Your Children are Going to Get Bored During Winter Break - Got Plans?

What to do, what to do?  Children get bored during breaks.  Here was what my school breaks consisted of when I was a child (mind you, there was no computers, Internet, gaming devices, etc. in my household until I was a late teen and young adult).

Watching television.

Chores wherever I went.  Someone always needed laundry, dusting, a car washed, walls and cabinets washed down, and stuff put away.

Drawing, writing and educational workbooks (usually sometimes during the summer, but not often).

Game board playing with a sibling who was four years younger -- not really fun.

Playing in the backyard (but not for long during the winter school breaks--brrrr!)

Note: talking on the phone, not permitted.

That was pretty much it.  Now from the looks of things it seems like there is plenty to do, but consider how long each activity takes.  Not very long.  You can try breaking them up if you are a parent or older sibling.  You could also teach some new activities.  But video games and Internet are indeed the best form of fun, but for how long until your brain turns into mush?

Here are some other things that would sometimes come up that I would get to do during school breaks:

Go grocery or household shopping with parents and relatives.

Visit a new place, new relative or participate in a new event.

Travel.

Ride the public bus.

Note:  Hanging out with friends and going to their homes, not permitted.  I must say, this kept me out of trouble because so-called friends ended up pregnant, drunk, on drugs, in jail, or kicked out the house.  I could count on one hand, once I became a teen, how many times I got to go over a sincere "Christian" friend's home and we didn't even go to church--lol!

Now here's the cool stuff you can do nowadays!!

Blog.

Photo taken by N. McGuire

Upload and share pictures and information.

Create things with photos using a computer.

Send emails and texts to friends.

Choose a variety of games online.

Tweet.

Create media online.

Record all sorts of things online.

And on, and on, and on!

Download music to an electronic device.  (You are so lucky, I had to wait for mine through snail mail back in the day and it sure didn't cost .99 cents for music you really liked--you had to buy the whole cassette, CD and for my parents, they bought albums and eight tracks at music stores and through the mail.)

In closing, parents and children, do enjoy the break!  Think about the fact that many children recently died, maybe just maybe taking a day or two off from your routines (of working, gaming, Internet surfing etc.)  and spending it with family isn't so bad--hey why not try a fun board game from back in the day? God bless!

Nicholl