Your child doesn’t need more activities. They need more opportunities to have ideas of their own.
“Mom, I’m bored.”
You suggest Legos.
“No.”
Go outside?
“No.”
Draw something?
“No.”
Read?
Definitely no.
“What do you want to do?”
“I DON’T KNOW.”
So you do what caring parents do.
You start coming up with more ideas.
Maybe you pull out the craft supplies. Search for something on Pinterest. Set up an activity. Buy a craft kit. Suggest a game.
Or eventually hand over a screen because you need to make dinner and you cannot spend the next 45 minutes being cruise director.
There’s nothing wrong with any of those things.
But what if the answer to “I’m bored” isn’t another activity?
What if your child needs more practice figuring out what to do without you deciding for them?
Because there’s something I think we’ve accidentally confused:
Giving our kids things to do isn’t the same as giving them opportunities to think for themselves.
Our kids have plenty to do
Think about how much of a typical 7–10-year-old’s day has already been decided for them.
Wake up.
Get ready.
Go to school.
Follow the schedule.
Complete the assignment.
Go to practice.
Follow the coach.
Come home.
Do homework.
Eat dinner.
Maybe squeeze in another activity before bed.
Even a lot of the things we call “creative” have already been decided.
Here are the supplies.
Here are the instructions.
Here’s what we’re making.
Here’s what it should look like when we’re finished.
And again, none of this is bad.
Kids need structure. They need teachers and coaches. They can learn new skills by following directions. A really good craft kit can be a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
Screens aren’t inherently the problem either.
The question isn’t whether your child ever follows directions, watches a show, plays a video game, or does something an adult planned.
The question is:
How often does your child get to decide what happens next?
Because when most of their day is directed by someone—or something—else, they don’t get much practice doing that.
And sometimes, without realizing it, we fill all the room.
“I’m bored” might be where the thinking starts
As parents, we tend to hear boredom as a problem that needs solving.
Our child says, “I’m bored.”
Our brain hears:
Find them something to do.
But what if we didn’t solve it quite so quickly?
Because the space between:
“I have nothing to do…”
and
“Wait. I have an idea…”
matters.
That’s where a child has to look around.
Wonder.
Remember something they were interested in.
Make a choice.
Try something.
Change their mind.
Combine two things that don’t normally go together.
Dig through a drawer.
Go outside and see what’s there.
Build something that doesn’t have instructions.
Make up a game whose rules make absolutely no sense to anyone except the kids playing it.
That doesn’t always happen immediately.
Especially if a child is used to having that space filled for them.
They may complain.
They may follow you around.
They may reject every suggestion you accidentally make.
They may dramatically announce that there is literally nothing to do in this entire house.
That’s okay.
They are practicing.
Your child isn’t necessarily lacking creativity
Kids are naturally curious.
They wonder about things.
They invent.
Experiment.
Pretend.
Collect.
Build.
Take things apart.
Ask questions we don’t know the answers to.
But curiosity and independent thinking need somewhere to go.
If we constantly step in with the next idea, activity, answer, direction, or solution, our children don’t get as many opportunities to practice using their own.
And this is the shift at the heart of Innovation Kids Lab:
Instead of asking:
What activity can I give my child?
Start asking:
What space can I create for my child to have an idea of their own?
That changes our role.
We don’t disappear.
We don’t stop helping.
We stop believing that helping always means doing the thinking first.
Make Room
The first part of the Innovation Kids Lab philosophy is simple:
Make Room.
Kids need room in their schedules that isn’t already spoken for.
They need physical spaces where they can access materials without waiting for an adult to set everything up.
They need time outside that doesn’t always have an agenda.
They need ordinary household materials that haven’t already been assigned a purpose.
And sometimes they just need an afternoon with nowhere to be.
This isn’t about creating the perfect playroom or buying more supplies.
In fact, it may mean doing less.
Leaving some space unplanned.
Not rushing to fill the silence.
Not answering “What should I do?” immediately.
Giving an idea a chance to show up.
Follow Their Wonder
Once we make room, we start paying attention to what they’re already curious about.
Maybe your child has spent three days trying to catch a frog.
Maybe she’s suddenly drawing floor plans for imaginary houses.
Maybe he wants to know how roller coasters stay on the track.
Maybe they’re building elaborate stores out of cardboard boxes.
Maybe your kid has become inexplicably fascinated with making tiny food out of clay.
We adults are very good at deciding which interests are “educational.”
Kids don’t make that distinction.
They follow what fascinates them.
And that’s exactly where some of their richest thinking begins.
You don’t always have to turn the interest into a lesson.
You don’t need to immediately order The Complete Educational Frog Unit. 😂
Sometimes you simply notice:
There’s something here.
Then give them a little more room to follow it.
Guide, Don’t Direct
Making room doesn’t mean kids never need us.
They absolutely do.
The difference is in how we help.
Imagine your child is trying to build something and it keeps falling over.
The fastest thing to do is fix it.
We know how.
But instead, we might say:
“Hmm. Why do you think it keeps falling?”
Or:
“What could you try?”
Or even:
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Now we’re helping—but the thinking still belongs to the child.
That’s Guide, Don’t Direct.
We can offer materials.
Ask questions.
Model how to approach a problem.
Help when frustration becomes overwhelming.
Teach a skill when it’s needed.
But we try not to take the thinking back.
This is Kid-Directed Thinking
At Innovation Kids Lab, the goal isn’t to raise kids who never need adults.
And it isn’t to produce little entrepreneurs, inventors, artists, or engineers.
It’s to help kids develop ownership of their own thinking.
Kids who can have an idea and trust themselves enough to do something with it.
We think about that process as:
WONDER → CHOOSE → TRY → STRETCH
WONDER
Something catches their attention.
What if…?
CHOOSE
They decide what they want to do with the idea.
Not Mom. Not the teacher. Them.
TRY
They make, build, test, draw, investigate, experiment.
And it may not work.
Good.
STRETCH
They encounter a problem, ask another question, change direction, learn something new, or take the idea further.
Then the cycle begins again.
That’s Kid-Directed Thinking.
The project might eventually end up in the recycling bin.
The thinking doesn’t.
So what should you do the next time your kid says, “I’m bored”?
You don’t have to give a lecture about the importance of independent thinking. 😂
And you don’t need to turn boredom into some kind of parenting standoff.
Just resist solving it immediately.
Give them a little room.
You might say:
“Hmm. I wonder what you’ll come up with.”
And then go back to what you were doing.
Will this magically cause every 8-year-old to skip happily away and spend four hours inventing a solar-powered robot from cardboard?
Probably not.
Especially at first.
But that’s not the goal.
The goal is practice.
Because every time we resist making the choice for them, we give them another opportunity to make one for themselves.
And over time, instead of always asking:
“What can I do?”
they begin asking themselves:
“What could I do?”
That tiny shift matters.
Your child may not need another activity.
They may just need a little more room to have an idea of their own.
When “I’m bored” happens at your house…
It can be surprisingly hard not to jump in with ten ideas—especially when your child is standing two feet away waiting for you to solve the problem.
That’s why I created the I’m Bored Guide for parents of kids ages 7–10.
It will help you make a little more room for Kid-Directed Thinking, respond without becoming the entertainment director, and guide without taking over.
→ Get the free I’m Bored Guide
Because sometimes the best thing we can give our kids isn’t another activity.
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