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Nothing to Do
Helping Your Preteen Beat Boredom By Sue Marquette Poremba
But first, parents need to give their children more free time. Structure, while good for many things, still has its limits.
"By immersing children in a regimen of excessive organized and scheduled recreation and education, we do a disservice to them in the name of 'good parenting,'" says Todd Reiher, an associate professor of psychology at Wartburg College.
He believes the best way a parent can "manage" a child's free time is to allow them to have free time. If parents don't provide that opportunity, adolescents may be looking for their own ways to "break the routine."
Sherry Tatar of Aurora, Ill., firmly believes in the importance of children having free time. "Outside of school, I'd prefer the bulk of their time to be unstructured," she says. "This gives them a chance to be a kid and do whatever it is they like to do. They can hang out with friends when they want to, play games with their siblings, use their imaginations, do projects, pursue whatever they're interested in and so on."
Stacy DeBroff, author of SIGN ME UP! The Parents' Complete Guide to Sports, Activities, Music Lessons, Dance Classes and Other Extracurriculars (Free Press, 2003) and founder of MomCentral.com, agrees. "While your child might have a number of opportunities to pursue after-school activities, she also needs time to relax at home," DeBroff says.
"School takes a lot of energy, and your child needs some downtime to play with friends and siblings and to participate in family activities. She may be interested in music, dance, gymnastics or another sport, but she doesn't need to do all of them at the same time."