Why Playing With Your Kids Is Boring
Have you ever wondered if there’s mums out there who love being around their kids 24/7?
Mums that lavish in hours and hours of play time and never need time for themselves?
Can we all agree that unicorns don’t really exist?
I regularly hear from mums who feel incredibly guilty that they don’t love playing with their kids for long periods of time.
They feel bored, distracted, not very present.
And then they layer guilt on top of themselves for having those feelings.
There are three main reasons why you feel bored when you’re playing with your kids.
Once you learn the reasons you’ll be able to deal with the boredom more quickly and remove the additional layer of guilt that you’re piling on yourself.
You think you should be doing something else
You get your kids all set up for colouring and decide you’ll sit and join them for a while… but after 30 seconds your eyes are darting over to the dishes, or the toys on the floor, or to your phone lying silently beside your hand.
You had high hopes of some quality time but this is boring and they’re occupied, so you feel like you should be doing something more productive.
Sound familiar?
The great news is that you can stop feeling guilty for this.
The reason you can stop feeling guilty is because you likely feel like you should be doing something else in many scenarios in your life.
When you’re working, you feel like you should be with your kids.
When you’re doing laundry, you’re thinking about getting dinner in the oven.
Our brains often think there’s a “better” option or something else we should be doing.
Observe how often the feeling of wanting to do something else is happening in your life. You’ll soon realise it’s nothing personal to do with your kids, it’s just how your brain is working.
You don’t remember how to be present
Thanks to our devices (and a large dash of the patriarchy instilling the role of ‘project manager’ in our homes) we’re not really sure what presence looks like most of the time.
We’re usually drawn to pick up our phone or look over our to do list for the day again and again to make sure we’re getting on with the next thing.
A great strategy to overcome this is to just look at your kids. Look at their eyelashes, their cheeks, their hands. Breathe deeply and take little photographs in your mind.
Your to do list can melt away, even for a few moments, and you can decide if you like how presence feels to you.
You feel guilty for not loving play
I call this layering a negative emotion on top of a negative emotion.
Feeling bored usually involves some restlessness, maybe some annoyance in our mind, a little bit of agitation.
When we start saying in our minds “You shouldn’t feel bored… you’re a bad mum for feeling bored… but this is so boring” we are layering guilt on top of the boredom.
When it comes up for you, feel as bored as you want to.
Feel what it feels like in your body.
Notice how you want to react to it and get out of it as soon as you can.
See the boredom slowly moving through and out of your body.
Let it go and move on with whatever you feel next.
Play time can be boring and the sooner you stop making that a big deal, the more easily boredom will move on from your mind.
As mums we make a big deal out of feeling bored playing with our kids, when it’s just another emotion that’s coming up in our day to day life.
The irony is we don’t want to dwell on the boredom but by worrying about it so much we make it much bigger than it needs to be.
Now you know how to process the boredom, add a little more presence, and forgive yourself for not loving play time 100% of the time.
Let me know in the comments how these techniques go for you.
If you’re sick of feeling bored and guilty, I’d also love to share my free guide for getting more balanced and organised in your day. Once you feel more organised and balanced, you’ll know exactly when you’re playing with your kids and the rest of your to do list will also be scheduled. Boredom and guilt will start to come up less and less.