Families that don't do anything with children

Well if that’s your life, then don’t have children
Why would you want to inflict that on them.

I’m a term time worker, have 2 children still at home. A crippling case of endo so waiting MORE surgery and lupus. From 7am- 8pm in term time I’m rushing around like a blue assed fly. As are the kids. Soon as 1:30pm hit in the 18th July I was gone, jamas on, snacks and films. And my children personally also needed that. But then I’m someone who loves being at home. And I have money to go out and do stuff daily if needed. But I know my children need a drop in routine, a bit of freedom and time to just potter about. During said “pottering” my older child has completed an online nail tech course my youngest is part of an online reading out loud challenge. We have also watched plenty of the films on the “50 films children need to see”. My youngest has also mastered every board game you can think of. Children do not need to be out and entertained constantly. They will be doing more over the next few weeks as they are booked into lots of activities provided by school. But I won’t be made to feel bad for having a few (lot) of pj days because come September, we will all be hard at it again! It’s all about balance.

The longer I parent the more I realise how important it is to teach how to properly structure time at home - it’s not a place just for ‘downtime’ (screens) because you’re tagged out from all the ‘enriching activities’. So better structured home time is my goal now

As a fellow ADHD parent to two high energy kids I FEEL this @PittaParty. Home time isn’t easy and natural to us. It requires effort (more effort than going out!) and if I didn’t put in the effort I’m sure screens would feature heavily for us. We are having a home day with 5 yo tomorrow as we’ve been out all day today. It will take quite a bit of work for all of us but I hope in the long run learning how to be at home will do us all good 👍

@mindutopia I agree with you there totally - it needs to be a mix - it’s a fine line - kids who are constantly kept on a hamster wheel of days out very often grow into pre teens and teens who have very high ‘spend’ expectation's and very low boredom thresholds

We just came back from an abroad holiday. DD’s favourite part? Playing with all the cats /kittens!! Of course.

That sounds ideal @IAmTooOldFor .

In a time when every area of life if commercialised - including childhood - self reliance in creating activities is so important.

(Though Rainbows & yoga have their place, too.)

We’re coming to the end of our summer holiday now. Which is sad. It’s been fun. I do wonder how families on low income cope with it though. Even an ice cream is expensive these days (relatively speaking). It must be very difficult.

How depressing.

I go out a lot bc my small home is so messy it depresses me. On the outside it probably looks like I’m doing loads with my kid, but on least one level all this activity is a way of avoiding deep interaction with him (single mum, only child, it’s suffocating sometimes).

I have ADHD and a lot of the activity stems from that, too.

The longer I parent the more I realise how important it is to teach how to properly structure time at home - it’s not a place just for ‘downtime’ (screens) because you’re tagged out from all the ‘enriching activities’. So better structured home time is my goal now.

I wouldn’t judge homebody parents, no. Sometimes I worry that I’m setting up adult life to be disappointing for my child bc it won’t be a rich varied diet of leisure activities and play dates. Sometimes (often) you just need to tidy your sock drawer.

No one on this thread has said that children need to be out 24/7, or even every day. Just sometimes.

Yeah, kids need time for unstructured play. No wonder parents are exhausted from this expectation to be with your kids doing carefully curated activities 24/7. Let them use their imagination in the garden or their room to entertain themselves.

Ha! @Countryspaniel i can’t speak for the children you’re coming into contact with (and maybe you shouldn’t either) but my DD(6) loves being at home. If I were to flip your script on its head I might say that if you can’t entertain a child in their own home then perhaps that’s due to a lack of imagination on your part.

My DD and I build den’s both inside and in the garden, cook, she helps with household chores, we grow our own fruit and veg, do science experiments, Lego, crafts, we designed and hand sewed a teddy bear this week, she reads to herself, we do homework, have play dates, she’s starting to learn chess….literally could go on for pages. Often I am busy with the baby or house admin or other tasks and can’t play. Sometimes she is bored. This is good for her, it builds resilience, independence, and imagination.

My DH likes to be out and about and can’t understand “homebodies” but he doesn’t feel sad for children (or adults) just because they are different to him!!!!!

As someone who did very little as a child - not nothing (we'd go occasionally to museums, especially on holiday) but through pretty much my whole childhood, Saturday was spent going to the supermarket and then having lunch - then sitting at home...

• little disposable income
• parents were knackered from work during the week
• little access to public transport and mum didn't drive
• parents didn't have much social circle, so no-one to compare lifestyle with
• neither of my parents had had active (or particularly happy) childhoods themselves, so no expectation of doing differently
• parental anxiety about interacting with strangers or letting us do stuff independently

Yes it was a bit of a surprise, and a bit embarrassing, to get to secondary school and realise most other people did clubs and went camping or to various events in their free time, but as an adult I understand more

I think either extreme is sad to be fair.

I feel the kids that never get a chunk of time to chill at home or entertain themselves and have their in imaginations kick in are being done a disservice as well.

I like to try and alternate so we have days out and about and days at home. I'm lucky that our town has absolutely tonnes of free stuff. But even then I know some families just don't access even the free offerings. There's lots of different reasons why.

People have different circumstances, preferences, situations and budgets.

My 7 year old is flat out during term time. He does loads. We barely have a chance to blink.
On balance, he has quite an enriched life. But if you'd asked him last week he'd have said he'd not done much. Because we'd planned that. He likes reading, drawing, playing in the garden and listening to his music and watching TV just as much as he loves going out.

FWIW I am disabled and not naturally that curious. So I really have to gee myself up to be out and about all the time. It's different for everyone.

I love spending time at home with my kids.

Reading, drawing/painting, card games. Talking. Small house projects/deep cleaning, gardening, baking. I love having time to prepare and eat a slow, healthy lunch at home (and making packed lunches all through term time means I have no enthusiasm for making picnics!)

We've got a "no screens on weekdays" house rule, which makes it much easier (there's no pestering for more screen time, and I don't feel the need to get them out the house just to get them off their screens)

I don't think staying at home is a problem. I think it's about what you do with your kids. I personally don't think it's particularly healthy when I see parents who seemingly can't just be with their kids, and spend all summer schlepping them for hours every day in the car (headphones on, screens on) just to do some token activity that usually seems to involve eating junk food in a different location, then back home for another 4 hours of screen time. Not all days out are wholesome!

If you ask my son (6) what he's done, he'll talk about the new pokemon game i got for us to play on the switch this summer. He won't mention learning to ride a bike, day trips, duck feeding, martial arts (classes continue year round), how he learned to cook some basic things, playdates, baking, being out every weekend or annual leave day (we both work full time). He'll describe instead, in great detail, his new legendary pokemon...

I'm a homebody, as is my daughter (3), but we don't stay home for more than half a day unless someone is ill. We have no garden so they both (but mainly hyperactive ds) go nuts stuck home all day! Im burned out by the end of summer...

I pack lunches and my kids know we don't buy from gift shops. If you're firm on it, it becomes normal, and they just enjoy the day. I take my kids out to free events all the time and only pay for travel. Eating out/gift shop would make it far too expensive

I've never seen any evidence of needing to be doing or outside in order to be well rounded. Though I do like to be outdoors. I have family members who are thinkers not doers and love to spend many hours thinking, inventing, experimenting, reading and cleaning out their fish. They like hanging out with family n friends doing sculpture and batik and listen to vinyl they tell me. 😎

Yes, no problem.
I’m knee deep in chemo and just saw red, even though my kids are young adults now.

I get why enrichment of all types, is key to a child’s life.

I think you may be missing the point. All your activities cost a lot of money.

I swear, people will always find something to judge...

Agreed! Someone has explicitly told me on this thread that they judge me for letting my children do the extra curricular activities that they actively want, and ask, to do 🤯

Absolutely this.

Dd1 went on a trip in year R to a farm park. They had a wonderful day seeing all the animals.
Afterwards they had to draw a picture and answer some questions about the day.
27 out of 28 wrote the basically same answer to their favourite part of the day:
"The coach trip".

I said to the teacher maybe next year they could just drive round in the coach. She said they had the same answer most years. 🤣

My dc are grown up now. I asked them for memories of summer holidays not very long ago. They're not the big days out, nor the time we bought something amazing. It's things like:

Doing a big jigsaw on the floor
Eating potato cakes
Cleaning the windows
When the car broke down
When next doors' cat got in and we couldn't get it out
When we watched all three High School Musicals back to back
When they sat under dd2's bed and had a fairy picnic (buttered bread with sprinkles on)
Doing chalk drawings on the path
When I had them searching for a specific stone in the garden (I was basically getting them to clear the flower beds of large stones, which they did very well, in looking for the "special" one. "Is it this one?" "Oh no, not quite. Put it in the bucket with the rest")
Going to A&E with ds was the only one they particularly spoke about which was going out of the house...

My DB and DSIL don’t do anything with their kids. I think they’d say lack of money or would say they do take them out, but their taking them out is really just taking them round their nans to aunts once every few weeks.

i know their schools have given them free tickets to local swimming pools and events in the past but they never do anything.

I sometimes think they’re like that film room, except they go to school. I fundamentally think it’s lazy parenting. Not wanting to do kid friendly things so just leaving kids to watch YouTube all day

I absolutely agree. My best advice to parents (as a parent of 2, and aunt/granny/great aunt to a good few) is to be very careful about setting up a precedence of buying stuff when out. If children don't have expectations of treats they will not ask. They will learn that the best 'treat' is your time and energy when out.

It is so hard to say "no" though. We are bombarded by marketing all over the place. You have to be tough.