Bored

#bored#feeling#boredom#toys#finding something

Being bored rarely means there is nothing to do. More often it means the distance between wanting something and getting started is too long right now, and the pictures below shorten that distance to a choice between a few options.

A child with a bored expression sits with their chin in their hands on a red stool, with a ball, a toy car, a tablet showing a question mark and a stacking toy on the floor.

♀

Child sitting bored among toys

A child with a bored expression sits with their chin in their hands on a red stool, with a ball, a toy car, a tablet showing a question mark and a stacking toy on the floor.

About this visual support

Sitting in the gap between two things is a skill of its own. The body is restless, the head does not know what to do, and at the same time every suggestion from outside feels wrong. That is why boredom is rarely a problem of supply: the toys are still in the box, but choosing among them takes a start that does not arrive by itself.

Visual support helps by making the supply smaller. Five pictures on the table are easier to choose between than a whole room of possibilities, and a child who points at a picture has already covered half the run-up. Which activity it turns out to be matters less; the point is that the decision becomes small enough to make.

One tip is to let one of the pictures be clearly dull, folding socks for instance. The contrast makes the other options more appealing and the decision faster. In Routined a small choice menu can sit as a fixed part of the afternoon, and the app can be tried for fourteen days at no cost.