“I’m bored,” has become a comment I often hear from youngsters.  Unless they can play with something electronic, many kids nowadays feel they have nothing to do.

Being bored wasn’t something we admitted to when I was a child.  Mom or Dad would find more farm work and housework for bored children.  So we discovered all types of hobbies and creative play.

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I’ve discovered, too, that bored children often grow up to be bored adults.  So why not encourage hobbies of many types for your children.  Become involved yourself and include your youngsters.  Introduce them to new activities.  These should include a mix of sit down and active hobbies.

You never know what life will bring. When I had a broken back, as an adult, and lay in bed in a body cast for six weeks, people wondered if I wasn’t bored out of my mind.  No, I had much to do, when I wasn’t too tired.  I read, I wrote, I played games with my granddaughter.  Occasionally the family brought the TV into my room (we only had one in the family room) and played movies.  But I was never bored.

Some hobby ideas:

• Reading
• Board games
• Outdoor games like croquet, catch, hoop shoots
• Sewing and related activities
• Painting, sketching and other arts
• Knitting and crocheting
• Fabric art, altered books
• Scrapbooking
• Photography
• Collections of many kinds
• Geocaching

Some of these may be computer related, like digital photography and scrapbooking, but they’re still using your creativity.

What activities do you encourage with your children?

 “He ended up in prison because he was conditioned for it from childhood,” a motivational speaker said, when talking about the importance of the words we say.  He explained that parents who tell their children they’re no good, they’re a failure, they’ll end up in jail, etc. are conditioning them for these goals.

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 The words we say to our children and the way we say them have a great effect.  That’s not to say that we’re to ignore discipline and sugar coat everything.  But if youngsters hear repeated emphasis on their failures and where these will lead, they’re encouraged to plan in this direction.

 I once asked a psychologist about a boy with Aspberger’s how best to help the child as he progressed through school and prepared for life beyond the home.  “Build upon his strengths,” the psychologist replied.

 I’ve often thought of this when working with any children, whether as a substitute teacher, a grandmother, a friend or neighbor.  Encourage them in their strengths and teach them to turn their weaknesses into strengths or at least minimize them.

 Think about how you’re talking to your children and how you’re conditioning them with the words you say.  

Pets! Aren’t they wonderful. I’ve watched my own nieces and nephews with pets, and seen the bonding that can develop. Not only do children learn responsibility in having to look after and care for a pet, they also develop empathy for them, which transfers into many aspects of their everyday lives.

Image: Flickr

Empathy means you can relate to the animal, (or other person), and understand how things are for them. I think that adults who have enjoyed having pets as children, can often relate well to other people in many different situations.

So, what are good pets for children? Here are the observations I made from my sister’s experiences.

They started with one rabbit, which led to two. A male and a female. Consequently the family had many babies!! The children fed them really well, and cleaned them out with some coaxing The real fun times were when the babies were running around the house. They were normally housed outside, but the little ones would be brought in to be played with.

They were so cute.

The children were shown how to be careful with the babies, and think how they would feel in the same situation. Luckily my sister had old, coloured axminster carpet on the floors, so there was no evidence left behind when the babies left. Well, none that they could see anyway! Seeing them being gently pushed around in a pink Barbie car was cute. Getting them all lined up for a photo was fun, especially when there were 8 of them, and invariably one or two would move just when you were about to take the photo. But there were tender moments also, like sitting in the sun, cuddling a rabbit on your knee.

Outside, the rabbits had many times when they roamed free around the yard and I often found them great company when doing the gardening.

Their other pets include two cats, and these have been great company also. They have freedom to roam the house, and spend their nights sleeping on the kids’ beds. I can relate to this! So nice to hear a purring sound as you drop off to sleep, or have a wet nuzzle to your face in the morning to wake you up, and tell you that somebody’s humgry!

The children have also learnt about the care needed for their pets when they are sick, and about trips to the vet. If you think about it we spend more time and money on vets than for our children when they’re young. This only holds true if your family (like ours!) is lucky enough to rarely needs to go to the doctor!  So, this is all part of the learning process for children about how to care for someone and what to do when they are not well.

Pets can be a lot of work, but if you chose ones that are right for you and your family, they can bring a lot of pleasure and companionship and develop responsibilty and understanding in children.

What do you think?

How are your kids when storms hit town? Tonight we had the neatest lightening display, neat that is as long as you are an adult. As for the children, they didn’t find it so neat. In fact one replied, “Oh great, it’s War of the Worlds.” Yes, he was talking about the movie with Tom Cruise. You know the whole lightening scene where it is continuing to strike in one spot over and over? That’s the scene we had it was amazing.

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But as with all storms, I have one that gets very scared. The baby, he’s only 2 and the only storms he’s heard are the loud ones that come with the sirens so he doesn’t like them. In fact if he hears thunder he runs or tucks himself under a blanket. He did finally fall asleep but he definitely wasn’t looking out from his covers.

How different do your kids react to storms? Do you have one that likes them and another that doesn’t?

When I wrote about grandparents parenting, one of my readers related the joys she’s experienced caring for a grandchild.

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Janet shared:

I took care of my grandson from the time he was six months until he was 2 1/2 while his mom returned to work. It was an absolutely wonderful experience. I am so happy that I had the opportunity to bond with him and to watch him grow.

I watched him crawl for the first time and take his first steps and I helped to potty train him. I will remember these important firsts the same as I remember my own childrens.

He calls me Grammy and I love it!

On a personal note, I’ve had the pleasure of watching my two grandchildren grow, and being involved in their lives,  from the time they were 1 and 5 years old, because they and their parents have lived with us for a number of years.  Now our granddaughter goes off to college in the fall.

Share with us the joys of grandparenting.

If a child is severely ill, the last thing you want is to have him or her become disconnected with school. Interacting with other kids can not only help them laugh and feel “more normal,” but it can also speed up their recovery time. A report from CNN says it can also transport home bound kids to the classroom in some cases. All they have to do is log on, and they can see and hear their regular class, their fellow students, and the teacher.

I think this is a great way for kids to stay connected. A friend of mine had cancer when we were both very young, and she missed tons of school while trying to recuperate at home. If we would have had something like this, her recovery might have been quicker. At the very least, she wouldn’t have had the added stress of having to catch up on lessons after she was finally able to come to school.

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Watching the birds around our home or on walks through the neighborhood has fascinated me since I was a child.  My mom, as a parent who called her children’s attention to the birds around the yard of our farmhouse and the meadows where the cows grazed, encouraged my interest in watching these feathered friends.

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I’ve tried to pass this interest along to my daughter and grandchildren. I’ve sketched and painted birds, researched them, written poems and stories about them, and watched them build nests around our yard.  For the past couple of years, my grandchildren have enjoyed watching a pair of nuthatches (those birds that go down the tree head first) build a nest in the birdhouse just beyond our deck.  There they’ve raised a family, fought off marauding red squirrels, and taught the babies to fly.

When our daughter was young, we had a pair of blue jays make a nest near our side door.  By putting up a blind, my husband could take pictures of the baby birds hatching, being fed, and eventually learning to fly.

The robins in spring, the chickadees in winter, the humming birds among the red flowers in the garden, the owls hooting in the night, and the pileated woodpecker pounding on the trees in the woods all add greatly to the birdwatching experiences we enjoy with our youngsters.

What birdwatching do you have with your children?

When grandparents are involved in parenting roles, whether temporarily, full time, or with a parent, they’ll find many joys:

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• Looking at the world through the eyes of a child again.
• Finding flowers wild and in gardens
• Taking walks at a child’s pace
• Collecting stones to skip on the water
• Finding awe in a bird building its nest
• Struggling through math homework and seeing the child’s face light up when he “gets it.”
• Learning computer skills because grandchildren expect you to be up to date
• Experiencing birthday parties, putting up a Christmas tree, capturing leprechauns on St. Patrick’s Day, coloring eggs at Easter,  planning  surprises and so much more.

What are your grandparenting joys?

As parents we tend to hear a lot of crying and tend to know the difference between each type. I think it starts from the moment they are born, you know the difference in cries from hunger, fear, hurt, fake, etc. Now the question is when do you normally give in to those tears and screams?

A child is heard screaming and shouting inside the supermarket. You are:
-  A. the person on another aisle whispering to yourself what you’d do.

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-  B.  the person that actually does offer advice.
-  C.  you are the parent of the child screaming and throwing a fit.

A child is heard crying outside. You:
-  A.  Immediately jump up to see if it is your child. 
-  B.  Wait a few more seconds, if it is yours they’ll be right in.
-  C. Pause for a moment to hear if it is your child’s voice.

I’ve heard and seen both of these in the past two weeks and I’ve been at just about all the A-Cs. Yes, one was my child in the store, one was someone else’s child. No, I never did offer help. I think even I’d be upset if someone stepped in when mine was crying. As for the child, no it wasn’t mine but I have learned the voices of my children and their cries. 

So now that you know you aren’t the only one that does it you can smile. Today, though I was at a neighbor’s house and got to hear all the children at the end of the loop and the sounds they make. I must say I learned to tell the difference in a fake cry, as one child was tattling on another. It was over someone taking a ball from him, to a real cry when the same child held someone in a headlock. Yes, I happen to live on THAT street.

As you sit there tonight reading there, your children are probably tucked away in bed, you’ve probably heard at least one of these cries tonight. Which one was it? When is it you give in to a cry and when is it you don’t? My kids have tried the crocodile tears on me and discovered they don’t work.  Course they’ve also discovered the lower lip and a hug normally does. Yep, I’m a sucker.

Do you and your youngsters have bedtime story rituals? Is reading a story to young children or allowing them to read at bedtime a fun occasion in your family?

Some of my fondest childhood memories center around bedtime stories.  When we four children were very young, Mother read to us.  We piled on one another’s beds, alternating each evening, while she read chapters from Heidi, Robinson Crusoe, Little Women, and Tom Sawyer.

Then, often during the day, we might act out these stories.  I particularly recall our pretend jaunts around the Swiss Mountains as we visited Heidi, Peter, Clara and Grandfather.

When we were older, reading in bed before I went to sleep was a pleasure that has carried over to adulthood.  Story time became a ritual with our daughter and now grandchildren.  All of us, in our three generation household, read whenever we have a chance and particularly when we crawl into bed.

When parents have bedtime story rituals with their children, they’re developing traditions that often will carry over into future generations.