Families that don't do anything with children

Maybe they cant afford various clubs a few times a week
My daughter does 1 after school club, one out of school club and 1 swimming lesson a week
I would love her to do more but i simply dont have the spare cash after bills have been paid .

I agree, people have changed. It can’t be just about money because even during the war, I know my father, as a young child, walked for miles with his mother, and learned so much about his city, the surrounding countryside, neighbouring towns and villages. He has so many memories from a child’s perspective. They were very poor but always curious and exploring.
I expect the roads would have been quieter though.

I don’t go to national trust properties because they are expensive. Plenty of free countryside. For anyone in Hampshire, I follow https://www.theamblingpath.co.uk for lots of free walk ideas. Those with younger kids can look at https://www.facebook.com/parkleyeastleigh? When the kids were younger, I take them on play areas all over the place, like a play area crawl. The Facebook page didn’t exist when my kids were very young so I used to look up the play areas using the council webpages.

Unless people are ill/disabled then I agree. It does not need to be expensive or even more than a walk away. Most people are within walking distance of a park or playground, or even just the shops. Many places still have free local libraries, and some even have free local museums.

It doesn’t have to cost much or anything, but to do nothing at all all summer with children is really unfair on them.

@Countryspaniel other than our two week holiday, we rarely had organised activities during the holidays. I think I’ve done more or less the same with my kids. I don’t actually think it’s my job to entertain them, and I don’t remember my mum ever entertaining us. We were expected to meet up with friends, come up with games, play in the garden, play with siblings, go exploring. I guess it helped that we lived in the countryside and had a big garden. And we read, read and read some more. We live city centre but I expect the same of my kids, to organise their own activities to a great extent. They run / cycle / fish / hang out with friends.

All these organised activities for kids is a bit cringe to me tbh.. The closest we got to that was days out with friends, usually to a local park with a picnic and ball games. But even then tbh the kids were expected to get on with it and leave the mums to talk. We are in France though, where life does not revolve around pleasing children at all.

the one caveat is that children these days have so much access to screens. My kids are 14/17 now so mobiles / ipads were not quite as ubiquitous as they are now. I might make more effort these days if the alternative was kids on screens for hours.

I am not great generally with getting the kids out and about when I’m alone.

Youngest DS is autistic and can be challenging, I’ve also read so so many threads on here where posters are of the opinion that ‘most SEN children are just parented badly’ that I always feel hyper aware and conscious that people are judging me because of his disability.

We do a lot more when DH is off work as it just feels a million times easier. So I sort of square it in my mind that all the things we do as a family compensate for all the ‘lazy days’ at home with just me.

You're not completely wrong.

DD had to do a disimpaction routine for a week once. We basically couldn't leave the house. No school, no clubs, no days out, no visitors.

We did buy some new toys just to help bring a bit of novelty and tried to do as many activities together as possible, but she hated it and so did we.

I’m not sure about all summer but I would pay money for a week just at home where I didn’t have big sorting jobs to do. The kids would like it, they’d read books and play basketball and games and just muck around, there wouldn’t be much screen time and I’d make them do some chores. Just getting out to the shops would feel like enough out of the house personally, they have busy lives usually and I think a week just at home would be awesome. I work and it’s sort of a waste of annual leave plus things would come up so won’t happen, but we’d all love it.

Not judging, just genuinely curious. These are all situations I’ve been in throughout the years(broken ankle, surgeries, Covid, D&V etc).OH works predominately away , so it’s mostly just me and DD managing it. I also see a lot of posts on here of “I’m on the bathroom floor , dying… what do I do with the kids?” and lots of “oh don’t feel guilty hun, a sofa /screen day is ok.” Like there’s an expectation the OP feels guilty on top of being ill(which bugs the crap out of me) and a chill day is something you compromise/less than.

EtA: I’m genuinely sorry things can get so difficult, once again, definitely not judging.

People… people are the problem… I work in retail so deal with people on the daily…. My tolerance for bullshit has got so low I don’t even know how low.
luckily my dc are old enough to go out with friends by themselves so mostly entertain themselves. We had our yearly holiday in May as it’s less busy which works well for DS who is autistic. We are 3 weeks in and so far we’ve been shopping, the cinema, going to the zoo tomorrow, mini golf, been for walks along our local beach., been to visit my uncles a few times. DS has had to go to the hospital so we ate in town before that. Dd has a birthday sleepover next weekend. So just me & DS. Who will most likely be gaming, invited my mum for takeaway with us as DP is also away next weekend.

The kids love staying at home, there’s lots of things to do at home… they have tech, Nintendo switch, PlayStation, iPads. They spent 4 hours actually playing switch together nicely earlier. They like to bake, they both can cook, We have board games, we also have a pool and a hot tub up, we have darts, movies… so far DD’s best day of the summer was when Wednesday series 2 was released on Wednesday 😂

there many reasons people stay home, let’s normalise doing WTF you want 😅

Depends on where you live, fruit picking is free for many. We went fruit picking just in our neighbourhood last weekend. We walked and took Tupperware boxes. We have blackberries everywhere We also got apple, pear and plum trees. This is just a suburban area in South Hampshire. We aren’t rural.

I dispute that, actually. It’s not a great way to raise kids but my own dm was like this, and we siblings are highly educated and with well travelled (now adult) dc.

I’ve known families like this and the kids don’t know any better.

Have not RTFT but see “kids are harder to manage at home” trotted out all the time and just cannot relate. My DC has always been so easy to manage at home - baking, reading, crafting, playing in the garden, imagination games with various toys all with snacks and drinks on tap and easy access to the loo and bed for a nap!
Leaving the house has always been like packing for a bloody week long expedition - drinks, snacks, spare clothing, raincoats, waterproofs, needing the loo 10 mins after leaving despite having gone before, constant moaning about being hungry/tired/bored.
Don’t get me wrong, we’ve always gone places but some of our happiest times have been at home, playing in the garden or baking a cake. Not all homebodies have little lives and narrow horizons…

Unfortunately not all parents can manage for whatever reason, going out a lot with their kids. When I was a child (early 80s) we all just played out alll day so it wasn’t so much pressure on the parents to organise endless activities. Ours are at holiday club a lot but we try and balance restful days at home with going out and about.

Some people have periods of time when they cannot be employed, some people cannot get a countersignatory for a licence

We have one of those playgrounds too. The council did eventually get their act together and install new equipment. My kids loved it. There’s a tyre swing, see saw, huge climbing frame, swings, roundabouts, slide and football goal posts.

The kids spent hours at this park and it worked for us because there were also bushes to make dens and benches to have picnics, when they tired of the equipment.

Many a time, I heard exasperated parents complain about the school holidays. We used to invite them to “ our park” Happy days 😊

I have fond memories of not doing much during the school holidays - board games, video games, card games, classic films, playing in the garden, water fights.. I remember doing a home-made version of Neil Buchanan's 'Finders Keepers' too.

She's not judging, she's making an observation. And it's a legitimate one - kids need stimulation, enrichment, socialisation, attentive parents - if you don't like her thread, maybe don't comment & "you do you" - quietly
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The way you’re written this comes across as quite judgmental, but I’ll humour with an answer.

As per my previous posts, we don’t go out everyday because I think it’s crucial for my 2 DC (2.5 and 5) development. But because a full day at home with both of them is impossible, someone will literally be bouncing of the walls and we all do better if we’ve had a good amount of exercise and stimulation out of the house for at least a few hours per day. We are national trust members and blessed with lots close by, so I spend no more than petrol as we take a picnic and they know I’m not buying anything extra.

Days when we are out of action are really very difficult. The 5 year old will cope between Lego, TV and the garden, but he’ll be twitchy for proper movement by 4pm. But the 2 year old is a disaster. I tend to dose up on paracetamol and Brufen and hope for the best. Thankfully he’s at his happiest just wandering round outside (he’s the best walking 2 year old I’ve ever come across - couple of miles is a warm up). So at least I’m not inflicting germs on anyone else. If one of us is completely down and out and the childminder isn’t free then the other person takes the day off work.

My kids are teenagers now but when they were younger they did summer camps ans we did lots at weekends etc. We moved when they were 6 and 7 and they made loads of friends in our estate. Nothing beats natural play out on the green IMO. Much better than planned activities. Nowadays they don't want to be out with us as much but we still still do things every few weekends. They mainly entertain themselves though Monday to Friday during summer holidays.

5 hours vs boarding school? Do your kids go to bed at 6pm or something? Do you not eat a family meal together and read stories to your children at bedtime even when they've been busy all day?

I've already said about 8 times that we go to Rainbows together. We all go to her swimming lessons, DH and I sit in the gallery and she can see us from the pool.

That's 3 hours a week she spends doing things she loves with other children without us.

This.

I've let my kids plan some days in the holidays, and they mostly wanted to stay in and chill at home.

Nothing wrong with this, there's loads you can do at home.

They don't need to be out and about every day and doing activities every day after school.

I agree with you, and there is a lot of free stuff if you can find it, but looking at the things you just mentioned.

1. National Trust - definitely not free 😆
2. Fruit picking - not massively expensive but you have the cost of getting to the farm and the cost of buying the fruit. Unless you just mean picking blackberries (if you live in a city and want to pick anything else there is not a lot) which is fine but that only kills an hour.

There are definitely some kids just left on iPads and not necessarily ‘poor’ kids and it is sad but, from what I’ve seen, the really struggling families (at least in the city) are going to very specific places with free school meals criteria for free access so even though you come into contact with them through work you might not bump into them in the holidays as they aren’t going to the same events as you. (even some of the free ones, because often there will be things there like ice cream vans or stalls that encourage pester power)

I'm with you OP. My dear mum friend has very little money but is always up to things with her child - splash pad, paddling in the river, walks, finds out about all the free things the council is putting on and signs up, signs up for open days and tasters - she doesn't stop. I think it's just how some people are.