After school routine

[ilkleymoorbartat]

Please help me with your after school routine.
We have approximately 4 hours after school until bedtime and it just feels like such dead time.

Occasionally the kids have clubs (they're 6 and 8). They will obviously have dinner and watch about 20 minutes of tv. We might do 20 minutes homework.

What else do we do, I feel like they just hang out feeling bored and moaning.

My dd sometimes plays in the park on the way home, if it’s dry, for half hour, then watches a tv programme 45 mins, does hmk if needed then entertains herself. She plays Lego, draws, makes stuff, if I’ve got a bit of time I might read to her.

Well, yours routine sounds better than mine. Honestly, I find after school quite boring. Mine largely watch tv or play outside or have friends over (or some combination of these) while dh and I run around trying to finish work, feed animals (we have a small farm), tidy up, walk the dog and make dinner. Basically, they just have to fend for themselves. We do on occasion go to the playground or to do an activity if I have the free time.

I find that getting out of the house does help, but it's just rarely possible because there's too much that needs to be done.

Oh and they eat a lot of snacks.

Go for a walk, take a ball to the park, play board games, simple crafts, make a den/blanket fort, disco dance in kitchen, challenge them with timed races up and down the stairs, encourage them to use imagination and think up own entertainment but expect to spend time with them too

Also get them involved in some household chores (never too young):-
food prep, lay the table, pair clean socks, weeding the garden, help to put clean duvet on (chaos at first but lots of fun and very helpful when older)

I’d give them more than 20 minutes of Tv for a start!

I have good memories of getting to watch an hour and a half of kids Tv after school. There have been loads of nostalgic conversations in adulthood with my same-age peers about these shows. (Then we would watch Home and Away with my mum, learning lots of “morals” via the characters’ behaviour and consequences 😆

Then off to do chores, homework, playing with my brothers, being called for dinner, bath and bed with a book.

We often call in at the park on the way home, that’s about an hour. Then home, tv (more than 20 minutes!), play/reading, dinner.

Will definitely incorporate park as the weather gets better, but it's out of the way and the weather has been so grim and rainy recently.