Do you have shared family interests / hobbies?

[TheSidewinderSleepsTonite]

Hi everyone,

My children are still young (4.5 and 2) so I'm probably jumping the gun a bit! But I'd be interested to hear if you share interests / hobbies with your whole family and / or children and when did that start to develop?

I was talking to another mum at the eldest's nursery recently. She has an 11 year old and a 4 year old and the whole family loves ice hockey (we are in southern Germany). They all watch and they all play. I find it so lovely they've found something they all have an interest in and share together. Before kids, DH and I went to the football together, had hiking weekends away and enjoyed the cinema.

I know my kids are young but my eldest has only ever really shown interest in vehicles... Nothing else. We've tried to casually play different things with him, never forcing, but he just isn't interested. At a tennis birthday party, he built a construction site with the cones, rackets and hula hoops...😁 He does quite like swimming, but me and DH are not swimming fans, we go for the kids' sake.
Youngest is 2 and already loves climbing (I enjoy climbing...we have a local climbing centre with a toddler area), loves kicking around football (which DH and I love) and enjoyed attempting to hit the tennis balls.

I want to make it clear, I'll never force my children into things. I'd like to find out naturally what they like and I know it might take a few years.

I'm just curious what shared hobbies you have? And what ages did it start developing?

Mine have a similar age gap and we started going to watch football together and climbing when the youngest was 5. We also watch ice hockey together oddly enough, but that started when they were a bit older.

My son and husband are off mountain biking this morning. It’s their shared hobby and they love it (age 6). I am a bit jealous I can’t join in as I never learnt to ride. I can just about keep a bike upright if we go on a short local ride, whereas they will go for hours. My daughter age 3 has finally got on her balance bike abd really loves it so I think at some point will likely join them.

my (recent) hobby is sewing but they are a bit young. My little girl shows lots of interest though so hopefully we can share that when she is older!

They are so young still as they grow you will find stuff. One of my children is very into geography and geo pictures, we watch YouTubers trying to find a location in the world using a random street view picture. Another child is really into a Netflix series and we watch it together.
It will come organically.

I wouldn’t force my children into something they disliked but equally kids don’t tend to find niche interests alone. So I think guiding them is fine. I’m hoping DD is interested in horses.

Mine all love rugby, plying it for eldest, watching for all, endless talking about it, fantasy league discussions, following news...and then F1 will start which they all follow too...I love the way they all discuss and watch together but sometimes I disappear to the other room to watch Netflix instead!!!!

We play board/card games together - interesting modern ones I mean, not like Monopoly.
And 3 out of 4 of us like running and have gone to Parkrun this morning (I am the 4th).

We don't necessarily have their main hobbies in common - I think they like to each have hobbies that are very much their own - but there are other ways to be involved in their lives

• I chaperone for my daughter's dance shows, so she loves that I am part of that side of her life
• I do something with my children every evening. Now my son has outgrown being read to we play card games /board games etc
• we let them plan day trips so they get to pick some of our adventures
• we have lots of things we dabble in together like we go ice skating /paddle boarding etc together - it's definitely good to find some fun and active things you can all do together

So you can let them follow their own interests and still find lots of ways to do things together

My son loves geography too, we like looking up different countries on the internet and learning about them, and playing games like globle and worldle

We love reading aloud, it's lovely.

I always wonder this too about mine (even though my first is one and my second won't even be born until July 😂) their dad and I are both quite into sports, particularly football, and we're both very into music. I only play one instrument but my partner plays everything as well as sings, and we both have a wide mix of music taste. So I always wonder if our children will naturally gravitate towards these things as they'll be brought up around them, or if nature will override nurture and they'll have no interest! Like you they'll never be "forced into" anything, we want to give them exposure to everything and see where their interests lie, but we always love musing about it!

If you liked hiking before kids, why not take them out for a short hike and see how you get on? Might be some walks in woods with kids features to start with but you could build it up to longer walks?

Yes we all like football going to the cinema going to gigs. Mine are 18 and 12. Me and OH love basketball too 🙂

Football, football and a bit more football. My DH coaches two teams, our DS15 plays, we all watch Inc both sets of in-laws and we all support different prem teams too which we all watch together and incorporate food and drinks round at the weekends. My DH also plays for a vets team and our DS referees and we watch those games too to make sure he doesn’t get too much drama from coaches or parents.

It’s a worst nightmare if you didn’t like football and I do enjoy closed season for a break - but it’s our thing and we do love it.

Random raccoon gif!

No. I always marvel at these families that manage to get their kids into the sane things as them. We've failed miserably.

Geocaching for us. It's basically a free treasure hunt and gets us out and about. I like hunting for geocaches and DDs like swapping little toys when they find some.

We also play boardgames as a family. Both of these hobbies started when DDs were around 7 and 5.

From the kids being around 5 and 8 we cycled, hiked ,skied and climbed together.
Twenty years later all four of us are still doing the same together with the Addison of girlfriends joining us!
We also go to gigs and theatre together although that started in the teenage years.
Dh and the boys have additional interests such as cars and motor racing. I skip on that!

@TheSidewinderSleepsTonite we only have one kiddo (pre-schooler) but since as early as possible we’ve fostered swimming as the primary. We also do athletics (mostly running), cycling, skiing and tennis - these are also our family sports. We also have art classes and language classes. But kiddo goes solo to them.

Have no advice for your kiddo though. If he likes engineering I’d deffo foster it for the long-term. Not sure if you can persuade him to do other stuff or not?

We all love going to football. I support a different team to DH and DC though. DH and DS have had season tickets since DS was about 5. He's in his 20s now, and they still go to every home match together. Me and dd (24) both play netball at the same club. She grew up watching me play, and it makes me so happy that she loves the game too, and we get to play together.

I grew up fairly rurally and never did any organised activities as a child. I now live in a different bit of the country.
When I first started taking the DC to ballet, gymnastics, football, hockey athletics and all sorts, it really struck me how many parents had done those activities as a child and many still did them (less so gymnastics!). If you are a keen sportsperson and still participating in your local club, I think it is quite natural that you will take your DC along with you from time to time, if not regularly, will see the young ones training and so begin to think about when your own DC will start, might well be tapped up to start with the coaching etc and it snowballs from there. Teen DD is quite into cross country and I feel like a real outsider at her club as, whilst they're all welcoming, all of the parents know each other as they are all members of the club themselves and go on regular runs and races together. There is never a shortage of parent helpers as the parents see the kids training nights as an opportunity to get a run in themselves.