to be doing very little with dd this holiday.

[LEMmingaround]

Really we are just mooching around the house. Walking the dogs and going to the town.

Thats it really.

She seems happy but I feel guilty. We aren't going on holiday and we haven't had any play date invites.

Should I be making more of her time off? She is 9.

Have you asked her if there's anything she'd like to do? (I think you probably have.)

Personally, I love lazy, moochie summer days, so I'd say YADNBU.

Yeah. She generally doesn't know. I think we need some ideas. Cheap ones.

Walks in the woods
Picnics
Swimming
Making dens (possibly a bit old for that now?)
Parks

Thats the sort of thing my DD (7.5) has asked to do

Hmmm 9, does she like reading? Trip to the library to find some new books? What about cooking? Perhaps you could cook nice things together. Is there a series you could watch together in TV? Those sorts of things can make lovely memories without costing a lot.

are you doing things like art / craft / cooking projects together? Something that is a bit of a challenge can be fun (and not too expensive). E.g. bake a fabulous cake. photograph 50 things beginning with P and make an album. make a dress from a pattern. I'm sure there are other ideas too ...

Swimming, baking, craft projects (do you have a hobbycraft of similar), cinema, take a picnic and go for a really long walk, cycling, take the train to your closest big town/city.

Cooking - Get her to pick meals for the week and then plan to cook them together every evening.

At home pamper day - homemade face packs, paint nails/toe nails.

Movie and duvet day

As much as I don't think children need constantly entertaining I would be trying to do at least one different thing a week.

Done a fair bit of baking, walks and parks, no den making yet. Will check out cinema. Not been for a while.

Depending where you are trips to the beach? Or our local city centre has a beach on top on the shopping area which was great yesterday with loads of kids activities (and free!)

I've always done lots of activities and days out with DS in the hols but I've stopped this year. We're just mooching around except for swimming and the odd cinema or park visit. Its too expensive to be doing stuff all the time and with DS the more you do the more he expects. He takes everything for granted and views days out as a given rather than a treat so I've no choice but to stop until he learns to appreciate things again.
I feel I can't win if I do nothing I feel guilty that he's missing out but if I do too much he turns into an ungrateful little monster.

I live a few minutes walk from the beach. She often needs persuading. Run of crap weather means we haven't done much but practically lived there first week or so.

Love the idea of roof top beach (bet it comes free from broken glass, abandonned bbqs and dog shit :)

Yes it was lovely. Very clean and enclosed and of course the bonus of no sea for them to run off towards!

We have been sorting out a world of crap in their bedrooms. We have found loads of stuff to be given to DDs old nursery, our local animal shelter thrift shop and there is more yet to go.
It is great because they have found old stuff they forgot they had and they have made space in their bedrooms so they look much nicer!

Other than that we have been watching telly, looming and that's about it. Life is so frenetic usually it's nice to stop and chill.

There's still time to do the Summer Reading Challenge at the library. That's at-your-own-pace summer activity, and cheap, but an achievement.

I feel guilty too. We move house in 3 days and the whole of the holiday has been spent sorting out a mortgage, trips to solicitors ( just sold two properties) clearing our montains of stuff, trips to the dump, charity shops, storage unit.

It's been a very dull 6 weeks for the kids.

Have you got a garden? I've stocked up on 2for10 garden toys from Asda and raided the pound shop for crafty bits for dd1. One day we go town, we've been having about 2 picnics aweek (just sandwich, drink and bag of crisp, not full on picnic with table cloth et all) a fair bit of baking and plenty cbeebies structured activities

Although iv only got a toddler and baby so perhaps my examples are not so helpful for a 9year old

Does sound a bit boring, could you arrange for one of her friends to come over?

LEM - what you have described is absolutely fine IMO

You get out everyday with the dogs
That's often more than we achieve

Plus the first week you lived at the beach !

She's happy , your happy, no need to worry

Dd is 10 this is the first year since she started school that I am working. Her nan has come to stay to look after her and between them they have done very little. Dm is happy that she feels useful dd is happy she can do whatever she wants without getting nagged at. I take dd out on Fridays when I am not in work everyone is happy. As op have said if your child is happy then don't sweat it

I think it's fine too. All this "Oh you should be DOING something" is claptrap for most DC. Most DC can entertain themselves after a certain age and if they can't then there's a problem. If you're not rolling in cash, it's impossible to take them somewhere regularly.

Can she invite some friends around, or can you take her and her friends out to the park/beach together?

Mind you at 9, I'm sure she would have suggested that if it's what she wanted to do.

If you're both happy with the way things are, I really wouldn't worry about it and I certainly wouldn't feel guilty.

My dc are back at school. But we had 2 weeks away and the rest was mooching round the house in jammies. Was brilliant!