Is it normal to be bored in summer

These balloons can travel hundreds of miles in a day, and are easy to make. Excel at a complicated game. There are more games out there than you could ever learn in a lifetime, but summer gives you the opportunity to pick one and become a master strategist.

Some games like bridge , chess , Magic , or Starcraft II even have international tournaments with massive rewards for the winners.

Learn to cook. There are thousands of recipes available online or in cookbooks from the library or bookstores, or you could try these easy ideas to start with: Make cold, refreshing smoothies. Try different, even wacky combinations, either to make a nice cold summer drink, or to dare your friends to drink a mysterious concoction. Make a chocolate peanut butter parfait as a delicious dessert. Make hummus for dipping crackers. If you're ambitious, you could even make homemade bread.

Part 2. Get a summer job. It'll keep you busy, introduce you to new people, and earn some money. Helping your community can be satisfying, uplifting work, and of course you're working towards a good cause of well.

Look for organization in your area that pick up trash, work with injured or abandoned animals, or work for political causes. Volunteering also looks good on college applications, although interviews and essays will go a lot better if you are genuinely interested in the work.

Check out a stack of books from the library. Try learning all you can on a particular topic, such as Norse mythology, Japanese history, or space travel. If you want to learn even more, try an online college course. Some of the world's top universities even post lectures online, and these are often more interesting than high school secondary school classes.

Start a journal. Many people keep journals to reflect on their day, work through hard times, or write down their plans for the upcoming day. Maybe, in a few years, you'll read it again and smile at your summer memories. Write a novel. This is a huge project, that could fill your entire summer and more if you get inspired. If you're not sure where to begin, try writing a story imitating your favorite author, or work together with a friend so you can trade ideas. If you have an idea for a novel, but are less experienced at writing, try writing a short story and working your way up.

Learn a language. Knowing a foreign language can lead to many opportunities, not to mention it looks good on college applications.

Get started by finding a beginner's class nearby, or ask a friend or family member to teach you a language they know. Search online for free language lessons, online learning tools, or foreign conversation partners.

Part 3. Hit up local events. Most areas host fairs, festivals, carnivals, or other fun events during the summer. Check your city's calendar online, or ask other people in the area whether they've heard of events. Check the websites or advertisements for nearby venues, including concert locations, theaters, and sports stadiums. Act like a tourist in your own town. Look at your town's or region's tourism website or brochures advertising events and find out what attracts people traveling from other locations.

There might be anything from museums to merry go rounds lurking in your town, or in areas a short drive away. Go camping. Spend a couple days with friends or family at a campsite, or camp in your backyard. Gather friends around a campfire or barbecue to tell scary stories and make s'mores.

Go geocaching. Find a geocaching site online, and look up locations near you to see if anyone has hidden secret rewards. You can search for these caches or hide your own wither with a GPS unit or by finding the coordinates on a map. Invent an indoors vacation. If weather, transportation, or a lack of events prevents you from leaving the house, take a fake vacation. Invite a couple friends for a sleepover and decorate your room like a palace, jungle, hotel, or anything you like.

Go shopping for unusual foods and "souvenirs" to share with your guests. If the weather is rainy, dress up in swimsuits and sunglasses and lounge around indoors pretending you're visiting a location with a proper summer.

Get in touch with old friends. If your current friends are out of town or busy, look through your old yearbooks, phone contacts, or emails and reconnect with people you used to know. Any of the activities above can be more fun with friends, or you can simply spend an afternoon catching up with each other or reminiscing. Try to build something. It could be anything, a house made out of cardboard or a simple 3D puzzle.

This would help you think logically and help you to keep up your resilience. Part 4. Go swimming. If you live in an area where summers are hot, you can have fun and cool off at the same time.

Visit the beach or the pool with friends or family. Not flash cards, not spelling drills, not teaching more difficult material that is developmentally inappropriate, and certainly NOT more standardized tests. They need free, unsupervised play, in which they create the games, they make up the rules, they decide things for themselves, they work out problems amongst themselves without adults swooping in and "fixing" everything for them.

As long as it doesn't get violent—or, in the case of my son and his cousins, as long as there is no profuse bleeding. Play is truly the work of childhood. Play is what builds intelligence, resilience, creativity, communication skills. It has been edited. Because our summer has been pretty boring. Some days, I have felt really, really guilty about that. We may not be able to stop the steady march of time, but we can slow it down.

Make this your summer to remember. Turn a lunch into a picnic or a sunny day into a water war. Pick up the baseball. Put down the phone.

Step into the sprinkler. Laugh out loud instead of typing it, and chances are your kids will do the same. Read more: 51 ways to get your kids off screens this summer 20 great Canadian summer getaways. Photo: Stocksy United. The fix to any of these situations might just be to let yourself be uncomfortable. Instead, try to think about how it might actually help your children. In a time when ipads and smartphones have taken over everything we do, letting go of the chaos and letting boredom set in can breed so much creativity for kids.

They can take some time to figure out how to be kids and just play, while you sit back and relax. Summer boredom can actually lead to your kids finding creativity and rediscovering their imagination. Instead of outside time, give younger kids a safe space in the house for them to figure out what they want to do.