One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him (my grandfather) of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else’s. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn’t know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainly not to be trusted. That episode cured me of boredom forever –John Taylor Gatto

Wow! This is just what I am tempted to do when my children complain of being bored. On Saturday we had a”no-TV, no-computer” day, and my younger children, who have been watching too much TV lately, were almost beside themselves. They eventually settled into a rhythm of play and work, but it took a while. I must have more of these days and train my children “to amuse and instruct themselves.”
From the same excellent essay by Gatto:

Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they’ll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology – all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.