I’m really moved by what you shared here. What comes through so clearly is not just insight about boredom, but the deep compassion you’re holding for your former self as a mother who was doing the very best she could with what she knew and what she was carrying at the time.
I’m struck by how gently you’re able to look back and see the logic that once made perfect sense, without turning that awareness into self-blame. There’s so much integration here — recognizing how temperament, ADHD, circumstance, and your own anxious wiring all interacted, without reducing the story to any one cause.
What feels especially powerful is how this reflection shows your own growth in distress tolerance. The way you speak about your youngest son, and about boredom now, tells me as much about your healing as it does about your parenting.
There’s a lot of wisdom, humility, and tenderness in this piece. I can feel how much you’ve lived and learned inside this story.
As soon as I saw the phrase "wilderness therapy," I was hooked. I participated in a Mid-Life/Career Planning week in 1998, at the age of 42, at the Outward Bound School in Leadville, Colorado. A week at 10,000 feet above sea level, no contact with the outside world, a day on a challenge ropes course, a day of whitewater rafting, a day of rock climbing, a 3-day wilderness backpacking trek with a climb up Mt. Elbert at over 14,000 feet and NOT on a trail, ending with a 24 hour solo experience. Last assignment was to write ourselves a letter setting our "next step" life/career goals for the following 3-5 years, which OB staff mailed to us 6 months later. Mind-blowingly hardest week of my life AND just like your son...totally transformative. I'm SO glad to hear it turned out that way for him.
No question that wilderness is an incredible teacher. When my son was out there, we spent three days with him and even that was life-changing. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around his living out there for three months in the dead of Winter. I am so grateful for the lessons he learned while he was there. More importantly, he's grateful for it.
Another member of the What I’ve Learned as a Mama the Hard Way Club! I really do believe our children choose us for a reason. Often which is not apparent for ever so long. You know your kids well and that, my friend, is more than half the battle of figuring out what they need. What I love about your writing is your willingness to walk into the muck, look like you don’t know what you’re doing, admit it, and then keep walking until it makes sense and there is light again. Your writing sparkles. The honesty is like biting into a lemon…both sour and sweet at the same time. Have a wonderful Friday!
Wow, this is such a beautiful framing, thank you. I love the image of the sweet and the sour together, if that doesn't sum up parenting, I don't know what does.
Made me stop and think about how I raised my son. He was super high energy and I only got to have him half time (divorce was brutal for him and I). We spend a lot of timing running around being busy. Now he’s an adult he enjoy a lot of his own down time. I’m still learning myself how to sit still and boredom still frightens me- most likely from a nervous system in chaos… I do always have comfort in knowing I tried so damn hard to be a good mom. Every card he writes me now he says I am a good mom. So I think I did better with him than my broken parents did for me. Hoping I ended the cycle here!
This all feels very resonant to me. It sounds like whatever you did, you left a positive impact. And I truly understand in my core now that the best we can do is the best we can do with what we have to work with giving more than we were able to get is a huge deal.
Wow, that wilderness experience sounds powerful. It reminds me a bit of my first experience of a 7-day silent meditation retreat. So important that we learn ways to sit with ourselves and meet what's there. To learn that we don't need to be on the run from ourselves ❤
I loved this one I’m reading it not only as a parenting story, but as a writer’s one too. A life shaped by movement, structure, keeping things going, keeping things contained. And the slow realisation that creativity doesn’t actually grow there.
I’m an educationalist too, and as I read this I could hear that familiar murmur from the classroom: I’m bored, offered as if it were an explanation, or an excuse. I’ve heard myself respond, more than once, I’m not here to entertain you, I’m here to educate you. If I wanted to be an entertainer, I’d be on the stage. At the time, it felt like a defence of rigour. Now it lands differently. Boredom isn’t a failure of teaching. It’s often the beginning of thinking.
Those gaps you describe, the long unfilled stretches, the quiet Saturdays, the sudden removal of structure, are the same spaces where children draw inward. And where adults, if we let ourselves, begin to hear what can’t be accessed while everything is in motion.
I recognise the anxious pull to keep the train moving. Not just for children, but in myself. Stillness can feel unsafe. Boredom can feel like something is about to go wrong. So we organise, fill, plan, distract. Reading this, I felt how deeply that makes sense, and how costly it can be too.
The way you hold the differences between your sons mattered to me. There’s no flattening here. Temperament matters. ADHD matters. Circumstance matters. Parenting matters. But none of it stands alone. That kind of honesty feels rare and important.
And that final moment with your youngest stayed with me most. Oh good. I can’t wait to see what comes next. That feels like a quiet reorientation. An invitation to trust the gap instead of rushing to close it. Not just as a parent, but as a way of being.
This made me think about the lost art of creative boredom. Those spaces where nothing is demanded, where the self can fold inward, where something unplanned begins to form. I’m grateful you named it, and named it with this much care.
Thank you so much for this. It's funny how I recognize the importance of it now, but still struggle very much with it myself. It's absolutely a work in progress for me.
I love how you expand this idea into education and other areas of living.
believe me I'm bored or its boring are the words a teacher learns to dread. Even parents use it to challenge low grades or lack of homework. Their child isn't learning not because they are not working but because as a teacher you are boring . . . . god, how I hate the entertainment culture.
I regret that we did not take the time and make the effort to allow our older child to experience boredom. Dxed with both ADHD and Autism, and intelligent. The kind of child who also seems to excel at everything for a long time. And then not.
Younger sibling has no diagnoses (also no testing). Nothing came easy to this child. And now this child is the one who is thriving at 23 while the other struggling in many ways at 25 after having left a near full ride education at a private university just after the final Withdrawal date would have allowed us reimbursement.
Of course, it was years later, and after the loss of the scholarships and grants that the school has modified its Student Support programs. But when school was so easy that the child became bored, the local (commuting) music scene replaced the education that competes with Ivy.
Easy is boring. But unless it is allowed to be experienced, something unhealthy (not that the music scene is unhealthy, but perhaps too soon at 19) will replace it rather than cultivate it into learning and growth.
This reflection resonated with me so deeply. Thank you for sharing such an honest and powerful journey of parenting, growth, and the lessons that come from stillness. Your story is a reminder that boredom is not the enemy—it’s an opportunity for self-discovery and resilience. I’m inspired by how your son transformed his relationship with quiet and discomfort, and by how you’ve embraced a new approach with your youngest. This is a beautiful testament to the strength of both children and parents to learn, adapt, and grow through even the hardest seasons.
Thank you for this gift of a response. These were some hard, fought lessons over a lot of years, but I am grateful to be able to tell this story from where we sit now.
You sound like a loving, wonderful mother to three boys who need different mothers to thrive. And you are that unique person for all three of them. How beautiful and also exhausting 🤍🤍🤍
These are beautiful insights about yourself and your boys. How frightening to see your oldest unravel and not be able to reach him because he had to reach himself. The powerlessness and ache as a parent...ugh. Thank you for sharing this beautiful story of what love, growth, and not giving up on someone can do. Well done Mama ☮️
This gives me chills, thank you for this. It was such a hard few years, and only in retrospect can I feel how very worth it was. I will never stop feeling grateful for the work he did and the man he is becoming.
I really like and value all your reflections and am so happy for you that you managed all that growing whilst keeping your immediate family unit intact. And I’m so sorry for the tragic loss of your 5 family members.
I’m really moved by what you shared here. What comes through so clearly is not just insight about boredom, but the deep compassion you’re holding for your former self as a mother who was doing the very best she could with what she knew and what she was carrying at the time.
I’m struck by how gently you’re able to look back and see the logic that once made perfect sense, without turning that awareness into self-blame. There’s so much integration here — recognizing how temperament, ADHD, circumstance, and your own anxious wiring all interacted, without reducing the story to any one cause.
What feels especially powerful is how this reflection shows your own growth in distress tolerance. The way you speak about your youngest son, and about boredom now, tells me as much about your healing as it does about your parenting.
There’s a lot of wisdom, humility, and tenderness in this piece. I can feel how much you’ve lived and learned inside this story.
Gah, thank you for another beautiful response. I've had a lot of forced growth over the years. As hard as it was that, I'm grateful for it.
Boredom for an introvert?
Are you kidding?
The pandemic was the best
Remover of compulsory social
Interaction/distraction
Ever! 😊
Boredom for an Extrovert?
OMG what do I do with myself?
Where’s my peeps?
Who do I bounce off of?
Agony!! ☹
Exactly right.
As soon as I saw the phrase "wilderness therapy," I was hooked. I participated in a Mid-Life/Career Planning week in 1998, at the age of 42, at the Outward Bound School in Leadville, Colorado. A week at 10,000 feet above sea level, no contact with the outside world, a day on a challenge ropes course, a day of whitewater rafting, a day of rock climbing, a 3-day wilderness backpacking trek with a climb up Mt. Elbert at over 14,000 feet and NOT on a trail, ending with a 24 hour solo experience. Last assignment was to write ourselves a letter setting our "next step" life/career goals for the following 3-5 years, which OB staff mailed to us 6 months later. Mind-blowingly hardest week of my life AND just like your son...totally transformative. I'm SO glad to hear it turned out that way for him.
No question that wilderness is an incredible teacher. When my son was out there, we spent three days with him and even that was life-changing. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around his living out there for three months in the dead of Winter. I am so grateful for the lessons he learned while he was there. More importantly, he's grateful for it.
Another member of the What I’ve Learned as a Mama the Hard Way Club! I really do believe our children choose us for a reason. Often which is not apparent for ever so long. You know your kids well and that, my friend, is more than half the battle of figuring out what they need. What I love about your writing is your willingness to walk into the muck, look like you don’t know what you’re doing, admit it, and then keep walking until it makes sense and there is light again. Your writing sparkles. The honesty is like biting into a lemon…both sour and sweet at the same time. Have a wonderful Friday!
Wow, this is such a beautiful framing, thank you. I love the image of the sweet and the sour together, if that doesn't sum up parenting, I don't know what does.
Made me stop and think about how I raised my son. He was super high energy and I only got to have him half time (divorce was brutal for him and I). We spend a lot of timing running around being busy. Now he’s an adult he enjoy a lot of his own down time. I’m still learning myself how to sit still and boredom still frightens me- most likely from a nervous system in chaos… I do always have comfort in knowing I tried so damn hard to be a good mom. Every card he writes me now he says I am a good mom. So I think I did better with him than my broken parents did for me. Hoping I ended the cycle here!
This all feels very resonant to me. It sounds like whatever you did, you left a positive impact. And I truly understand in my core now that the best we can do is the best we can do with what we have to work with giving more than we were able to get is a huge deal.
Thought provoking. I had to think back to how I handled my sons.... a good read. :)
Thank you. I've had lots of years to think about parenting!
Wow, that wilderness experience sounds powerful. It reminds me a bit of my first experience of a 7-day silent meditation retreat. So important that we learn ways to sit with ourselves and meet what's there. To learn that we don't need to be on the run from ourselves ❤
Absolutely. I feel like I'm going to always be learning that lesson.
This is an important piece and the issue of boredom is not discussed enough. Thank you 🙏
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. This community never fails to leave me in awe.
I loved this one I’m reading it not only as a parenting story, but as a writer’s one too. A life shaped by movement, structure, keeping things going, keeping things contained. And the slow realisation that creativity doesn’t actually grow there.
I’m an educationalist too, and as I read this I could hear that familiar murmur from the classroom: I’m bored, offered as if it were an explanation, or an excuse. I’ve heard myself respond, more than once, I’m not here to entertain you, I’m here to educate you. If I wanted to be an entertainer, I’d be on the stage. At the time, it felt like a defence of rigour. Now it lands differently. Boredom isn’t a failure of teaching. It’s often the beginning of thinking.
Those gaps you describe, the long unfilled stretches, the quiet Saturdays, the sudden removal of structure, are the same spaces where children draw inward. And where adults, if we let ourselves, begin to hear what can’t be accessed while everything is in motion.
I recognise the anxious pull to keep the train moving. Not just for children, but in myself. Stillness can feel unsafe. Boredom can feel like something is about to go wrong. So we organise, fill, plan, distract. Reading this, I felt how deeply that makes sense, and how costly it can be too.
The way you hold the differences between your sons mattered to me. There’s no flattening here. Temperament matters. ADHD matters. Circumstance matters. Parenting matters. But none of it stands alone. That kind of honesty feels rare and important.
And that final moment with your youngest stayed with me most. Oh good. I can’t wait to see what comes next. That feels like a quiet reorientation. An invitation to trust the gap instead of rushing to close it. Not just as a parent, but as a way of being.
This made me think about the lost art of creative boredom. Those spaces where nothing is demanded, where the self can fold inward, where something unplanned begins to form. I’m grateful you named it, and named it with this much care.
Thank you so much for this. It's funny how I recognize the importance of it now, but still struggle very much with it myself. It's absolutely a work in progress for me.
I love how you expand this idea into education and other areas of living.
believe me I'm bored or its boring are the words a teacher learns to dread. Even parents use it to challenge low grades or lack of homework. Their child isn't learning not because they are not working but because as a teacher you are boring . . . . god, how I hate the entertainment culture.
I can only imagine how you would dread that as a teacher!
beautifully and compassionately said. AS always, loved reading what you wrote/write
Thank you for this!
I regret that we did not take the time and make the effort to allow our older child to experience boredom. Dxed with both ADHD and Autism, and intelligent. The kind of child who also seems to excel at everything for a long time. And then not.
Younger sibling has no diagnoses (also no testing). Nothing came easy to this child. And now this child is the one who is thriving at 23 while the other struggling in many ways at 25 after having left a near full ride education at a private university just after the final Withdrawal date would have allowed us reimbursement.
Of course, it was years later, and after the loss of the scholarships and grants that the school has modified its Student Support programs. But when school was so easy that the child became bored, the local (commuting) music scene replaced the education that competes with Ivy.
Easy is boring. But unless it is allowed to be experienced, something unhealthy (not that the music scene is unhealthy, but perhaps too soon at 19) will replace it rather than cultivate it into learning and growth.
I hear this. And we all do the best we can with the information we have at the time. Those retrospect give us a lot of important information.
This reflection resonated with me so deeply. Thank you for sharing such an honest and powerful journey of parenting, growth, and the lessons that come from stillness. Your story is a reminder that boredom is not the enemy—it’s an opportunity for self-discovery and resilience. I’m inspired by how your son transformed his relationship with quiet and discomfort, and by how you’ve embraced a new approach with your youngest. This is a beautiful testament to the strength of both children and parents to learn, adapt, and grow through even the hardest seasons.
Thank you for this gift of a response. These were some hard, fought lessons over a lot of years, but I am grateful to be able to tell this story from where we sit now.
You sound like a loving, wonderful mother to three boys who need different mothers to thrive. And you are that unique person for all three of them. How beautiful and also exhausting 🤍🤍🤍
Well, this is a high order compliment, thank you. And yes, it is deeply exhausting, as I know you know!
These are beautiful insights about yourself and your boys. How frightening to see your oldest unravel and not be able to reach him because he had to reach himself. The powerlessness and ache as a parent...ugh. Thank you for sharing this beautiful story of what love, growth, and not giving up on someone can do. Well done Mama ☮️
This gives me chills, thank you for this. It was such a hard few years, and only in retrospect can I feel how very worth it was. I will never stop feeling grateful for the work he did and the man he is becoming.
I really like and value all your reflections and am so happy for you that you managed all that growing whilst keeping your immediate family unit intact. And I’m so sorry for the tragic loss of your 5 family members.
Thank you for this. We've had a lot of hard years, but also years that have made us very grateful to have each other. I honestly feel lucky.