What To Do When Your Child Says “I’m Bored”

In my job as a gifted teacher, par­ents often come to me with con­cerns about their chil­dren hav­ing appro­pri­ate learn­ing expe­ri­ences in school. Many times, the first clue that a stu­dent is bright or gifted and needs extra chal­lenge is when he or she says, “I’m bored.”

As adults, when we are in a learn­ing sit­u­a­tion that’s bor­ing, it is often because the con­tent is some­thing we already know and don’t need to prac­tice more.

It’s impor­tant for us as par­ents to remem­ber that chil­dren often don’t have the vocab­u­lary or intro­spec­tive abil­ity to explain what they are feel­ing, so they may fall back on “bor­ing” as the clos­est approx­i­ma­tion. They also may not under­stand the root causes of their feel­ings to be able to describe for you where they are com­ing from.

Cer­tainly stu­dents will be bored when the work they are asked to do is too easy and they have already mas­tered it, and it is one of the first things we need to con­sider. But there are many other things that might be con­tribut­ing to the feel­ing that a child asso­ciates with bore­dom. When a child says, “I’m bored…,” it could also mean…

• The work is too hard
• The work isn’t inter­est­ing to me
• The work is…work
• I’m afraid I can’t do it
• I don’t like the subject
• I don’t like the assignment
• I don’t like the teacher
• I don’t like my classmates
• I don’t understand
• I don’t want to understand
• I’m tired
• I’m dis­tracted
• I’m pre­oc­cu­pied
• I’m uncom­fort­able
• I’m angry about some­thing that hap­pened this morning
• I’m wor­ried about some­thing that might hap­pen tomorrow
• I’d rather be at recess
• I’d rather be at home
• I’d rather be at the movies/​pool/​park/​etc.

If we are too quick to assume that “bored” always means “too easy,” then it won’t take long for our chil­dren to learn that when they don’t like doing some­thing, just say­ing those magic words will make it go away

It’s up to us, then, to be sure we don’t take this kind of state­ment at imme­di­ate face value. Instead, ask ques­tions and probe deeper into the sit­u­a­tion to find out more about what is going on and why. Then we will have the infor­ma­tion we need to address the prob­lem and fix it.

(Orig­i­nally posted June 5, 2008 at Grandé With Room)