My 10yo is in Y6.
He is always really keen to have his friends over after school and at the weekends and in theory I'm all for this. In practice though, I find it challenging because all his friends want to do is play on screens.
We have what I thought were fairly relaxed screen time rules. No limits on TV (they self limit fairly well). He can have an hour or two of gaming time on a Saturday or a Sunday. He sometimes games during the week after school but not often as he's busy doing other stuff. I'm fairly flexible with it but he is absolutely not allowed to play all day and he doesn't have a gaming set up in his bedroom or anything.
When he's not gaming he will draw, do Lego, go out on his bike, play board games etc.
When his friends come over they just want to game. I give them a bit of time and then say they need to do something else and it gets really awkward as they never want to do anything else he or I suggest.
When he goes to his mates houses they do seem to game literally all day! At a push, they will sit and watch some YouTube! I don't really mind I guess but it's not exactly ideal. Their parents seem to just let them get on with it and let them choose how much time they spend gaming. They all having gaming set ups in their rooms too.
Do I just admit defeat and let him and his mates game as much as they like when they come round? There are a few kids I've stopped inviting round as it just gets really hard when I say it's time to switch off.
Am I really in the minority here? Do all 10 year old boys just spend hours gaming at the weekend when they are at home?
My son isn't sporty at all so he won't go outside and play football or anything which is a real shame as I think that's something some of his friends would be keen to do. He is more musical and creative but his mates aren't into that so not something they can do together.
Short of following them around and basically directing them to activities (which I don't want to do as they feel a bit old for that!), what else can I do?