Hamish Blake hilariously nails how hard it is to keep kids entertained in isolation
“My whole life is trying to over-hype boring activities.”
For parents currently isolating with children, there’s one thing that the majority of us agree on and that is, it’s a struggle and boy, oh boy, that struggle is real.
Someone who knows what it’s like to try to keep small kids entertained day after day for weeks on end is comedian, Hamish Blake.
Appearing on Wil Anderson’s Wilosophy podcast, the father-of-two said that being able to spend this time with his kids has been great but admits there have been boring moments too.
“I’ve really enjoyed it overall,” he told Wil.
“My little boy, Sonny, he’s five about to turn six and it’s his first year of school so the whole of last summer was this psychological pump up, like, ‘You’re going to school, you’re going to school!’
“Then he was at school for five weeks and this week he has actually been out of school for longer than he has been at school, ” says Hamish, 38.
The Lego Masters host says the trick for parents is to be a salesperson and literally, sell ideas to your kids during this monotonous time, even the most boring ones.
“Like any parent, you’re improvising the whole time. You’re just making it up. It’s not their job to have ideas. You’re the parent,” he explains.
“And you find yourself saying like, ‘What do you guys want to do? Do you want to go outside and see if you can find any insects under the bushes?’”
Hamish says this approach is all wrong as it comes down to the sales technique you as a parent uses.
“You have to be like, ‘Guys come here, team huddle. I heard that there’s a bug outside and we’ve got to find it. It’s under the bushes somewhere’,” he says.
“You’ve got to keep the hype up because otherwise they will smell that this is very boring. That’s become my whole life, trying to over-hype boring activities.”
During the Wilosophy podcast, Hamish, who also shares two-year-old daughter, Rudy with wife Zoe Foster Blake, also touched on what it’s like homeschooling Sonny.
“The thing I forgot about school and this whole home learning experience is, it’s repetitive and it’s essential, but it’s boring,” he tells podcast host Wil.
“When you’re sitting down and your kid has to trace the letter W and it has taken like 20 seconds to do the first one and you’re looking at the whole page of W’s thinking, “Aargh, this sucks.”
Like many parents in this exact same scenario, Hamish expresses so eloquently how most of us are feeling.
“I’m battling with the boredom,” he says. “And you finally finish and you have to do it again the next day.”
We hear you, Hamish. Loud and clear!
