Scouting For “Unbored” Kids In The Winter - Mayflower Council

A helpful post from Scouting Magazine outlines information about boredom…

We’re just a few days into winter, and my kids are already tearing the paint off the walls. Beyond school break and the COVID caution, we’re all staring at each other a whole lot.

Looking for relief during the holiday vacation, we found a helpful article from Scouting Magazine. And while the information might be a few years old, the sage wisdom makes a whole lot of sense to this parent.

Back in December 2014, in his article entitled, “Activities to help your kids beat winter boredom,” Mark Ray posted, “it’s the rare kid who doesn’t complain about being bored during long breaks from school.

“So what should you do when you hear ‘I’m bored’? To find out, Scouting talked with two experts: Josh Glenn, co-author of Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun (Bloomsbury USA, 2012), and Jean Van’t Hul, author of The Artful Parent: Simple Ways to Fill Your Family’s Life with Art & Creativity (Roost Books, 2013) and host of the Artful Parent blog (artfulparent.com).”

The top takeaways include:

A Little Boredom Is OK
Preparation Is Essential
Screens Aren’t (Necessarily) The Enemy
Fun Is A Team Sport

But, one anti-boredom balm seemed to elude all of our authors (although admittedly, participation in BSA was probably assumed based on the publication).

However, as we are entering another membership drive here at Mayflower Council, we would also include:

Join Scouting!

Example: Two of my three sons are members of local units. And while the Cub Scout was excited to join members of his Lions Den for a special Pinewood Derby garage (for the Kindergarten set) and looks forward to the next meeting, the older Scout asked to invite a member of his troop to the local Scout Reservation for a hike. We did that.

Then, the middle guy invited a friend along and said we could consider them both “recruits.” We’re heading to the trail tomorrow.

Suddenly holiday break seems just a little too short for this sappy Assistant Scoutmaster!

So, if you are interested in joining Scouting, just send me an email. I’ll get your family signed up before anyone in the house utters b-o-r-e-d.