My children have been home for spring break for nearly two weeks now and I am more than ready for them to go back to school!
I’m really not sure what the difference is between today and when I was a child. I didn’t require nearly the amount of entertainment my own children do. If I ever I whined about being bored, my parents told me to go outside – though honestly I can’t remember whining that much (I can almost hear my mother laughing now) When I was the age of my youngest we lived in a neighborhood full of children. I was allowed to walk down the block and to the homes of my two best friends. I didn’t have a cell phone or even a watch and yet I knew when to go home for dinner.
When I got a little older, roller skating was my thing. I went through several pairs – actually skated the wheels off of them! My first boyfriend (age 9) lived across the street and he’d pull me around behind his bike with a jump rope. Look mom – no helmets! We spent hours doing loops around the block that way.
By the time I was a pre-teen my horizons expanded – I had a ten speed bike. I rode that bike just about everywhere. I can’t actually remember having any restrictions on how far I went – I suppose my parents just trusted me. By the time I was twelve, I rode it a couple of miles on neighborhood streets to the home of my best friend. She and I mostly just walked around and talked.
I have always been very good at entertaining myself, even when I had no friends around. I read books, I taught myself to cross stitch, I planted flowers. When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time either on the phone or asleep 
One time when my mother was at worked I pulled the wallpaper off the bathroom walls and painted!
So why is it that my own children cannot entertain themselves better? My own mother worked, but I don’t think that it is entirely due to my being a stay-at-home mom – I’ve heard similar complaints from friends who work full time. Is it the fact that today there are TV channels with dedicated children’s programming around the clock? Video games? More theme parks and activity centers? If so, then I think all of this “progress” has stunted the development of the important skill of self entertainment.
Now that I’m an adult, I have several other ways to entertain myself. I still read, I write, I quilt, I cook. This weekend I’m leaving the children with Mr. Matthews, jumping on a plane, and going to Qatar to visit some dear friends who I haven’t seen in almost a year. We have no definite plans but I’m confident that we’ll find a multitude of ways to entertain ourselves!
