Teenage evenings

[ThreeBeanChilli]

I'm curious what an average 15 year old does in the evenings. Particularly one that isn't tied into lots of clubs...

I have a child who used to do lots, but at 15 is autistic and has poor mental health and really stuck with evenings so thought I'd see both what was "normal" and also anyone in a similar position to me!

If no club then....Home, snacks, homework, nonsense on phone or play guitar, dinner, x box, shower, read. Sometimes we might be allowed to watch an episode of something together after dinner.

@DarkAcademia that made me laugh!

Thanks everyone. So looks like general screen time and not much else is quite common, at least in anxious/asd kids and likely in other too.

I keep thinking how that isn't good for anyone and we should be outdoors or Dojng Something better for mental health but maybe it's just where kids are at after exhausting time at school?

Really appreciate peoples timetables :) And the variety. We used to watch together after dinner but we don't currently have anything both kids will agree on... and maybe having a regular homework slot woild help.

I want to have some 1-1 time with each child too. We've dialed down weekend activities to give a bit more space too.

They seemed to have so much more capacity in primary!

Wondering- love the way you've written that. Yes "allowed to watch" seems exactly where its at!!! The slightest thing and "im off to my room".

DD 14 not ASD

Pick her up from school - home by 4pm
snack
bedroom - usually found fully clothed bed in staring at phone - sometimes sleeping (which I am actively trying to discourage at the moment as this usually means a midnight or later bedtime!)
dinner at 6 - mostly eats with us but sometimes has room service if I’m working from home and little DC having something different
homework
long shower or even longer bath
walks about in hair turban for an hour or so, she may spend this time down stairs with dogs or younger DC
will do her chores - folding washing/washing up etc
back to bedroom by about 9pm
extensive skin/hair care regime
hairdryer noises
Lamp goes on
in bed by about 10:30/11 but often awake until midnight!

anyone else’s worried about teenager bed times?

CBT is contraindicated for autism unless provided by a specialist in using it with people with ASD as our brains work differently.
Scrolling on phone is a well known decompression method for autistic people.
Just some thoughts.
I hope she starts to feel better soon.

"Hairdyer noises"
"Mysterious and lengthy shower time"

I am appreciating the humour in these posts 😁

Ooh Flensburg is it?! I mean I'm not surprised but didn't know that. Is that official in the nhs as well as "known"?

I've got forms to fill out for assessment but have had them ages... and go round our iapt cycle telling them I don't want cbt every couple of years!

Also yes get the scrolling and decompression. I do it a lot. But is it actually okay? And actually decompressing? Or just keeping the brain active when it needs to calm?

Really appreciate your input .

(She is just recently turned 15.)

My 13 year old comes in at 3.30, grabs a snack and i try to engage him in chat about his day, remind him of homework that needs to be done etc (apart from 2 days a week when i'm in the office so his dad tries the same, although he's often busy on work calls which is a source of guilt).

Then he plays on his xbox. Would just game all evening if I let him, but it has a really negative impact on his mood and behaviour so I make him stop at 5.30ish for dinner. But it's painful to drag him away and usually ends up in an argument. After dinner he might do some homework (not much) and I try hard to find some family friendly TV we can watch together (he has a younger brother) e.g Bake Off, Masked Singer. Then it's shower and bed. This pattern varies if he happens to have a club on or his favourite football team have a game on TV.

I try to encourage extra curricular clubs but have noticed these are dropping off now. He plays football so trains one or two nights a week with a match at the weekend. He also goes to Scouts (although his attendance is low so think we might just drop this soon) and has a guitar lesson (which he dislikes so again we'll probably drop this). Cricket in the summer.

His evenings are a source of worry and stress because he's found secondary school hard. I can't work out if he's depressed or if it's just teenage hormones, but he seems unhappy and argumentative. He has found making friends difficult which has really impacted him as he's someone who thrives on social interaction, even though he's quite shy. He doesn't seem to enjoy school and, for a fairly bright boy, doesn't seem to be achieving well either. This makes him want to game a lot and even though it effects his behaviour we let him do it (with parameters) because otherwise I don't know what else he would do, he's not interested in anything else! It feels like a vicious cycle and I don't know how to break it. I'd like him to be happy. He scrolls his phone and i bloody hate Snapchat but it seems the only means of social contact outside of school for his age group, so banning it would just mean cutting him off from the contact he does have.

Sometimes it feels like everyone else has an after school time full of friend meet ups, sports in the fresh air, family board games with laughs and healthy dinners.

My eldest came home, did a mixture of homework and gaming until dinner around 6.30 then she, her sibling and dad would game for an hour or two before finishing homework/more gaming/chatting online. Unless she had clubs which were 2 evenings a week. Younger would see friends after school (including telling me she was one place and going to another found out years later) also gamed but not as much, different clubs, did exercise including sometimes taking me running ...

Dd1 is 13 and doesn't do much after school. One day a week she does netball but otherwise its home, and homework/tv/phone or some gaming. She currently does at least 30 minutes of homework or revision or something each night regardless of wether anything is set, except when she stays late for netball.

Even when I was in high school I don't remember doing loads after school at that age. I did one after school club with a friend, and often we would have a coffee in town. Every now and then I would stay at a friend's on a Friday or something but we used the weekends for meeting up. Most of us traveled at least one bus to school from different directions so wasn't just popping round to friends houses all the time. I watched Neighbours every day with a cup of tea, before going to do my homework.

Finishes at 4.30pm and it takes quite a while to get home
Dinner at 5.30pm
5.30-8pm sometimes later - home work
8.30pm shower and skincare
9pm screens off and bedtime chat
9.30pm reading kindle to sleep

Is your child not extremely busy with homework and revision? They should ideally be doing a couple of hours each evening.

My dd has two hobbies and one sport

I have a 13yo autistic Kevin the Teenager/ Victor Meldrew/ Marvin the Paranoid Android.

He trudges slowly up the road to the car, gets home and settles into the gaming chair to fester and yell at his only friend who's 200 miles away (google meets and headset optional accessories, he can be heard anyway). Intermittent pauses to bellow at his sibling to be quiet or to raid the snack cupboard.

3x a week he's given 30 mins notice/ grumble time that it's time to crank into gear for swimming/ scouts/ karate. He's just finished stage 7 swimming and I'm not quite sure what to do with him next. He keeps grumbling about Scouts, not helped by the newest member sharing far too much of his DNA.

He needs a couple of hours gaming to zone out and be capable of anything, but it's not healthy to spend all his free time rotting in a chair (especially when he's dyspracic and hypermobile) and I think it's healthy to break his evening up. If it's not structured activity, he'll just maraud around the house in brother-baiting mode to share his dissatisfaction at his state of existance.

😂 to 2 hours of homework a night. No is the answer.

But they've never been hot on homework tbh as they're all quite bright. I do think some regular revision wouldn't go amiss. I wouldn't want a child doing 2 hours a night though.

My 15, nearly 16 dd gets home just after 4

Sits in my office and gossips for half an hour
Room until teatime which is about 5 ish
Sits with us for an hour or so and watches telly
Then she flits between her room and the lounge until she has to put her electronics on charge and downstairs at 10pm

She can then read, or what ever she wants to do until she goes to bed

BogRoll again sounds familiar "he'll just maraud around the house in brother-baiting mode to share his dissatisfaction at his state of existance." 😂.

My youngest misses having an older sibling who would play with her.

Does she have any chores?

Some types of chore might actually make her feel more capable and therefore cheer her up a bit - e.g. she could plan and cook a meal for everyone once a week or take charge of some bits of the garden

Are they not sitting GSCEs in a few months? Or the follow year? A few hours of homework is not loads if they want to relax and socialise over the weekend. Your child is nearly a young adult, a good work ethic is really important to us anyway. Term times it’s heads down!

I’m a teacher in a secondary school. Most teenagers tell me that they go home, go to their room and either game, watch videos or chat online to friends. They rarely socialise in person.

My 15 year old DD is also ASD. She comes home, goes straight to her room and falls asleep! She surfaces for dinner and scrolls through her phone. She needs the time and space to decompress. Maybe 1 or 2 evenings a week she’ll go to her friend’s house (to sit in her room and scroll through their phones!) and she works a couple of shifts a week as a waitress.

After years of stress and tears I don’t put any pressure on her to do homework or revision. It’s her choice.

A couple of hours of homework is very important right now (year 10), but beyond that (and music practice) they are tired after a long day and lying around watching tv/xbox/scrolling/reading is very important down time.

@BogRollBOGOF I have a 7 year old Victor Meldrew. Sums him up perfectly! 😂

When we took the kids to see our puppy for the first time his older sisters cried tears of joy. He took one look and said ‘I don’t want one!’

DS1, just turned 15, not diagnosed NT but traits of Asperger's type autism (DS2 does have autism/ADHD diagnosis so likely)

Gets in around 4pm (I collect as too far to walk/no public transport)
Homework
Xbox
Eats around 6pm
Xbox off at 8pm, watches TV with us
9.30pm phone switches off. Lots of YouTube/Snapchat/Tiktok throughout day, but has limit of 3 hours on schooldays.
Bedtime at 10pm

2 nights per week football training 6.30-8.30 (including travel). On these nights eats at 8.30pm with us
1 night Scouts (is Young Leader) 7.15-9.30 including walk.
1 afternoon Debate Club at school or if that's not on walks to school village with friends. Till 5pm.

Ds2 (14) is an elite athlete so his day will be different to most teenagers his age.

His day starts at 5am. 3 x per week.

5.30-7.20am he sport trains

School until 3.15 (except Tuesday he finishes at 2.15)

Then he has free time until 5.20 (normally he will do his home work/play his PC) (except for a Thursday as he has school course work until 4.45)

5.30 he will do more more sport training until 7pm and then at 7.15 to 8pm he will do some gym work (weights/conditioning/resistance training etc)

Then home to rest, he does this every week day however he has most Wednesday’s off school due to his sport.

Saturday he plays sport in the AM in the North East- he then has free time - he normally spends it gaming or going to a mates house.

Sunday he plays again however this can be anywhere in England so he then has free time after this. (Homework etc)

I think the time of year plays a huge part as well. On long summer evenings mine will often want to go out on a bike or something outdoors but needs to hibernate in winter.

I have two teens... honestly not a lot. One activity per week after school and other than that...they get home, have dinner, do homework, watch TV, have a bath or shower, eat some more...and go to bed. To be honest it's very hard to socialise after school when it's so cold, dark and rains a lot. Plus there's a huge amount of homework and revision required at this age for exams. Your dc doesn't sound particularly out of the ordinary.