Summer boredom is cured with the threat of math problems

Rob and his sons in their grandparents' pool in 2006.

School ended on Friday, and already on Saturday Robert offered up the complaint parents everywhere are hearing: “There isn’t anything to do.”

Yes, son, that’s right. There isn’t anything to do. Enjoy it.

In fact, my sons have so much packed into this summer it will be over before they realize it. But for a six year old, who does not have some instant and immediate source of entertainment for a few seconds, summer can get to be a terribly boring time of the year.

Boredom, of course, is a corrupting influence, even more so when you’re bored and you’re with your brothers. When brothers are bored together, the remedy to that boredom generally means they’re going to get themselves in trouble.

Harrison, Nathan and Robert are spending most of the summer together under the watchful eye of their grandmother, and they’re getting yelled at a lot.

It’s not because they’re bad kids – they’re not. It’s because they’re bored kids.

I went to pick them up last Thursday and spent half an hour listening to all the trouble they’d gotten themselves into.

“They were wrestling in the family room, and I had to tell them twice that behavior wasn’t OK in the house,” my mother was telling me.

Nathan and Harrison were the WWE champions, apparently, and at one point – after telling them to stop wrestling – Mom walked into the family room where she found Harrison on the floor on his back and Nathan using the chair like it was the top rope of the ring, about to come down on Harrison with an Atomic Elbow.

As she was telling me the story, Nathan came into the house crying because his brothers had decided to resume the match while waiting for me in the car, only now it was a tag-team bout with Robert and Harrison ganging up on poor Nate.

The boys don’t know it, but in 20 years they will look back on these days as some of the best of their lives.

The other day their grandmother took them to pick strawberries at Washington Farms. They go swimming two or three times a day in the pool in their grandparents’ back yard.

I picked them up one afternoon and took them to the movie (because it was opening day of “Indiana Jones” and I wanted to see it, but at least I took them with me).

They’re all three of them enrolled in camps of one kind or another this summer – not only that, but they’re enrolled in different camps so they won’t have to go to camp with their brothers. Later this summer they’ll go on a week-long trip to a family reunion with their grandparents where, I am confident, their great-great uncle George will take them fishing in one of the ponds on his farm.

Except for one day when my dad made them wash my car, they haven’t had to do any amount of work for more than a week now. They get to laze around after swimming, watching television or playing the Game Box, and when they’ve recuperated and had some refreshments, they get to go outside and go swimming again.

The only thing anyone is forcing them to do is go outside to play with their new puppy, and they love that.

But expect them to sit still for two minutes in the car, and boredom takes over and Harrison grabs Nate from behind and Robert starts punching him.

I took the tearful Nathan back to the car, where I let them all have it. I suggested to them that they could spend all summer doing math problems. I promised them that I could create a summer curriculum that would have them sitting at their grandparents’ kitchen table doing math and reading assignments, with the pool visible through the window as a nice backdrop to their summer studies.

I promised them that if they couldn’t figure out how to get along with each other and behave themselves, I’d make this summer miserable for them. Not surprisingly, when I picked them up the next afternoon, Mom reported that they’d behaved themselves well all day.

The alternative to boredom is school work. They know this. During the school year they may be in trouble for poor grades or acting up in class, or they may have to turn off the television and do their homework, but they are not bored.

Reminded of what it’s like to not be bored, they have greatly improved their behavior over the past few days. They’ve actually embraced their boredom and are learning to love it.

Only Robert still complains, but that’s because he is contrary on any subject. He insists that being in school is much more fun than summer break. However, when I offer to let him do some math problems, he makes his way back out to the pool.

Rob Peecher is author of the book Four Things My Wife Hates About Mornings, available at Amazon.com. This column was originally published in 2007.