To enforce activities like museums onto dc

[theduchessstill]

AIBU to force, or strongly encourage my dc to do activities they claim not to want to do? I have two boys aged 10 & 7 and they never want to go anywhere. Eldest would be happy flicking through Match Attax cards endlessly and the youngest loves singing along to Voice contestants or songs from MLP/Sing. When forced to turn off screens they tend to play sport together, which ends in tears sooner or later.

Last week I made them go to an outdoors stone/fossil museum, a ruined castle, a big park with a fortress thing in it not in our town so new to them, a natural history museum, a meal out and a film. We also did various chores/shopping trips.

The only thing they wanted to do was the film and meal. They moaned about the others, though enjoyed them in the end - not necessarily more then they would have enjoyed being at home though.

Do you force your dc to go outside and do things they don't choose? At home I feel I must encourage reading, board games, craft etc though they tend to resist all these. Is flicking through football cards and playing sport enough? When they were younger they took so much interest in the world, especially ds1. Now not so much. AIBU to fight this?

Are you on Easter holidays?? Because that's a lot of museumy stuff if not! But I am also a mum who trampa their dc round museums and castles.

Match Attaxx cards got to be better than DS's addiction to his tablet, but he will happily go to museums, the smaller and more esoteric the better. Where is the fossil Museum?

Yes to some trips, and getting outdoors, but I would say also leave them to it a bit more at home. I know its annoying when they fall out, but given more time they will eventually work out how to get along. I guess you don't just go to museums? do you do hill or river walks/cycles/game of badminton sort of things? And chores, lots of chores especially when they fight and come and expect you to sort it out.

That's a lot of being dragged round museums - though I might be bias as I hated it as a child!

Is there nothing else you can do?

Why not take them to a sports museum or a music museum?

Or even Ripleys, somewhere like that?

We generally spend the day out "doing" (walks, swimming, museums, bike rides, etc) then wedge in the screen time/ reading/ stone collecting/ weaving hobbies when we get home. Otherwise they do bicker too much for my headspace.

I'm all for kids having educational days out but that itinerary is probably a bit on the heavy side. They're on a break from school and probably knackered, they're still only primary age kids after all

Yes. On holidays we go to castles, gardens, walks, museums. We did it as kids. You can always find something to interest a child if you try.

I hated it too as a child! But then I also hated being dragged to classical music concerts and now find myself craving the music I heard there.

The stone museum was mainly outdoors so they mainly ran around and climbed on dry stone walls. I just feel they are being let down if I don't intervene more in their time.

Ripley's looks great and I will definitely add it to our list of what to do when next in London.

I think kids are often more engaged in things than you realise. I think it's good for them to have time to let their minds wander, be bored, etc. That's where creativity and self-reliance come from. I love a good day out at a museum and a castle too but you want a mixture!

To an extent I'm with you. But I know I went too far with DS3 to the point now that all museums are apparently shit - he's not generally negative or uninterested in life but I did drag him around too many museums when he was younger, and now he's a teenager he still associates them with boredom and misery. So tread carefully.

Also Ripleys is shite IMO. Really really shite. Sorry.

Big meet up with mates in the park,
I find my two are more up for stuff if they know someone else is going.

A brainless day at a theme park?

Outside of school time do they do any activities. DS1 generally plays sport a lot at the weekend.

YABU
Children need chill-out time in the same way that adults do. I can't think of anything worse than being dragged round museums - just because, why, exactly?
What do they gain from it exactly precisely nothing from the sound of it
Let them stay at home and do what they want to do ffs. Do you really want them to remember their childhood school holidays as being forced to schlep round museums which they had no interest in simply because their dm was on of those parents.

I try to make sure DS (6.5) does something educational (homework wise), gets some exercise and gets a change of scene from our street every day in the holidays.

It might only be 10 minutes reading, a blast around on his bike with his friends and a walk to the corner shop. Or we might manage an hour of focused homework, a hour in the pool at swim training and a new (to us) historical site. Either way I declare it a win!

Otherwise his tablet would actually meld into his body.

I just feel so bad when they are aimlessly flicking through cards or singing along with shite. No board game is good enough, no day out sounds enticing. I was talking to ds1 the other day about how it was when he was a baby and I wanted to interact with him from an early age. He said "Well, you are a bit over the top..." I made me think a bit. Their dad does very little with them so I do feel I have to compensate.

To the poster who mentioned Ripleys (London) it looks fantastic !!! My DS would love to go to this ! But the ticket prices !! It's so much.

Museums are great - but my approach has been (unless it's one they really want to see) to try to tag it on to another activity and do max 45 minutes in there. The big museums are too big to "do" in a day in any case. But - let them in there and see what captures their interest. You can then keep going back and it becomes fun rather than a chore.

My DC do exactly what they want to do in the holidays, which is park 6 days a week.

I hated being dragged round museums and stately homes as a child.

I think it's too much for one week. I'd have gone for one of the cultural/educational things, the film & meal and then maybe another activity purely for fun (e.g. theme park, sea side, climbing wall, go ape, ice or roller skating). So no, YANBU enforcing museums etc but yes, YABU with the volume. One per school holiday is plenty.

Mine had planned activities- husband travelled a lot around U.K. So we went to and did local museums ex. I don't mean looking at some broken bit of roman pottery in a glass case but the Black Country museum, Ironbridge, Morwellham, Bodmin prison, Galleries of justice in Nottingham, Beth Shalom Jewish centre, Imperial War Museum, Intech, Southwell workhouse. We did other stuff too - swimming, boating, beaches, tennis, riding, dry ski slopes as well as country parks and cinemas etc. Harrogate was excellent - collecting a bottle of sulphurous water to show their teacher, Mother Shiptons, Betty's etc. We did it from the time the eldest was about 12 months so it was the norm and they talk very fondly of their memories and experiences. I've never believed in letting them just hang around - devil makes work for idle hands and all that. They're brilliant at pub quizzes now and have an exceptional general knowledge and understanding of social history that will stay with them forever.
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