Cal State Northridge professors have some tips for parents battling the summer doldrums.

"My mother always used to say 'if you're bored, then go clean the garage,' and suddenly we'd miraculously find something to do," laughed Barbara J. Hill, director of CSUN's Child and Family Studies Center. "There was some wisdom in what she said.

"Every parent has to deal with those words at one time or another and dealing with them is probably going to be a little different for parents who stay at home as opposed to those who work," Hill said.

For parents who stay at home, Hill said, the challenge is coming up with something new to do. She suggested that when a child says she's bored, it's a perfect time to teach her how to make her bed or help with the grocery list or other family tasks.

"For us it may sound like drudgery, but it can be a fun and new task for a young child to master and make them feel like an important and contributing member of the family," she said.

Hill said those are suggestions that parents who work might also consider. She said that trips to the park or the beach also are inexpensive, healthy and fun alternatives for kids whose only solution to boredom is to plop themselves in front of the television.

"It gives the kids something to look forward to and it is really not that hard to set aside a weekend to go the beach," she said.

She also suggested giving older kids a project to do, such as going through their personal library and setting aside books to donate to a library sale or volunteering to help out an elderly neighbor for a couple of hours.

"We over schedule and over stimulate our kids so much that when they're bored it's a great time to impart some of our values to kids," she said.

CSUN child development professor Barbara K. Polland suggests that parents have their children sit down and make a list of things to do, dividing it into three sections - no cost, low cost and expensive.

"Then they can pull out the list and look at it when they say they are bored," Polland said. In today's high-tech, fast-paced society, she said, people can forget that it's the little things that can bring joy and entertainment to a child's day.

"I recently had a neighbor come up to me and ask for help because she had her grandkids staying with her for a couple of weeks and she was afraid they would be bored," Polland said. "I suggested she turn on her sprinklers and have the kids run through them for a while. She had never thought of that. Yet, I know when I was a kid I loved doing that."

She said something as simple as throwing a sheet over the dining room table, sitting under it with flashlights and having a picnic can entertain a child for hours.

Polland suggested "teddy bear picnics" where all the guests are your child's favorite dolls and stuffed animals, or "backwards days" that start with dinner for breakfast and end with eggs for dinner and everyone has to walk backward for the day.

As a parent, Polland said she would pick up old games at garage sales for a quarter and then set them aside on a shelf that her children could visit only when they were bored. She and her kids would bake cookies and then take them to the local police or fire station on days when the children had "nothing to do."

"You just have to use your imagination and remember what brought you joy when you were a kid," Polland said. "You'd be surprised how easy it is to have fun."