured activities and waited all winter for camp to begin.  I often wished for a little less structure to afford him the opportunity to  lie in the grass as his older brother had, gazing at cloud formations rather than careening down mowed or turf fields. 

Modern Approaches to Summer Boredom

With all of my early years of practice, I am pretty good at self-entertainment. On the other hand, I have thought about my sometimes lonely summers and would have loved a bit more organization. Those three months were long and I could hardly wait to get a summer job which would become a perfect antidote to many hours of downtime.  I realized early on that I would always love the structure, the demands, and the pace of my many positions as an educator. At the same time, no matter how busy I was, I still loved to carve out time for unstructured leisure, which is often a book and a walk on the beach, particularly at sunset. 

Times have changed, and organized activity is now an integral part of the everyday life of our children and a way to handle summer boredom. Summer has also become an extension of the college process as kids cram extra courses or service opportunities abroad. There have been many times I would love to put that particular genie back in the bottle. Courses for passion are one thing but padding a school resumé is another, and there is a great deal wrong with programs that purport to be about helping others when they serve as the cornerstone for a student’s narrative for college.  I have often wondered how young people believe they are qualified to “build a school” without any training to do so.  

As for summer jobs, kids should work because they want to, or need to make money.  They should go to sports camps if that is their passion, and sleepaway camp is often a good mix of organized activities and hammock time, which can be wonderful for the over-scheduled child.  It is also a reminder that our children sometimes should find their own entertainment, and it is not our responsibility to facilitate their fun all the time. We parents also have our own lives and that is important for our children to realize. Also, modeling our own containment and ability to find peace, quiet, and contemplative downtime is an important life lesson.

How Do You Find Balance?

I would love to hear from you about this balance, what you have observed, and how your summers may have been different from those of your children or students.   How do you handle summer boredom?