What do you do with your children at the weekend...

[Archersandlemonade]

....if they don’t have any hobbies? I have a 13 and 15 year old and we get so bored ..... looking for inspiration ..... unfortunately they don’t enjoy any clubs so they wouldn’t be up for say joining a netball
club. We do crazy golf Sometimes, tennis, bike rides etc
but it always feels we are scratching around ..... and they never seem to want to see friends unless we are seeing the parents as a group.

DS is 14. Together we go for a walk on a Sunday with the dog. Rest of the weekend he has sport, goes to the gym, sees friends, plays on Xbox. We sometimes watch a film together- last week we watched the first Top Gun.

Seeing school friends is definitely a big part of the weekend though.

I don't think I did much with my parents on the weekends at those ages tbh, I mainly did things with friends or just hung around at home. I used to go to the gym as well. We did go on holidays together though and as we didn't have any extended family in our city we would often be away a few times a year or have relatives visit us so we'd do a lot of eating out and sightseeing etc all together then. I also remember going to dinner parties at family friends' houses and them coming to ours, most of whom had similar aged kids. The only things I can really remember doing with my parents at that age that didn't involve extended family/family friends etc was occasionally going to the cinema or occasionally having dinner out at a restaurant and the latter was usually because it was some sort of occasion like a birthday or something. Actually sometimes we would go to exhibitions at the museums or art galleries together too. My DB and DSis used to hate those though and either not come or just whinge but I have always enjoyed things like that.

17yo has just done a lifeguarding course and now wants to work as many shifts as possible at the local pool to start earning money for a trip away next year. 14yo is in Scouts so often meets up with scouting friends at the weekend and builds a fire/makes camp dinner, takes dog on long forest walks. 14yo is also keen to do Duke of Edinburgh awards and is looking at volunteering places at a local charity shop to meet part of that.

Both enjoy cinema trips, mooching round shops, meeting for coffee with friends, and latest fad is learning to play the drums from youtube. Had to buy some of those cork practice pads as can't afford a whole drum kit and noise would be too much.

They both have swimming and ballet on a Saturday so we like to have ‘family’ time on a Sunday our favourite things are

1. video game arcade
2. zoo
3. bike rides
4. out for lunch
5. farm
6. soft play
7. trampoline park
8. indoor caving
9. swimming
10. beach day in the summer
11. drive out into the countryside for pancakes and ice cream
12. shopping in town
13. baking
14. Cinema
15. mini golf

You spend 4-6 hours eating chips & ice cream??

Look at events local to u on fb. Often loads, fun days, fun runs etc

Our dc are younger. Eldest teen does own thing. Rarely comes out with us

Can’t you just leave them to it and see what they do, following the adage that “only boring people get bored”? At those ages and friendless I’d have:

Rearranged all the furniture in my room
Read lots of books
Made mixtapes (whatever the digital equivalent is these days)
Art and creating things
Made my own magazine
Baked
Mooched around charity shops
Dyed my hair, painted my nails, etc

Saturdays oldest teen (15) does bowling in the morning, plays for a club. Afternoon we stay in, 15 does drawing, 13 stares at tic tic 🙄 sometimes we go to town, sometimes go to my parents. They don't always both come. 13 is more likely to leave the house!

Sundays it's summer so we go to our sailing club. 13 sails, 15 draws on the beach, occasionally gets in the water and plays with the youngest (8)

13 occasionally has a netball event at the weekend 15 occasionally has a bowling event.

In the winter we watch films mainly.

It sounds like loads but in all honesty they barely leave their rooms!

We do do things like paddle boarding , walks, trampolining / I guess it just feels that unless I am organising an activity like that , then we do nothing. They would be happy just to sit in their rooms playing subway surfer/ roblox . The youngest will go
on the trampoline and they like me to be playing football or catch , they just seems to not be able to entertain themselves without a screen ! I limit the time but they still
just stay in their rooms

By that age they had commitments, orchestra, church

I think they are old enough to just leave them to it and get out and do your own thing ... it's sad if they didn't have any hobbies ... my DS was/is into cricket which takes hours of practice, matches, travel, teas on both Saturdays and Sundays and weeknights but I am genuinely grateful that he has such an absorbing hobby and it has been great for getting involved at Uni and in his placement year.

Mine are quite similar in that if I don’t organise things they don’t really do much and they’re quite happy doing nothing at home except I’m not as they get on my nerves because I want some downtime 😂
eldest is usually at work or out with friends.
middle is 16, her close group of school friends do competitive sport and seem to be away with that most weekends or training very early mornings until late afternoon and then homework etc etc so she doesn’t really get to see them often.
Youngest is 10 and doesn’t have many friends at school.
They will come with me if I suggest going to the beach or out for lunch or other things like that but refuse things like going for a walk or to the park.
I sometimes just crack on with those things and leave them to be bored on their own but I like to include them too.

You spend 4-6 hours eating chips & ice cream??

Sign me up

Ours are similar ages to yours We live quite near a long distance footpath so we have used that as a focus for family walks (idea being that we complete the whole trail in sections). It has been absolutely brilliant for us and has really got the DC on board with walking

Both DC play musical instruments which takes a lot of time and we all sing in the church choir which fills Sunday morning.

Days out are great - catch the bus or train to a new place, visit a sight of interest, (doesn't have to be that interesting if it's somewhere new,), have food, come back it's like a mini holiday. Theatre, cinema, museums, concerts all keep things fresh. We sometimes play board games but you have to catch people in the right mood for that one.

If all that fails I find you can add shape and meaning to the weekend with fairly small treats - pancake night, or just walk into town to buy an ice cream

It's ok to do nothing. People need to learn to be content doing "nothing".

Playing I their rooms is fine, isn't it? My teens rarely want to do anything with me anymore. I'm just glad they're not doing what I was doing at 15; older boys and acid!

Mine mainly hung out with friends at that stage and we normally did 1 thing eg cinema trip /bowling/swimming and dinner out

At 13 and 15 I definitely wasn’t entertained by my parents or taken on trips regularly. If I wasn’t going into town or cinema with my friends I’d just be hanging around at home, and doing homework at some point. Pre social media obviously, but I would read books, magazines, listen to the charts on the radio - which feel like the things that have been replaced by gaming and social media. I’d have loved a day in the house to myself.

I’m intrigued-what are you doing the other hours?!

My first thought as well 😂! I'm guessing you need to travel to the location for hiking, so add an hour both ways. Then two hours walking, plus 1-2 hours eating/playing would add up to 6. We often do this with DD who's just 3 and drives us nuts if stuck indoors. We find a far-off destination just to kill time with the drive, then all of us get to spend a nice bit of time in nature followed by a meal.

Same here, if I organise something 15 year old will generally do it otherwise happy to sit in bedroom looking at some form of screen.
Mine hasn't got any friends, so slightly different, I feel like he would get really depressed if I didn't help him but its draining!

Mine are 13 and see friends/chill in room/dd2 has a sports club. They only really want to come with us to something for them (trip to big shopping centre, cinema) rather than the stuff we'd go when they were little (country walks, castles and history things).

We do find it a bit frustrating as they a, don't tell us their plans or change times and b, seem to think we'll be on tap for lifts etc. this makes it hard for us to go our thing (still a bit too young to have friends unsupervised in our house, whilst they can/have to walk most places, we have had instances of one set of parents dropping them off slightly further afield on the understanding'it's fine, dad can pick me up').

Mine is always with friends. One night they sleep here. The next night her friends. She has had anxiety over the past 2 years so this is progress.

It does seem to be all about her friends though at the moment. Probably too far the other way.

She has exams coming up so she may do some Science tuition later on today with me.

I agree. Nothing wrong with doing nothing for set periods of time.

DS is nearly 14. He spends a lot of time with his mates. He was out on Friday from 4-8pm playing football.

Yesterday we had Father's day stuff to do, he had homework, we had a Chinese takeaway and he watched the England match

Today he has football and end of season prize giving. We'll watch the F1 together and he'll probably go on his PS4 for a while.

Week days, school, homework and friends. We always have a tv show that we watch as a family in the evenings for a while.

He and his dad have a season ticket for football so that takes up most of the winter.

He will come for a walk, meal out, trip to the beach, etc but is choosing to do his own thing more now, which is normal imo. As long as he isn't on screens all day I don't really mind.

We’re similar. They spend way to much time on screens. DS14 never sees friends outside school but does interact with some on computer games. DD16 rarely sees friends outside school though that’s partly logistics as they live quite far apart. DD spends a lot of time on schoolwork and does play an instrument, reads a lot, sometimes bakes and sometimes does things with a church youth group. DS does the minimum schoolwork and maximum gaming he can.

So we insist on them leaving the house each day weekends and holidays and getting fresh air and exercise. So tends to be walks or bike rides, often involving lunch or cake or ice cream in the middle. We also do crazy golf, occasionally tennis and have done things like escape rooms and treasure trails (see treasuretrails.co.uk).

During school holidays we venture a bit further afield for our walks or do a nature reserve or theme park or tourist attraction.

I always say to them that they aren’t forced to come out with us as long as they are getting some fresh air and exercise but as they don’t want to do it on their own and don’t organise going out with friends then we do it as a family. We also play board games and watch films together and insist on lunch and tea together unless our with friends.

I’ve had people say we shouldn’t be forcing teenagers to do things with us but they do still spend probably 70%+ of their day doing their own thing.