Flickr: zen
As a man who absolutely loves being a father, having my kids home for the whole week during this holiday is something I always look forward to. Just having them around, staying up later than usual, freed from the stress of school, makes things really great around the house.
Now, I get to still go to work each day so I am not home with them 24/7 like my wife is. That’ good because if I was, I’d kill them.
Getting home from work today, everyone greeted me with excitement and the usual “Daddy’s home!” screams that I’ve come to cherish since becoming a father 12 years ago. Not 10 minutes after walking through the door, came the dreaded sentence every parent of a vacationing child comes to abhor: “Dad, I’m bored.”
That’s right: not even 24 hours into their respit from school, my kids don’t know what to do with themselves. It’s as if they’re completely devoid of any imagination to fill the hours in the day. Without the rigor and schedule of the school day, these kids become raving lunatics. This always pisses me off because as a kid I always found something to do. Outside of the sometimes long car rides my parents would drag us on during the summers, I always found something to do in the neighborhood.
The sad fact is most of today’s kids are so over regimented and scheduled, they can’t relax and enjoy downtime. My kids aren’t over scheduled at home, but the rigors of school and other activities have them influenced by this epidemic of boredom which can be traced to over zealous parents.
For example, what idiot came up with the term “play date?” Are you f*cking kidding me? Who needs a “date” to “play”? The term is enough to send me through the roof. Whenever my kids use it or someone else uses it, I challenge them. Let’s stop “setting” up playtime and just let our kids be kids.
This of course has nothing to do with my older kids and their boredom problem. But I credit my wife and the approach she took today. She turned off the TV and said “play”. They did for three hours and had a great time making up their own fun and finding things to do together.
As soon as they were done, they simply said: “I’m bored now.”
Is it Monday yet?
Follow Scott on Twitter @prgully or email him at scott@everyotherthursday.com. His personal blog, where he writes about public relations and social media, is www.scottgulbransen.com. Just don’t bitch to him because he has a very strong pimp hand.
As the Director of Social Media at tax giant H&R Block, Scott Gulbransen recently returned to the tax business after previously spending 1o years at rival Intuit working on the TurboTax & Quicken brands. He brings 16 years as a marketing communications professional, and 11 tax seasons, with him to H&R Block and was responsible for the launch of many key social initiatives at Intuit before leaving in 2010. A strategic thinker and business problem solver, Gulbransen has worked for some of the world’s top brands including TurboTax, Sony Online Entertainment, and Applebee’s.
In 2010, Gulbransen became the first Director of Social Media & Digital Content for Applebee’s, creating the first-ever social media strategy for the world’s largest casual dining chain. While at Applebee’s, Gulbransen lead a small but nimble team responsible for creating a robust and far-reaching social engagement channel for Applebee’s and its franchise community.
In addition to his professional accomplishments at the corporate level, Gulbransen is also a prolific blogger recently named as one of the Top 50 Daddy Bloggers in the US by Cision. Gulbransen was ranked #21.
As a member of the TurboTax communications and social media team for 10 years, Scott helped the TurboTax team launch and sustain the brand’s social media platform. He also drove and was responsible for the launch of TurboTax’s successful content strategy, including the launch of the TurboTax Blog. Recently, he launched one of the most significant social media campaigns in the brand’s history with the @TeamTurboTax Twitter project.
Gulbransen was instrumental in reinvigorating the Quicken brand almost entirely through the use of social media and, particularly, Twitter. By engaging with customers and influencers who talk about personal finance on Twitter, he and his team helped Quicken Online grow from just 200,000 users in October 2008 to over 1.4 Million in just 10 months. This led to a more focused look at the personal finance space for Intuit and, ultimately, the acquisition of Mint.com.
A former print journalist, who, after realizing his paychecks from the newspaper industry weren’t going to get much bigger, turned to the Dark Side – public relations. After working in both college athletics and inside mid-size agencies, he joined Intuit in 2000 and Applebee’s in 2010. He is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and is the married father of five kids.
Despite his busy personal and professional life, Scott is a digital native who never strays far from social networking. To hassle Scott, or to tell him how great you think he is (or not!), email him at scott@scottgulbransen.com, add him to your Circles on Google+, or ping him on Twitter at @sdgully. Scott also is an editor and writer for Technorati.com.
