What do you do with your 10/11 year olds at the weekend?

[weekendstrife]

I want us to leave the house and go somewhere - anywhere!
DD (10) and to a lesser extent DD (8) would rather stay home on roblox and spotify! Or even doing reading, crafts, drawing etc - which, of course is all good too. But I am keen to get out at least one day at the weekend - particularly as her mental health is not good and she has trouble sleeping.

To be fair she is getting (VERY) bored of parks, national trust gardens, trips to the library etc that were our cheap go to when she was younger. So I'd love to hear what you do to entice your DC out of the house at this sort of age both cheap/free and more expensive days out.

She does do dance classes on sat which she loves and would happily go out for dinner/to a show every weekend but sadly our £££s can't stretch to this.

DS (10) has SEN and really doesn't like going out but we try to get them out once a day as a compromise!
Saturday we have a kids' bike training session or if we don't go to that, we might go for a bike ride anyway (not very far, he's just learning to ride on the roads, he has dyspraxia). Or a walk in the country/by the sea.
Sunday morning we usually go to church and DS sits in the service with an activity book e.g. word search, mazes while DD (7) goes to Sunday School. We do sometimes go for a walk on Sunday instead or just chill at home while DH and I get stuff done or watch the sport.
DH wants to take DS to see banger racing on a Sunday afternoon but DS thinks it will be too noisy, though he does like F1.
If we don't do any of these sometimes we go swimming, last Sat I took DS to the inflatables session at the pool (DD can't swim in the deep end yet). I'm working up to him going to that with a friend - it's REALLY popular with this age group, it's full of tweens/teens with parents watching poolside (I watched from the shallow pool this time).
They both still like the park but it's more of a quick trip across the road (DS is sensible enough to take them both - we can see the park from the front door).

We do also do cinema on the odd weekend.

I find there's normally whinging before you go on a walk/ bike ride but they are normally ok once underway. They are much happier to walk if you arrange to meet friends and accompany them. They like it if we go for walks that pass horses fields / lambs etc still

How about skateboard or skates and trying the skatepark? Take a ball to shoot hoops at the park? Buy a badminton set or swingball? You can book tennis courts for an hour in some parks for a few pounds to bash some balls around.

One DC has training one morning then matches the other so that takes up most of the weekend. As they get older homework takes up a fair chunk (hrs worth by secondary school.) Scouts sometimes have weekend activities/ occasional camps.

I like the cooking ideas above. One DC does adhoc baking but the other never cooks by choice and it's important to learn.

My dc do swimming lessons but not really fun swims so I need to incorporate that more.

We tend to have a series that we watch together too on the go.

In summer it's easier to get them outside!

My youngest DC are 8 and 10, but we have a 14 year old who, still, sometimes chooses to come out with us too! He's a sweetheart, I don't think many of his friends do the same (and the big 15 year old would rather die than be seen with us in public).

Anyway, our weekends do usually allow for a day of letting DC3 stay at home as he has ASD and needs the complete nothingness to relax. One of us often takes one/both of the others out that day though! On the other weekend day we still do NT places with the dog because the DC love a trail and there's almost always one running, beach in summer, lots of walks (because of dog). If we don't have the dog we often do the cinema, which is really reasonable these days where we live, they love flip out but that is pricey. They still love the park, especially if there's a picnic involved, we go swimming regularly as have a family gym membership, have friends over, go out for (cheap) lunch sometimes.

It's not all-singing, all-dancing, and dinner and a show is definitely a once a year birthday treat! But they're happy enough and their peers seem to be doing mostly the same sort of things.

We have DS activities booked for the weekend. We had a chat last year when things started opening up post Covid and he said he didn't want to go to clubs directly after school, he wanted chill out time during the week.

So Sat morning is drama, sometimes we go out for lunch do / activity afterwards but usually see family and then movie night, Sun is swimming and home based activities - art, cooking, bike rides, sometimes friends round etc. We save the expensive activities for holidays ...

Mine are almost 10 and 6 and a half. The almost 10 year old does swimming on a Saturday and football on a sun. The rest of the time it’s playing outside with friends, going on his switch, baking (if I can be arsed), walking the dog (reluctantly) or meeting up with friends in parks further away (me driving and meeting the friends mum there too for a coffee). He’s totally over soft play which is annoying because the 6 year old loves it! He also seems to be getting bored of smaller parks too. Sometimes friends have birthday parties going on which is good. His favourite thing is probably calling for friends and playing out with them or if we are splashing out- cinema, trampoline park, inflatable or bowling

DS goes out to play with his friends at the weekend.

We are mean and strictly limit screen time (2hrs a day on weekends) which really helps! By coincidence 10yo DS's two main extracurricular activities - which he loves - both take place on weekends and we also go to church, so that's a lot of time. Apart from that he likes the cinema, bowling, crazy golf, trampoline park type places and does Cubs so he can be motivated by badge acquisition (honestly would recommend!). He'll also quite happily potter around a good hands on museum and still likes the beach. But it's definitely more expense + effort.

Oh and they are massively more amenable to everything if a friend is involved!

Park run!
Ticks the fresh air and exercise box then l don't mind what she does all day although we quite often meet my mum for tea and cake or brunch

Swimming, cycling, walking, climbing (cheap climbing facility nearby), sailing (have our own boat), kayaking (again, have access to kayaks and the beach), museums, geocaching, shopping for bits and pieces and spending pocket money. and at home baking, gardening and crafts.