What on earth do you do with your teens on Sundays?

[RuthEvershedforPM]

Hello

two kids at home (one only for summer) 19 and 14. For various boring reasons we can’t go away this summer and I can’t take much leave.

nevermind

but it’s another Sunday - I am bored shitless - would like to do something nice with the kids - they don’t get up until lunchtime and any suggestions I make fall on deaf ears.

obvs ask them what they would like to do ‘nothing’

Any suggestions welcome - including how I get out of weekend blues

I’d walk the dog with my parents
we used to drive somewhere a bit more challenging - with a hill and a view say
would go to a cafe afterwards
they would take me shopping nothing major but a new piece of clothing or bookshop/art materials

I would sketch them - they would read

When I was a teenager, I stayed in my room all day, reading. I loved it then (late 70s/early 80s), and I still love it now.
I've no idea what my parents did, but that's the point - no self-respecting teen wants to spend their Sunday doing activities with The Olds.
Just go out and do whatever you want, OP, and leave your kids in peace at home.

Park run, pickle ball or badminton at the leisure centre, air hockey and lunch, escape room, electronic darts and shuffle board, water park (bit of a drive away), crafts (made resin coasters recently), shopping and coffee and cake, dog walks.

There are lots of food festivals on at the moment, and large craft fayres.

We have 19, 17 and 14. 17 year old is very hard to persuade out, the other two will do cinema and bowling.

However, summers when we are abroad we spend the evenings playing cards so even though we are at home, because it is the holidays they often get the cards or board games out. We can also often get 2/3 or sometimes all of them to watch a quiz show or a police procedural.

When I was a teen I didn’t mind doing stuff with my parents, but it needed to be planned a bit in advance. Even now I get frustrated when I want some downtime, and it gets overruled by someone else!
So, visiting relatives, going for a walk, going to the beach or the nearest city was planned, and agreed by, the whole family and put on the calendar. Perhaps you could talk them them together about things they would like to do, and set some dates.

I took mine on a paddleboarding lesson and a surf lesson. They are choosing the next activities (I loved paddleboarding so will do that on my own again). Hiking. Kayaking. If you pay for a course, its more of a trip than mum trying to organise something and being dishearten at the lack of enthusiasm

Anything involving food normally goes down well, favourite cuisine, Sunday roast, buffet restaurant, food festival as a pp has suggested. Mine also never say no to bowling. We go to the smaller trendier places rather than the big mega bowl types - my dc def want to spend time with me there are enough days to spend with friends too, especially during the holidays

Tell them you're doing something and let them choose. It's entirely up to them if they want to sleep in and do nothing - that may be their idea of bliss.

But you can tailor stuff to what you know they love. Mine love card/board games so suggesting that almost always gets them all busy.
Dd loves going just with me to the shops (and a sneaky Costa) ds likes more active things.
They also like having 1-2-1 time and that's also a good time to chat.

A food bribe normally works well, I tend to incorporate a country park/dog walk with a cake etc. Sometimes a pub for lunch/dinner. Younger teen would rather stay in or be with friends. But bike rides and board games together work. We went crabbing the other day which was a success. I’m intending to book a tennis court and paddle boarding over the holidays. Occasionally the cinema if I can find something they will all enjoy. I find it easier to do things separately sometimes as they have different interests and argue! But I’m also at a point where my friends are hard to pin down so I’ve joined the leisure centre and hope to make more friends! But I have also started to do things alone yesterday I went to a museum and park for a walk alone.

15 will come out for food with me, or the gym. I don't love the gym but it's the one thing he'll always say yes to.

It's hard though, I empathise.