Teaching Our Children To Be Productively Bored

The other day at the doctor's office, with all three kids, the doctor joked, what do you do in your spare time?

I just laughed his comment off, but it has had me thinking.

I have three kids under four and under.

With this blog, still keeping the house in order, meals, my marriage, and devoting time to my faith, there is barely enough time to take care of myself.  If I have extra time after all of that, I have way too many hobbies I could fill the spaces with.

I am, without a doubt, busy.

But honestly, I do have free time.

My boys play amazingly well together, they spend hours in a day playing quietly with Lego, choosing work from their shelves, flipping through books.

I attribute a lot of this to Montessori and the prepared environment, while also knowing it has to do with how close my boys are in age (crazy I know). They have never known life without the other brother as built-in entertainment and best friend.

Because of this, I do have free time, which I feel is an incredible gift at this time in my life. I know I waste more of it than I should.

I think about creating a life of meaningful activity for my children, cutting out the passive as often as possible. This is why I limit their screen time. This is why I try to provide open-ended and imaginative toys.

This is why I try to be mindful about the types of electronic toys my children have, why they don't know how to use an iPad.

But do I spend enough time cutting out the passive in my own life?

If my children are watching me, if everything I do is a model for them, as I know it is, am I showing them a healthy relationship between passivity and activity?

Am I practicing what I preach?

While I do believe I deserve downtime, I think I adhere to the lie that this downtime needs to be passive. Watching a tv show, scrolling social media, pinning.

Passive is easier, that is the truth.

But, if I want my children to learn to create, to go to their imaginations and to work when they are bored or find themselves with time to use, I know they need to see me teaching this with how I live, first and foremost.

After all, actions speak louder than words.


Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me. I would also love to hear any suggestions for posts you would like me to write about. And if you are interested in following along in our daily adventures, follow us on Instagram where I post daily.



God bless,
Olivia Fischer