9 year old bored in school

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If someone can stay engaged with learning, it can lead to one of the interesting occupations. Perhaps you should try to have a first or second childhood yourself.

"interesting occupation", dear one

Different people find different things "interesting"

A job could be interesting one day and boring the next day. Example, firefighter.

Excitement is not always a good thing. It appears to me that, getting struck by a car is not boring. But getting struck by a car is not a good thing. For the pedestrian. But I have not yet been struck by a car. So that is just imagination. Not a fact.


A lot of jobs have boring parts inherently in them. Cops have to do paperwork.



Actually, a large portion of, school education, is learning about how to cope with boredom


Sure, making school interesting, fun, or exciting, all things being equal, (which they are not) is good for the student

But different people find different things interesting



And some things are inherently boring

I find it wonderful that you're interested in making school a more positive experience for your son. I can offer my own experience - I'm autistic and intellectually gifted and was in a similar situation when I was in early elementary school. Fortunately my parents had me IQ-tested at which point I was advanced a grade (skipped 2nd grade). I still ended up bored and not challenged by the coursework so I was moved to a school with programs for advanced students in 4th through 6th grade. I used to do things like get my arms and legs stuck in chairs from contorting myself or get in trouble for "playing in the dirt" which was actually collecting magnetite particles from the sand with a bar magnet, etc. I had behavioral issues similar to your son's but I never was abusive to others or got into serious trouble. Eventually I found a few other advanced students who I hung around with, joined the science club, chess club, and the like. Some of those kids I later went through college and graduate school with. Finding some like-minded kids to associate with was helpful for me - kids who were also academically-focused. Other than those kids, I barely socialized at all. My parents enrolled me in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and some other structured programs, although my sensory problems made Little League baseball a disaster, lol. My parents also got me into an internship program at a biological research lab (bacterial and viral genetics) when I was in the last two years of high school and that helped me understand work and self-discipline. I think you're on the right track with trying to increase the intellectual stimulation your son gets in school. Being autistic I was encouraged to develop and engage my strengths (diligence and intelligence) and not get stuck because of my deficits (poor sociability and difficulties with new environments). This paid off later academically at the universities I attended and in my really stimulating career in science and high-tech engineering. It was painful that I couldn't be like all the other kids having wide social activities, but I didn't get stuck because of that and didn't become self-destructive. I went to school a long time ago but there were advisors and counselors who worked with my parents to keep me appropriately challenged in school - I wonder if these exist at your son's current school. Just my own experience with medication - I've been on dozens and dozens, from anxiolytics to antidepressants to somnifacients to (off-label) antipsychotics, etc., etc. and although my hopes were high each time I tried a new one, they either made me groggy and dumbed me down or made me so inwardly agitated that they increased my drive to autistically self-injure. I still have some hope to find something someday to help, but I gave up on meds years and years ago. I'm really glad I wasn't on them as a kid - I would have missed out on certain growing experiences back then.

Learning to stay amused in boring places can be done on the job. School should be something more. I'm glad I got out early to continue independent study. These days, I could probably just use a phone in class, but why leave home?

Dealing with boredom is a good topic, though. Capitalism wants to make all workers interchangeable, which leads to deadly simple jobs. To handle them, one can remain stunted or dull the senses with depressants. However, one can also divide one's attention to accomplish purely mental feats on the side. These can range from a running flow of outrageous puns, (2 friends do that) to mathematical amusements or poetry composition, to meditation, almost leaving the body while it does the machine thing.