Weekends and older children

[twosoups1972]

I have 3 dds aged 17, 16 and 11 (nearly 12). At weekends we leave the older two to their own devices, they want to sleep/relax/see friends etc but the offer of doing family stuff is there if they want it.

Youngest used to come out with me and dh but recently hasn't wanted to which is fine. She does dance on Saturday mornings and is tired after that and Sundays are for sleeping in/relaxing/homework.

So dh and I usually just relax at home too which is ok some of the time but we like to get out a bit too. Sometimes we'll go for a walk and have a coffee but now the dc are older and more independent we'd like to do a bit more with our weekends.

I'm not worried about leaving dd3 at home for an afternoon but I suppose I worry that she'll spend all day on a screen if we're not there.

If you have dc of this sort of age, do you go out and do your own thing at weekends? Part of me feels I should stay in with dd3 in case she wants me to be around to chat to or whatever.

I have a dd a little older and an 11 year old. I find it quite a tricky age due to all this. We try and balance it all out with Saturday being a day we get out as a family (doesn't always work) such as lunch out, go for a walk or a coffee. It's normally met with a fair bit of whingeing from the older one. And then Sunday we let them do what they want and DH and I go out and about locally. I find it really hard to find things that please both of them. The weekends where my eldest sees her friends or sits on a screen the whole time are always a bit annoying but sometimes unavoidable. I'm just trying to hang onto as much family time as I can as I guess she'll be off with friends pretty much all the time in the next few years. So basically we aim to do one thing together and the rest of the time we all do our own thing. They both have hobbies at the weekend we need to ferry them to so that gives a little one to one time in the car. It's so odd, it feels like yesterday they were spending every minute with us and I longed for some space and now I want them back.

Thank you jess yes totally agree with you, I used to love taking them places out and about when they were younger. But it's also nice having older dc, the older two share a lot of our taste in films and comedy which is nice so we do things like that with them. But my 11 year old is quite young for her age so it's hard to find things she enjoys doing.