To think you can be out too much with children?

[Suttonnew]

Before I had children, I believed being active was best. For a while we were almost never in.

I do think getting out every day is important, but I think this can be excessive. I’ve come to realise with my own children the more you do, the more they expect - i don’t mean in a financial or materialistic sense but more that the more you’re out and about the more energy and the more active they become, which results in children who can become a bit manic as they are never given a chance to wind down!

AIBU or have others found this?

One of my kids classmates is an only and her mother organises her time so they are doing something allllllll the time. Evenings is extra curricular activities. Weekends they are having to do something morning and afternoon of both of the days.

The child can't seem to cope with being bored ever. Or perhaps the parents can't cope with her being bored 😂

When my children were younger they were out every day to the park, not getting out into the fresh air and to burn off energy really impacted on behaviour. Activities every weekend or out Doing Something. Every school holiday something booked. At about age 10 my daughter came to me and begged me to just let us stay home for a half term instead of always to be going somewhere. I don't regret giving them so many experiences and doing so much but it did make me pause for thought and I am not quite so manic about it now. Mind you they're teens now and only agree to come out with me if it means they get lunch out!

We didn’t do much outside of school as kids. So many kids now seem to have packed schedules of clubs, swimming, days out etc. We aim to spend 1 day doing things at the weekend (whether that’s visiting family nearby, going to the local beach etc) and the other day just letting DD watch cartoons and play with her toys. She’s in nursery full time so it’s tempting to see the weekend as ‘our time’ to do fun things with her and make up for the week, but I have to remind myself she’s tired and has been doing activities all week.

I'd take my kids out everyday but it could just be a simple walk to the park.
When they were little I got them in the habit of occupying themselves for a few hours in the afternoon. It worked so well but I think some of that was their natural personalities. They were all quite mellow kids. They would read, do Lego or just play together. I like to think it went towards them being close as adults.
I'd use the time to do chores or do nothing. I had my four kids close in age and I needed some personal space too. I was invested in getting them to be able to occupy themselves for me and them.
Having that downtime meant I was happy to give them my full attention at other times.

But as you say - you take them out a lot, but you also have time at home to recover/relax. Which was pretty much just what the OP was saying: of course it's good to take kids out, but they also need a bit of time to chill.

I would also add that having to come up with ways to entertain yourself at home as a child also encourages independence and creativity and learning - of course going somewhere new does that, for kids but so does being left with your toys or craft materials and having to think of a game or something to make. I remember being a kid and being at home while my mum was gardening and seeing a beetle or something and asking 'What's that beetle?' and my mum saying 'I'm not sure - why don't you go and get Daddy's big wildlife book and see if you can find out?' and that was basically the rest of my day taken up with lifting up stones and trying to identify all the wriggling horrors underneath.

Finally - liking to have unstructured time to do their own thing doesn't make a child a TV-obsessed couch potato. They could just as easily be reading, drawing, building a plasticine masterpiece, playing board games, throwing a ball round in the garden etc. I loved days out as a kid and really liked travelling and seeing new places, and we lived 15 mins from London on the train so we had a lot of easy options for days out nearby. But I also loved long days with nothing in particular to do, and would happily lie in the garden reading a book all afternoon or making weird collages from stuff I'd cut out of catalogues or whatever.

I take mine out every day but happy to spend a few hours at home. I strongly believe fresh air and a chance to run about matters.

I kind of a agree OP. I’m one of those that hates staying in so during the holidays I have always taken the dc out most days, they do get used to it and they do struggle to entertain themselves. Dd2 has ASD so she has always struggled to entertain herself, it was always easier to take her out than it was to stay in. The past few years she has struggled with summer holidays mainly because she doesn’t know what to do when we don’t go out. Luckily today she’s doing a diamond art thingy that we picked up from a charity shop yesterday and she not asked to go out, but she’s already asking what we are doing tomorrow.

We don’t spend much on going out, we walk a lot and go to places that are free to get into, fuel costs a bomb though. We often take food with us so we don’t have to spend a fortune in a cafe.

I try to balance it - we do an morning or an afternoon activity outside of the house on most days but I keep all day outings to the weekends when my partner can help. However I think it very much depends on the stamina of you and your children.

I have 3 DC two teens and a toddler and they all have mild SN so we probably take things a bit easier than most due to overstimulation issues. I’ve also a bit of an introvert / worrier so I can only cope with more than about 5 hours of managing the kids on my own before I yearn to be back at home with a cuppa. I think some children and parents can cope with masses more than that - everyone’s different, if you don’t want to go out every day that totally fine.

We've just got back from 7 weeks in the UK, and my kids don't start school until 1 September.

I've planned nothing for them with the helper, they spent days playing with Lego, on the iPad, hanging in the pool and being lazy.

I'm a firm believer that kids need to get bored by the end of summer so they're excited for a new school year by the time they go back.

That isn't watch she said though tbf A healthy balance is usually the best course of action

When I think back to my own childhood some of the most memorable and happy times were playing alone in my room with all my Lego. Also sorting through all my toys and tidying and finding things and playing with them.
In fact, although it was the 80s/90s and so not the same culture of getting out on days out and stuff, I actually couldn't tell you that I remember or enjoyed a day out as much as that. I distinctly remember the days in my room and at home just relaxing.

That sounds like my childhood. We did have some lovely days out, although I also distinctly remember feeling like some of the days out we did were a massive chore, that we were only doing "because you're supposed to" and that no one actually enjoyed them. My mum and dad were divorced but they had fairly similar ideas of how to spend a good weekend. It often involved sitting in all day while they watched telly and we read, played with toys, drew pictures, wrote stories. Maybe we'd go and see a relative, Sunday afternoons were often spent in country pubs where the kids could go off and entertain ourselves, picking reeds out of the river and pretending to make things with them was one of the ways we spent our time. We did sometimes go swimming or to soft play as a massive treat but I loved the long days we spent at home too.

I couldn’t be in the house for a whole day, with or without children. Apart from being ill I don’t think I have spent a day at home since I lived at home in my teens.

I never really spent any money going out with children either. I bought a Merlin pass for the year for the 3 of us when they were on offer so a Ride in the London Eye, the London aquarium was free (Ds loved looking at the fish) Lego land was about 30 minutes away Chessington not much further. We lived in London so all the museums and a lot of activities and travel for children was free and I always took a picnic with us.

I have ADHD as well as Dc and I think it would cause me physical pain to stay at home all day.

The child can't seem to cope with being bored ever. Or perhaps the parents can't cope with her being bored

I think this is the issue.

Many parents take their kids out of the house so they don’t need to entertain them themselves.

And of course the more you take them out, the less likely they are to be independent and able to entertain themselves so they’re going to be much harder work when they are at home, so the parents make sure to take them out more.
It becomes a viscous cycle.

But it’s not necessarily a choice between at home in front of a screen and out of the house. If mine barely play in the garden all day I will insist on a scoot or bike ride later afternoon, but generally they’re spending a lot of time outside, just at home in the garden. I really don’t see why the park is necessarily better.
I do insist that my two play though, rather than just watch TV, and they have learnt to do that pretty well. I think if they didn’t play together I would probably need to plan more days out which would be a shame and also a lot more expensive so I’m glad I don’t need to!

Personal opinion aside, I think that what this thread actually shows is that most parents are just doing what they believe to be best for their own family, and that will never be exactly the same house to house, because even from birth all children have their own personalities and needs

When mine was younger I had terrible PND, and struggled to be at home alone with him. As a consequence we were always out and about, so I didn't feel so alone and helpless.
Annoyingly now I've got a 3 year old who seems incapable of entertaining himself at home, so I've made a rod for my own back! Though perhaps he would have always been like that. But staying in all day is definitely not an option for us, we'd both go mad

I take my daughter out (pretty much) every day, unless we are ill, we are out doing something.

We will go to the park, to kids activities at local museums, library etc. I’ll take her on several child focused holidays a year (so with other families, where there is a program of kids activities), we will go to childrens theatre shows, we will meet friends and go to a theme park several times a year and go on a theme park holiday. I spent most of my adult life in London and going out to the theatre weekly, an exhibition most weekends, doing adult art/ language courses in my free time, so it’s normal for me to be social and active.

I’m a single parent to an only child - so taking her out is not logistically difficult, and of course it’s more affordable than if I had several children.

There’s a whole world out there and I want her to see it. She has plenty of down time too to play independently/ do arts and crafts/ play in the garden but if we are at home all day in the school holidays I have no problem with going out for a couple of hours to do a kids art class or go to the park. It’s good for both of us.

I work term time only - I’m off work in the school holidays to have fun with my daughter, not sit around in the house. Sitting on a sun lounger in all inclusive resort is not my kind of holiday - I want to explore and will take her with me.

She’s busy with an after school activity every school day too (we keep weekends free to get away), I think a 30 minute karate/swimming lesson / gymnastics after school really isn’t too much. She still has at least 3 hours at home every evening to play.

I grew up in a busy household and our parents believed in giving us experiences - we still had plenty of time to read/ play even if we went out every day.

I was an au pair in my early 20s briefly for a (Spanish) family and in the end I had to leave because I couldn't cope with their hectic schedule. They had two kids aged 6 and 9. The children had extra-curricular activities 3-4 evenings a week, they had to do chores, the eldest had to practice piano for 20 minutes every day, they both had 30-60mins of homework every day... (Spanish primary schools finish at 5pm too), on the evenings where there wasn't an extra-curricular activity the parents usually wanted to play a board game with them, and there was always at least one outing or visit every weekend... in the end I started taking note and worked out that most days the children had between 30mins to an hour of unstructured play time per day - INCLUDING school breaktimes (they came home for their lunch, and after eating they had to help clear up, brush their teeth and practice piano, so no time to chill or play). And my god were those children fractious, stressed out, anxious and generally overwrought.

So, perhaps a slightly different issue(?) but it really made me appreciate the need for down time and unstructured play.

I think a mix is best. If you are able, then outings, experiences and clubs are great but children also need time to rest, relax and get bored. Getting bored means that they make up games, use their imagination, read etc. Its easier if you don't have an only child as they can then entertain each other (until they start fighting of course).

Good for you @FreezyFreezy nothing wrong with that. We’ve started doing A LOT less as things have gotten tighter and can imagine that will reduce even more over the coming months. I think everyone doing so much can make you feel bad about your own situation but we are all just doing our best with what we have at the end of the day!

Very much depends on the child and your lifestyle I think. I do agree to a point that children need down time and a chance to chill and process things. But DD is an only with no extended family, she’s only in nursery two days a week and most of our friends work full time, so aren’t available for play dates etc. As a result, we do do a lot of days out, classes and structured activities - because otherwise she’d go most of the week without seeing another child, and I’d spend most of my day sitting on the floor doing role play with her.

We also have a small house and garden and no space for vast quantities of toys and play equipment, so need park outings, swimming lessons, football classes etc to keep DD physically active.

I read a study once about young children attending nursery. One of the benefits it found was better gross motor skills comparative to children who were at home. It was attributed to young children going on lots of long (lovely none the less!) walks and activities where they were largely pushed about in a pram. I wish I could find the study now!

I think they need to go out every day. But not all day every day.
if mine don’t go out they drive me crazy, even if I spend a bit of time doing something with them (like baking or craft of some sort). They get moochy and whiny if they haven’t had some sort of exercise. In winter we’ll sometimes use the Xbox to get them jumping around to burn off steam but it only works for a day - they need something outside (or somewhere else inside like a swimming pool) the rest of the days.

but like others I don’t think it has to be an organised activity. Can also be relatively short. Eg tomorrow they’ve got a 30 minute swimming lesson. With faffing/shower/etc that’ll take 1.5 hours. And it might be all we do out the house.

I had 4 DSs all close in age & used to take them out a lot when they were young so they could expend energy outside, get fresh air, see the countryside etc. I do remember one half term, by the Friday DS1 asked me if we could just stay home & chill & DSs 3 & 4 agreed. Of course I said yes & from memory we had a lovely day as it made a nice change. Some PPs have made me wonder whose benefit I was taking them out for: mine, or theirs? DS2 has ASD and things did get messy and broken at home, eg broken bed slats from jumping on the bed & ceiling collapsing because he loved running taps. This was probably another reason I took them out, although that wasn't always an easier option as he could run off if you weren't keeping a close eye on him. They're all adults now & are very capable of keeping themselves occupied (DS2's favourite activity is going for country walks) so I don't think it did them lasting damage. Plus it probably prevented me having a breakdown.

It encourages independence, curiosity, culture, shows them different worlds and increases their capacity for knowledge. We have a day after to recover but do I want couch potatoes who aspire to watching east Enders as a treat. No.

Ehhh your reply sounds a bit stuffy, though I'm sure it wasn't meant that way.

We don't have much money (oh and I are both in between jobs) but try and go for days out to the park, museums, attractions. Staying in and watching telly now and then isn't turning anyone into a couch potato. Besides, it's real life for many people.

Not everyone has the time or money to be out experiencing the higher pleasures and culture all the time.