Just about every parent of a normal healthy child has heard their child complain, kvetch, or nag at some point in their life, “I’m bored! I’m bored!”
Whose responsibility is it to entertain children?
I’m of the opinion that it is not a parent’s responsibility to constantly find fun things to do to ensure that our children are not bored. Instead, we should be teaching them how to self-occupy and be productive.
Thus, the red and green would be “I’m bored, I’m bored” vs. Keeping myself busy.
I also believe that it is super important to give children age-appropriate chores as part of their list of things to do to keep themselves busy.
How do we go about teaching the above red and green? With the same old, tried and true, 6 steps: Label, Picture, Model, Practice, etc.
The charts above are samples of the second step, i.e. “Picture.”
Tips:
To make it more fun, you can take pictures of the children holding actual games and doing pretend chores. Then, print those pics and create a poster of “ways to keep busy.”
Have a Productive week,
Yours,
Dr Devora