School is out; the kids are home for the summer, and they think they have a lot of time on their hands. Little do they know how quickly it passes. How will the time be spent? Will it be used wisely or wasted? 

I realize the answers to these questions vary widely because they are a matter of opinion. What one person thinks is of great value, another may call a total waste of time. With that said, I am going to share one of my pet peeves. I really dislike it when someone complains saying “I’m bored”. It always comes across, to me, as rude and demanding. Implied in the statement is the idea that the person, being spoken to, is somehow responsible for the uninterested, tired, and lazy attitude of the complainer. Remember, you are there with the complainer so; you must be part of the reason for the boredom. I find that a little insulting. It is inferred that the listener has failed, at their job, to entertain and otherwise cater to the “bored one”. The complainer may or may not expect you, the listener, to solve the problem but the statement makes it sound as if they do. My great grandmother use to say, “It takes a boring person to be bored.”   As you can tell, by her statement, she believed we are intelligent, industrious individuals with the ability to think and use our imaginations creatively. We are not meant to be stagnant couch-potato types who sit on the expectation of someone else entertaining or providing stimulation of some sort. When we were infants we were able to play for hours with a paper bag, a wooden spoon and an old pot or wooden blocks that served as cars, rockets, skyscrapers … you get the idea. Why suddenly as teens or adults are we “bored”?