childrens behaviour

[jues]

I have 2 children 6 and 8 years old, I am worried that if i do not get something sorted out with their behaviour they will turn out to be bad kids and i know that they are not deep in my heart,they are very loving most of the time but they fall out most of the time, when they are at school they are good apart from occasionally my 6 year old has his moments, when they get back from school they change it is like they are bored and cannot find anything to do, they do activities after school 2-3 times a week but this does not seem enough,

[jues]

I do sit down with them i try to get my older one to read apart from school books but he does not want to, when he gets home he wants to watch tv but i restrict them to watching 1-2 hours that is it, he can sit in the conservatory and play with his megabloks dragons/pirates for 3-4 hours so he can sit down and play but occasionally my youngest will interupt him, i take them swimming at the weekend so they are active and they colour for hours but when we go out sometimes they will act up messing about and showing off what can i do to sort that out.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

In addition to the stated boredom, are there any other difficulties? When the children say they are bored, ask them: "What can you do to solve that? What can you do to make that better?" Such a question frames the issue as something that the children, not you, are going to solve. Developing the skill to manage free time is an important achievement for children. Sometimes they rely on parents to keep them busy, and that is not a good development when children reach school age.