Every school holidays, parents put pressure on themselves to keep the children entertained. We book the activities, organise outings and try to fill every day so no one is ever stuck for something to do. Then we reach the last week worn out, the children are tired too, and the break has not really given anyone what a break is for.
Behaviour is communication and boredom is that. When children tell us they’re bored, they are communicating something. Even though it is directed at adults, it’s not always that they need us to entertain them. Sometimes children just share that they are in an uncomfortable space before they’ve worked out what comes next and what they can do.
I have worked inside schools and alongside families for more than twenty five years, and I watch this happen every holidays. Here is what has always been the same for all ages.
The Problem with Overscheduled School Holiday Activities
The holidays were never meant to be another timetable and over scheduled week. School already runs a child’s whole day for them. There is a bell for everything, a room to be in, a group to sit with and lessons to learn. When we bring that same approach home, we have just moved the busy day, not taken a break from it at all.
What a child needs from the holidays is the part school can never give them, which is a day without pressure or structure to it. Days where nobody has to be anywhere. This is where the gift of boredom lives, and boredom is actually doing more for your child and their development than back to back activities can.
What to Do When Kids Are Bored in School Holidays
Here is the thing about a child who has run out of things to do. That restless, nothing-to-do feeling is not a problem you have to solve. It is the moment right before your child makes something of their own. Give it a few minutes and it turns into a cubby under the kitchen table, or a game with rules only they understand, or a long stretch of staring out the window that you will never get an explanation for. None of that happens if an adult steps in first and sees it only as a problem to fix.
Boredom is the place where children create something of their own and notice what their next interest might be. To start an ongoing project that lives on the kitchen table, learning through play and problem solving, patience and perseverance.
Breaking the Fast-Fix Habit: Screens vs. True Creativity
Most of us do step in, though. A child says they are bored and we automatically try to solve it, plan an outing, or we hand over a screen just to occupy them. That reach for the screen is worth noticing also, because it tells you something.
The question is not about how much time is too much. It is to question what the screen is standing in for and what it is replacing. A child does not usually want the screen itself, they are looking for the uncomfortable empty space filled, and the screen is the quickest thing within reach for parents and children.
Once you understand that, you have an opportunity to prepare and have something else in that space before the boredom approaches. Then the screen stops being the only way and creativity can lead their day.
Overcoming Parent Guilt During the School Break
This is also where a lot of parent guilt is noticed. We feel it when the day is more relaxed and we have not planned anything big and when the screen has been on longer than we anticipated.
It is noticed when we start to focus more on other families and their bigger, perfect looking holidays.
But that guilt is useful at times. It’s a message to change something, to look at what you have and what you might shift for more connection within your family, to take steps to have that with your children using this time together your way instead of trying to be like others.
Your child is not comparing your holiday to anyone else’s. The honest measure of a good day is how it feels inside your own home, with your children and you are the one who can understand and notice that. Let that be your compass, not a photo on your phone from someone whose real day you never saw, their before, after or connection with their children.
Managing the Holidays While Working
None of this gets easier when you are working, and I am not suggesting you be home every hour. Quality over quantity of time is important to focus on. How you spend the moments you do get amongst work commitments. How you fill the empty space where boredom can live with finding small wins to use this space to connect together, let them lead the ideas so they can practice this ability for when you are not there.
Lean on Your Village
Lean on the people around you. Grandparents, an aunty, a good neighbour, whoever your child is safe and happy with. What holds a child through the term is not the number of hours you spend together or the moments you filled and entertained them. It is whether the hours you do get are spent with them properly.
Ask them what they think about something and mean it. Ask what they would do if the whole day were theirs to run. Have the adults they spend time with approach this the same. When you hear a child’s own opinions come out, you meet the person they are turning into, and where boredom invites this way of thinking.
Simple, Low-Cost Things to Do in School Holidays
Every term, your child is a little different and their interests change. The friends they talk about are new. The jokes and phrases used are different, and their questions get harder to answer.
You are in a new season of parenting too, whether you have noticed it or not. The holidays are one of the few times it’s slow enough to catch up with who your child is now, rather than who they were last term. Miss it, and you meet the new version of them in a rush, somewhere between the routines of the day and filling each empty space where this can be noticed.
Remember, you do not need to spend a lot to make it count. A handful of good afternoons across the whole break is more than enough. A picnic with the scooters and the dog. A movie night with popcorn and a film you loved at their age and time with nothing planned but a child left to their own boredom until they find their way out of it.
Those are the days a child comes back to, the ones with no pressures. Home does not have to perform. It only has to be the one place your child can put everything down and just be themselves.
The Ultimate Holiday Gift: Space to Grow
So the next time an empty afternoon appears and your child tells you they are bored, you might not need to do a single thing about it, but notice how they are feeling and turn it into a positive experience with them. It is not an emptiness in your holidays.
This is the best part of getting to think for themselves in a way schedules and entertainment don’t allow space for. And while your child is busy finding their own way through it, you get the most valuable thing of the year handed to a parent. A bit of room to look up and really see them, your child and who they are now.
Every school holidays we meet a different version of our child. The real question is not whether we kept them entertained or done enough. It is whether we gave them, and ourselves, enough space and down time to notice who they were becoming.
About Jess Robertson
Jess Robertson is a Child and Family Connection Strategist, advisor, speaker and author with 25+ years experience supporting children, teenagers, parents and educators across Australia. Over that time, she has worked with more than 5,000 children and supported thousands of families and educators, helping adults better understand what children’s behaviour, learning and relationships are communicating.
Jess is the founder of Journey Together and creator of The Connection Advantage Method. She is regularly invited to share her expertise through national media, podcasts and speaking events, including Channel 9’s Today show, an on-stage at the Sydney Opera House, and expert features in The Daily Telegraph.
Her work also extends to advising organisations and technology companies on child development, family relationships and child safety in the age of AI.
Website: journey-together.com.au | jessrobertson.com.au
Instagram: @jessrobertsonofficial
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jess-robertson-au