What do you do at weekends with secondary age children?

I have a 15yo. We do the following..
Gym together, long dog walks, bake, watch comedy series and films. Other times he's on his laptop and facetime calls with friends, doing homework, he also volunteers.

My DC are grown up now, when they were teens we’d have football Saturday morning and then shopping or a meal out on Saturday. On Sunday we’d go to a theme park, the coast or another day out such as a museum, cinema or bowling.

Play board games, pursue joint hobbies, visit family & friends, cook together, go out for a bite to eat, visit a museum/cinema/exhibition, day trip to another city….all things we love doing together.

Sport, both kids have matches or training on both days

Me and my teen watch football together, swop chats about FPL, eat together, sometimes watch a film.

That's about it.

We rarely leave the house at the weekend at the moment. Just laze around all day. It's lovely

Obviously, the trips out las such, end but you can still have a great relationship doing things together when they are young adults. Ds is 19 and has a job and a gf plus a passion he is trying to malke a career of. Dh and ds have the same taste in gigs so go to them together and dh is extremely supportive of ds's passion projects as am I, but he does all the legwork. Ds occasionally comes to the theatre with us. He and I go to 80s cinema nights at our local cinema and we love Comic con. We watch series and films as a 3 sometimes and have a big cinema night out planned in Feb. It's lovely.

Same here.

Not much. Have younger dc too so it's very tricky to do something that suits us all. Teen ds plays a lot of football which takes up half of the day on Saturday. He will go out with friends, game, read and very occasionally agree to go for a walk with us or go bowling or something.

We always spend the evenings together once the little ones are in bed, reading together, watching a series or having a takeaway at the weekend. But I think family days out are a bit of a struggle at their age.

My ds is very into his fitness so if we can take the angle that a good walk is good for his steps or whatever then it tends to please everyone! Oh and sometimes he's on board with swimming.

Go out for walks with the dog.
Sometimes DH takes teen DD out with him when he goes running.
Shopping for food or sometimes clothes etc
Beach in summer
Movie nights
Sometimes just have a lazy weekend

In the winter especially, I have no guilt about not doing anything. Life is so busy, it's nice to have a couple of days in the week that are unstructured for them to switch off. Family days out etc tend to be in the school holidays which I do tend to keep busy.

The key is a balance - some time just you as a family, sometimes you all with a friend (this can make a huge difference to my child on a day out especially as we have a bigger age gap between siblings) clubs and also time with friends and then chilling alone.

A typical weekend for us is one day family and one day with friends with clubs between.

Things we usually do - cinema, bowling, trampoline park/ climbing, ice skating, swimming, go out for dinner, see the wider family, walk the dog, bike rides, gym together, go karting, days out to the beach or weekend away/ holidays, pop into towns to go shopping.

Some teens are more social with friends, my eldest at 15 has gone out with his friends since he was secondary age a lot more than my second who now at 14 still regularly comes on family days out.

Playing sports (with us providing transport and staying to support and chat with other parents) takes us most of the weekend!

That's interspersed with chilling at home, time with friends, gaming and trips to cinema, shopping occasionally.

We have family game night (board games) on Sunday night too.

Now gladiators has restarted we will watch that together with a takeaway.

At that age, my DC spent a lot of time playing sport, reading and watching TV. We watched films together eg on Saturday night

It's natural for them to want mire independence and fewer family outings

Mine are 15 and 12. The older one wants to be with his mates all the time (quite rightly). The younger wants to play Zelda and have shouty group calls. So they usually do that for one whole day. They have cadets on Friday night and I do try to drag them somewhere on a Sunday. Today we went in a walk which they wanted to go on as we stopped at our very favourite cafe. Otherwise it’s all gaming, homework and mates. I know this is how it should be as they move away from us gradually. I am learning how to fill my time in a way I enjoy rather than just hanging round the house or cleaning

DD has school on a Saturday until lunchtime then goes riding.
Saturday evenings are spent in PJs, snuggled on sofa watching a film or 2.
Sunday she lies in then I make her a fry up brunch. She can then just chill until the afternoon when we have to see to her loan pony and then while I'm sorting tea she will do homework followed by tea + hour or so of Nintendo with DH.

So basically not much however she has longer holidays so we save activities until then.

Appreciating my lie in and providing regular snacks.

We do always have an easy tv dinner together too. Not necessarily a takeaway but something like that - supermarket pizza, beige food, supermarket takeaway, all in front of the fire watching something hideous like Michael McIntyre.

If we are doing a day out we will do things like go to the cinema, lunch/dinner then bowling, Top Golf, go karting. There's a place near us called Boom Battle Bar that has different games you can play like Augmented Darts, Axe throwing etc.

Generally though our son takes alot of our weekends up with his sport, our 15 year old works and then is out with friends the rest of the time so just wants lifts from A to B. Eldest is 20 and rarely spend time with her socially now she's so busy with work, uni, friends and boyfriend.

We do like a wee board game night though and outsmarted is our favourite.

Mine do their own thing mainly but the things we do together but not every weekend are
Cinema
Meal out
Take away
Movies at home
Visiting family
Some exhibitions and theatre

DS had clubs Sat am and often competitions / matches on Sat or Sun. Weekends with him were very busy driving him about, from age 10-18. DD was totally different, she did lots of clubs at primary and kept on with a couple for the first couple of years of secondary but gradually dropped them all and hung around the house under occupied for a few years. We did a few day trips together which was only a handful a year but we all enjoyed them, they tended to be in the holidays though, not weekends. Every 6-8 weeks we would visit relatives as a family which was right up until eldest was 15/16, after that he stayed at home. At 6th form, they both got part time jobs, and started socialising more with friends, from then on they were really quite busy. Saturday evenings we did all watch telly / films together, until they got to 15/16 ish.

We wouldn’t be able to afford a family meal out every week. You’re in quite the privileged position there. It’s over £100 every time for us.

we have Sunday roast together instead.

my kids are now past secondary age. Dd1 is at uni so try to spend lots of times with her when she is home. We might go for breakfast/brunch some weekends. Probably once every 6 weeks or so. Go for dog walks, they’re still happy to walk around a national trust house. Dd2 and I go to the gym together. We might pop into town and do a bit of shopping or for a walk down the beach in the winter and a swim in the sea or paddle boarding in the summer. Occasionally we still do a bigger day out such as a zoo or theme park. In the summer we have a lot of BBQs and just hang out in the garden together with a few drinks and the big paddling pool.

my advice OP get s to find things you enjoy. Though we do spend a lot of time together I’m also pretty active independently. So if they can’t be bothered I’ll just go and do my own thing.

Was this written by AI?!!

Homework. Ours is just endless fucking homework. It's really starting to get me down. They're in school in Germany and they're so proud here that the school day ends at 1 and the kids can do enriching activities from then on but in practice this means there is a ton of homework and study for tests where they still need some support and that comes about 80% from me. Some weekends - maybe about half of them - they have to do about 4-5hours of study with support from me. I don't know how much longer I can go on effectively working 7 days a week, but I don't know what to do about it either.

Football for us. DS1 is at uni now, DS2 is 15. But for years basically weekends have been football training, matches, and also we have season tickets for our local team that we go to as a family. I’m not sure what we’d have done if we hadn’t had football, because enthusiasm for weekend trips to castles, museums etc waned around age 14 (although on holiday they’re still happy to go to these things, just not at weekends).

OP why is your DS2 always tired? Surely at age 11/12 he should have boundless energy.

Also, with teens, the little connections are really important. I've painted one DD's nails this weekend, done a bit of jewellery making with another, had a chat about holidays over a cup of tea with the eldest. None of these interactions lasted that long, but they chatted away during each one which I think is really important

@Roseyposeypie I agree with the weather/season making a big difference to energy levels. I don't think you're failing at all, it's definitely normal in my world for weekends with teens to feature fewer days out and activities together as a family