What successfully engages your seven year old boy?

[Fluffruff]

I feel like I’m at my wit’s end with my seven year old. He’s a bright boy but never been a player (never got deep into dinosaur play, train tracks, castle and knights, play kitchen etc) just not that kind of kid with the make believe and imaginary world. He finds it really hard to settle down to something especially in the later afternoon. We have quite active mornings on the weekend doing stuff and from 4-6 we’re always at home. From 2-4 ish both children have tablet time/watch stuff on their tablets. It’s after that we’re having problems. My son wanders around aimlessly and ends up bothering /winding up his younger sibling and it ends in screaming and fighting. Everything I direct him to he rejects in favour of wandering around and annoying everybody (for example this afternoon he decided to throw loads of magnatiles at the kitchen window endlessly to ‘see if they would stick to glass’ - he knows they don’t - and then of course gets told off). We have snap circuits, Lego, magnatiles, marble run all the usual stuff.

I was wondering about a longer term project that we could work on each weekend together but also he needs to be able to do himself as we can’t go on like this in a cycle of wandering around and winding up his sibling scream crying and repeat.

I know it's another screen but scratch is my 7 yo favourite thing. They use it at school as an introduction to coding and it can be pretty creative.

Also keen on stop motion animation

. My ds 7 has recently discovered playing pool! Got a second hand table for 15 quid!! Even teens are now spending more time together bent over a dc sized table!!

I'm not the entertainment manager so complaining you are bored to me results in chores.

I’ll check some of these out thanks. There are def elements of ASC, pretty rigid about stuff. Lots of signs really. Loves a board game, scrabble, Chinese checkers, cards etc but these need someone with him. He’d play Wordle all day long if It was possible. The kind of thing that does engage him is sorting stuff into categories so we have these games called ‘I saw it first’ with 300 little cards of ocean creatures or jungle animals. One time he sorted the entire amount into alphabetical order and then counted how many animals started with A etc.

This afternoon I was trying to work in the garden and DH make their dinner and I had to constantly stop and intervene, try and redirect him/tell him off for ruining his siblings play. In the end I gave up my work in the garden. This morning he had a swimming lesson, cinema, a picnic lunch in the park to follow so it’s not like he didn’t burn energy off this morning. So tiring!

I think I will try and make a list of things we can do together and then him alone.

I think

Can he go back outside again? Do you have a garden?

Mine is a toddler still, but he basically doesn’t like toys at all indoors and wants to spend every minute outside.

7 year old outside ideas. Chalkboard on wall, easel for painting or drawing set up, swing ball, garden jenga, modelling clay outside, building and painting stuff ( bird table/ house), gardening ( growing edible stuff maybe), climbing frame.

Or on bikes/ scooter/ walk/ park in the afternoon

My DD is 7 - we have a couple of subscriptions that might be of interest:
Whizz Pop Bang magazine is a science based mag for kids, includes experiments & projects as well as facts etc
Toucan box - a monthly craft box with a new craft activity. Some parental involvement but not much.
Nat Geo mag - interesting articles & puzzles.
Maybe look at some science kits too? Some would need parental support, others might not.
Does you DS like gardening? Could you get him interested in growing fruit/veg etc?

2 boys age 7 and 8 here. We spend a lot of time outdoors. They love football, basketball, badminton. They've got rollerblades.
Inside the house, they draw and colour. Don't really like Lego anymore. We play a lot of board games, chess, rummikub, battleships etc

I see you were trying to do stuff in garden, I would def recruit him to help. Even my 2 year old attempted racking, grass seeding, and sanding bench with me today. At 7 years there’s probably quite a lot he can do. Can he help plant, start veg plot, paint a shed.

My DS(7) is somewhat similar, and I have just accepted that we cannot relax at home ever. So we are out of the house most of the day, and screen time is at the end of the day to limit it. Today we cycled around the reservoirs, met friends for lunch, played tennis and then playground. Tomorrow will be parkrun, football, lunch, party.

If he is pestering because he can't occupy himself in the limited time we are at home, then he gets to sweep the path, copy a page from his book or tidy his room. No work done, no screen time later. When he is really being annoying I will not hesitate to drag him out for a 4 mile walk - no bike, no scooter, and explain that if he cannot find something to do then I will.

So clearly I do not have the solution to this problem, except that I am thinking the Victorians may have had it right about child labour. Your DC might like Pokémon? There is a lot of sorting, categorising and planning.

I've got a boy who is 7 in July- he is similar, never been a good player in terms of toys. He does quite like a hot wheels track and a few cars.
I recently bought a load of books (DK and National Geographic) about volcanos, earthquakes, that kind of thing. He absolutely loves digging into these and telling us stuff ! He likes facts and information

At that age, my DGS would be very happy with a ball of string, a roll of Sellotape and a cardboard box or 2. He is also very "annoying"

My ds, similar age, loves playing card games :happy families, Uno, snap, pontoon. He loves nerf gun family fights, he has a nerf gun electronic target for solo practice which scores him. We have a miniature pool table which is the huge favourite at the moment. To be engaged off screen involves full on family games for him, we all have to be involved.

It was my DS 7th birthday last week and he got a range of balloons at his party. A few were football balloons, as in white balloons with the football hexagons printed on. He's played with them for hours, kicking them around the house. Luckily they don't break anything! When they burst, I bought another pack of 24 and he asks so nicely for one blowing up and plays for hours! Bizarre !

My 7 yr old son is exactly the same, even down to the bit where he’ll annoy his little brother for fun. It makes me cross. Things he does enjoy are; washing up, washing the car, feeding the cats, drawing (although this can sometimes backfire as he gets frustrated if it goes wrong,) cycling around the block, to the park, up and down outside etc. He loves swimming, likes his board games (but again gets easily frustrated if he’s losing.) He enjoys sensory things - slime, sand, burying his toys in the sand, playing with the water guns. Also rough & tumble games with daddy as he’s too big for me & doesn’t know his own strength. He really enjoys cooking - making a cake mix, chopping veg for dinner, making pancakes, making jelly!!!

I think it’s also the the age though. It’s bloody hard work. And mine would argue with an empty house, drives me nuts sometimes.

pokemon

Unfortunately we have a very small garden so not enough room to do much.

Some really good ideas here. I think DH and I will create a list of stuff that can be done with a parent or alone and if he is doing his aimless thing/winding up his sibling we can point to it.

Kind of reassuring to know we’re not alone!

Minecraft?
My 7 year old loves it! Could barely do it at first but a couple weeks in built a pretty
Impressive works on there. She plays on a switch but has now also got into minecraft Lego and likes to run around the garden with her pretend sword defeating creapers. She plays on friendly mode with everything switched off for anything not appropriate and it's probably her first really big thing she's into! Also friends at school love playing it. It's like lego but obviously they can build unlimited things if they mine for the equipment.

Mine is the same. Sadly we allowed a really awful dynamic to develop at home before realising that the constant fighting was way worse than extra screen time. He has significant executive function difficulties, and I see now that he really struggles to engage with things unless he knows at the beginning what the end result should be.

The only thing he'll do at home is 'kits', like building a robot or a woodcraft building or something. Like yours, nothing open-ended. Basically, if he's at home he's allowed free access to a screen (educational weekdays, free choice at weekends).

This works for us because:

• we will often ask him to do 'something' in front of the screen (like a robot or paper craft) at the same time, which he does
• we often interrupt him and ask for a bit of help around the house before he continues, or before he starts the screen
• we fill alot of the rest of his time with sport and clubs, so he does alot of non-screen activities elsewhere
• he's actually much more easily directed if he's been on a screen for a bit, he will put it down for a bit and do something practical like baking or cleaning the yard.

Having lots of practical tasks he can do is always good - window cleaning, pressure washing, watering the plants etc.

My previously good 7 year old has started complaining too. We limit tablet / TV to the end of the day.

I saw an idea a few weeks ago which I'm planning to implement. It's to get them ( with adult input) to write a load of ideas of things to do on lolly sticks. When they are bored / being disruptive, get then to pick one and then do the activity. I tried suggesting it today, he didn't go for it but did at least then come up with the idea of a board game himself which felt like a minor win.

We have the toucan box subscription mentioned above, which he can now pretty much do independently. You can get sticker by number books which work well too. I've also got a selection of Baker Ross crafts kits which are cheaper than Toucan box. I mostly get colour in and then make something type crafts as my DC will colour in happily and it takes minimal input from me and creates minimal mess. Sometimes I get the playdough out, that can still entertain for 20-30 min. He'll also do jigsaws. We have lots of cooperative board games as he hates loosing and I find it less stressful playing something where we are on the same side.

It is at least reassuring to know I'm not the only one finding it hard!

Baker ross shit kits keep ours entertained as does 'cleaning' the windows. From p4 (scotland) our school doesn't do homework, they do p.i.p's instead, personal independence projects. They're bloody awesome and can be time consuming if you pick a good one

Oh and since others have mentioned it, mine also is autistic with ADHD!

What about an activity magazine you can sit with him and work through? Also it may be the 2 hours solid of screen time. Perhaps break it up into 2x1 hours with activity/toys in between.

My sons autistic no imaginative play at all. He loves books, will happily go sit in his bed and read. Baking, trampoline and he has a marble run he enjoys. board games are a big favourite although we are playing with him. Bike and scooter. He's an only child so we often play with him.

Ds2 really likes drawing or craft and making things. Like junk modelling. Have you tried giving him a load of empty boxes and bottles and some tape and paint and see what he does?