I am Bored

How many of you have heard this line from your kids at regular intervals when you are travelling or when you are on a long car drive? We would have hardly completed one item on our agenda when the question will be " what next"? or " I am bored" or  "Can we go back to the room". While this seems slightly exaggerated and not exactly true at all times, the general trend is that kids do get bored easily than ever before. Sometimes this can also happen when they are probably watching something and you may see them multitasking while doing that. While the easiest answer to this is " let them be bored" and it is not our duty to entertain, this may not be the best approach always as we still haven't got to the root cause of the problem. Though another mistake, I do is to compare and say " oh in our younger days we have been so self occupied that we just did not crib like this". That just opens up a Pandora's box including "Amma, haven't you told us not to compare?"

The easiest way to entertain is pretty obvious and a no brainer. While the whole idea is to avoid the same and look at innovative ways that probably work in answering the subject line. I am sure you would have tried one or all of the below?

• Read a book: Duh? This is if the kid enjoys reading else? Still its The same answer Read a book. Use any medium but get this habit started be it audio books or reading to kids or asking them to read. Trick is to get them keen on a genre that they like so the transition to reading is seamless. Disclaimer: All this may fail and you may still go back to the subject line in no time
• Board games: This vastly includes everything from monopoly to cards and again may last for a bit based on number of kids and the dynamics involved. One serious fight can cause a lot of heartburn while sometimes it can last for a while if all parties are keen. This can be word/number games too that do not require you to carry anything
•  Music: The next obvious choice unless you do not want to listen to the songs. In that case probably a headphones maybe?
• Art/sketch/colour

The idea in general when you are ona holiday, is also to package these long tours and sight seeing in a fun way. Story telling seems to work wonders in most situation. While we see a lot of this happen in most international holidays ,it was heartening to see this happen in our recent trip to the pink city. While we heard some excellent stories across the amer fort , city palace and jantar mantar the most fun thing for the kids was the Amrapalli Jewelry museum. Surprised?We had the kids(girls and boy) enjoying this sound and guide tour inside a museum of 28 exhibits. They probably spent the longest time, listening, assimilating and taking in the history of jewelry in India.The packaging was perfect and there were interesting stories across every piece that they loved listening to. Again, this is just one medium of making learning fun and across the world there are many more innovative ways of story telling that attracts all generations. The other thing that seemed to work is the hands-on experience. This we experienced in the block printing museum where they could try their hand at the same. The kids loved this and looked forward to understanding and learning this more. While as parents we can't do this throughout clearly the idea is to incorporate this as much in any holiday to make it a fun learning experience.

This is not an utopian solution to the " I am bored" problem statement. This is just my observation on how attention spans have evolved not just for our kids but for us too. While I  do ignore the line on most days it does help to see the silver lining on what works. 

Whats been your most fun learning experience while traveling?