What does everyone do on weekend early evenings with primary age kids?

[QueenOfTheSandals]

Inspired by another thread I was wondering what other folks do on weekend evening with their kids? Thinking 5-8yr olds. Do you let them stay up? Special tea? TV or games or just do the same as weeknights?

To be honest I'm looking for inspiration.

We've usually been out all day til 4-5 So we do nice bubble baths and into pjs then watch something together with food they fancy (dd is desperate to try and learn to use chopsticks so tomorrow's dinner will be Chinese style).

We recently all watched His Dark Materials and did one episode per night which was lovely.

Tomorrow we will probably put a movie on. I've no idea what.

They usually only go to bed 30mins later than school nights as they are early risers which just doesn't change regardless of bedtime.

Get them in bed on time as usual. It’s the only time in the week I have off. I have to go back to work after their bedtime during the week (as does dh). So Friday and Saturday are the only times we actually sit down and relax and spend any time together. One of us is with dc from 3pm every school day so we get loads of time with them, just never alone. If they actually go to bed, we watch tv and relax, which is a rare treat.

Friday is same as through the week. DS2 has his swimming lesson on a Friday so he's shattered. They do breakfast club 3 days too so everyone is broken come Friday.
Sometimes we'll have a movie night on a Saturday, but we usually aim to start the movie around tea time so that if doesn't impact their bedtime. We'll give them a picnic tea to eat in front of the TV (which they love as other than that, there is an immovable food ban in the living room - for them, not us). They also like to have all the lights off and we make popcorn too. They need to stick to rough bedtimes because DS1 in particular doesn't lie in no matter how late his night was.

We were talking about this today. Friends are driven from one activity to another and then have so called fun family time. Its cringe to us. I was out dealing with a rescue, came home and had a glass of wine in the garden. Everyone else was either watching TV or sitting outside reading or just whatever they fancied. We had supper about 8 for those who wanted it, with our friends who dropped round. Also ordered McDonald's and Domino delivery for those who didn't. Just because people are young doesn't mean they should be forced to play board games with the parents. Would you really have thought that was fun when you were a teenager???

There is a lot of apostrophe abuse going on in this thread along with the enforced fun

Nothing! My dc, 7 & 8, stay up later than normal but just do more of whatever they normally do before bed. They then have an hour's quiet reading time (hahahahahahahaha! Quiet? Who am I kidding?!) before going to sleep.

We live overseas but Fridays we go swimming after school and they have pizza for tea. Bed is normal sort of time so me and DH can crack open the wine asap. And they're tired on Fridays after a long week at school.

No forced fun here. DS (6) loves board games at the moment so he asked me to play monopoly yesterday evening. DD (9) wasn't in the mood so she played with the rabbits and on the PC. The night before she played Labyrinth with DH. There's no point forcing kids to play games if they don't want to but I try to lure them away from screens with board games, lego or craft occasionally

@Avelinebread OP wasn't asking about teenagers, but about 5-8 year olds!

@Avelinebread my DS is 6, not a teenager. I think people are talking about younger children. I don't think it's "forced fun", I wouldn't make DS do anything he didn't want to but he loves doing stuff with me on the weekend.

I'm a single parent. We do a "movie night" on Friday nights with snacks - popcorn, sweets, crisps. DS stays up until 8.30 on Friday and Saturday nights (7.30 weekday bedtime). Saturday night we sometimes go out for dinner, or get a takeaway, I let DS play on his Switch for a bit and chill out.

It was forced fun a bit in our house, but only on my part, because the DC LOVE board games and I hate them so I had to pretend to love them, or get DH to play them (he loves them too) while I cooked a very slow tea. But we'd never make DC have 'fun' they didn't enjoy. My teens still love a good board games night even though they are almost adults and party animals.

Friday night is movie night here too. Sat night I will make the call based on whatever is going on.

Film night, dinner of choice then make popcorn to have with the film

Long bath with bubbles or bath bomb type thing, pyjamas on then downstairs to watch strictly/the voice/Michael McIntyre/ whatever

We try one evening at the weekend to have games & film night (the 7yo has said it’s called family night but I hate the phrase ) 3yo Dd, 4yo Ds, 6yo Dd, 7yo Dd. A few games and take away or pizza and chips, then a film with snacks, nice to slow down for a bit at the weekend.

Friday is chill night, sometimes she has a playdate or goes to one. Dinner is easy and whenever she's hungry, she gets more ipad time and bed is around 10 if we have nothing on Saturday.

Saturday is movie night, or we play board games, sometimes both. Bedtime around 10 again.

Sundays suck, everyone back to normal for another week at school/work.

Friday night we go out for tea or get a takeaway, they take it in turns each week to choose.
Saturday teatime we usually all watch a film together, they stay up a bit later than usual and we play board games as a family or have a family game on the Nintendo switch.