To ask what your teenagers do with their spare time? It can't just be gaming surely...

[Flamingo1980]

I know no teenagers so I've absolutely no idea what they do 'these days'. So I'm asking because I simply don't know, I'm not judging or criticising.
I ask because my collegue at work told me that her son spends up to six to eight hours EVERY DAY gaming alone in his room and apparently all of his friends do the same.
I'm genuinely shocked and a bit worried about this. What on earth does that do to a persons mind? I KNOW I must sound like an out of touch fuddy-duddy (I'm 35) but I openly admit to being completely ignorant on the subject as as I said I don't know any teenagers at all.
'In my day' my brother spent his free time either playing football with his mates or building gliders or mountain biking etc.
Don't teenagers - indeed all humans - need sunlight, social interaction, exercise and fresh air sometimes?? Could this be why so many kids now have depression, adhd etc...?
Please reassure me this isn't all teenagers as I fear for the next generation of this is true..

Mine doesn't play games anymore apart from the odd game of x box. He's 16.
He works part time, goes to watch football, the odd party, goes to Nandos, and into London.

My son (16) spends most of his time playing sport. He has a games console but it's rarely touched. He's happy to be out playing sport in all weathers and spends his money on tennis equipment. I wouldnt allow 6-8 hours of gaming at home.

DS is 14, he loves the playstation but goes to the gym for two hours three nights a week and at the weekend too, he and DH go mountain biking every other Sunday, he skateboards when it's not cold haha and goes out on his bike to the park and plays football with the boys - so yes, quite active but there are days when he'll lay on the sofa all day in the holidays under a blanket watching a movie or twelve.....

DS 2 and ds3 spend most of their spare time gaming (17 & 15)

Ds1 is more sporty so he'll go to the gym, out watching sport, not much gaming.

Sleeps mostly.

😕

16yr old DS spends a lot of time playing his guitar and writing songs

13yr old DS spends a lot of time playing rugby/football and XBox.

Too much time on game consoles obviously isn't good, but they are socially interactive if they use XBox live etc.

make up
hair
going out with mates
talking to mates
texting mates
singing
making videos
arguing with me

Ghosty I wish I was your teen

Harks back to a golden age...

DS is just 18. He loves the play station and at times in school holidays over the course of a whole day he might spend 6 hours gaming- but he plays online games with a group of school friends so it can be very "social" in it's way. But during term time it's not often touched during the week and only usually during evenings at weekends as he goes to gym, watches local football team with his dad, goes to parties, cinema and often just pizza or burger with friends. Also more lately he's keener to spend time with us watching sports, TV shows or films with us. He gamed a lot more aged 14-16, more than I wanted, but he was getting all school work done and eventually the phase passed.

That's enough about you ghosty

What about your DC?

It seems to be a "boy thing". I have to limit my nearly-teen DS's time on the PC.

My 14 year old DD has no interest in computer games whatsoever, she spends a lot of time playing/ writing/ recording music.

Mine is mostly up a tree. Or on the play station. Or in bed.

DD 11- not a teenager, yet, but the following has been encouraged, and fingers crossed.
scouts - kept very busy
st john ambulance cadets
local netball club
swims while I am at aquafit
domestic labour !
walks to local library independently, money for sweet shop on the way home, trips to post box
Going to friends houses, cinema, swimming with friends
Walks, visits out,
This is a lot of taxi duty for me. No games consoles but laptop - watches lots of youtube, very little tv watching now, this is taken away at bedtime.
Friends do similar.

Karate two to three hours a week
Police cadets 2 hours a week
Science club an hour afterschool club
At weekend nothing but stampy videos

The rest of the time tell me they are bored and have nothing to do despite x box, lego kits etc. Look for ways to wind me up because they are bored like disturning me with a very noisy electronic toy right at the side of me when ive just stated i need to get a piece of work done (spends loads of time with them btw)

I have two teenage sons, they both possess Xboxes, but as they've got a little older they spend less time on them. Out of the house they do - ds1 - swimming, athletics, riding (and all the looking after and mucking out of his horse), and canoeing.

Ds2 - army cadets, canoeing, and spending time with his friends just mucking about.
ds2 is into gaming more than his big brother, but he's also more sociable so it kind of evens out, I think.

My daughter is 13:

In order of amount of time spent per activity, I would say:
Dancing
Singing
Piano
Drama
Gymnastics
Reading
Saxaphone
Playing with younger sisters

My brother is a teen (16) and he spends lots of time gaming! He does football to...

Basically gaming via x box or similar/ watching videos of people unboxing designer and electronic gadgets appears to be ds13 default behaviour unless engaged in expensive sports clubs. I would like to say also unless doing homework but ds appears to believe he is capable of multitasking...

I obviously prefer the unboxing videos to islamic extremist videos but the rampant materialism concerns me

Ds1 (16) plays for two football teams and has a Saturday job plus A level work. Goes out with mates into town in the evening and sometimes weekends..

Ds2 (14) has a paper round, spends the weekends at the local fields playing footy or gets the train into town with his mates. then there's school work.

When they play PS4 they generally play with their mates online so talking through the headset. I prefer that to solitary gaming.

DS is 17 and has no interest in gaming, but spends hours on the computer every day reading news or blogs about politics, watching the parliament channel and so on. He also goes out to the occasional gig or film.

This is a big deal for me.

ds1's friends would appear to spend all of their spare time gaming. I won't let him do that - I want home to be well rounded.

It's getting hard and feels like it's coming between us and I don't know what to do.

Dd is most annoyed at me at the moment. She has been being utterly vile so i haven't topped up her phone. We don't have internet bar a dongle so she cannot text or use the internet and i am evil apparently.

DS (15) currently does the following:
Singing in school chamber choir and close harmony group
Playing drum kit and xylophone in county youth band, school brass group and swing band
Fiddling with stocks and shares for some sort of young economists' competition, doing economics GCSE and some sort of personal finance certificate in lunch-hours
Codebreaking for National Cipher Championship (recently finished - wrote a bunch of software to break the codes that he plans to use next year)
Reading (currently most of the way through Ovid's Metamorphoses)
Teaching himself to programme with Python, and recently getting to grips with writing in LateX
Clearing out a half-century's worth of crap in the School Classics department (lunchtime rummaging for treasure)
Going to Greek and Latin Summer Schools
Going to concerts and the theatre
Playing with Lego and Geomag
Playing with Cats (real ones)
Playing shoot-em-ups on the computer
Watching trash telly with me
Avoiding going outside
Doing God Knows What on laptop/iPad/phone

We don't own any game consoles etc. What dull lives some kids lead!

If only they could all spend a few hours in the company of your child, clobbered! Imagine how their sad little lives could be enriched!

But clobbered - for kids who like gaming, consoles aren't dull.

It's taken me a long time to come around to the idea, I have an instinctive hatred of them and we don't have any in our house. But I have gradually realised that they are just as legitimate a hobby as anything else to those who are enthusiastic about it.

Some people would cringe at the idea of dancing for several hours a week and think it their idea of boredom hell. But my kids live for it. Each to their own.