To ask what your 12 year olds (or similar age children) are up to this holiday

[Eastereggmadness]

DD (12) just announced that this Easter holiday is really boring 😭.

What do you have planned/do your kids get up to over the holidays to entertain themselves? DD is autistic and so we have particular challenges about what we get up to and she doesn't meet with friends which makes it harder. But I'd love hear what your similar age children do over the holidays to give me some inspiration of things to suggest.

Could she use squarespace to start a small business making soaps/ jewelry or just a blog about her special interest?

My DD is 12 and autistic.

We went out for a meal on Saturday night. Tomorrow she has a couple of friends over for a sleepover. Going to soft play later in the week. Visiting family for a few days next week. We will do some walks/going to park. Probably some films/board games a few evenings.

Aside from that she will mainly entertain herself - reading, making bracelets, doing arts and crafts, playing her violin, chatting with friends, playing Roblox.

Following as I find this really hard too.

I have planned some days out. Cinema, swimming, city trip. But there will be lots of down time too. I let my older dc do what they want (within reason). They are old enough to arrange to meet friends or have friends round without much input from me. We'll do park/garden activities if the weathers ok but there will be screen time and lots of it I suspect,

DD is 14 and autistic although more than capable of meeting up with friends however most are away this holiday. We had a pretty full-on Feb half-term so she's taking it easy, her general plan this holiday seems to be to get up at 12, make us lunch as I'm WFH. Then she and I go out at 17:00ish when I finish work whether that's a walk to the beach, cinema or bowling. She prefers going out and about in the evening although might go out herself in the day with her camera and take some photos of plants and wildlife.

Activities tend to be out of sight out of mind so if I leave watercolours or similar out she'll do them but wouldn't think to do it independently.

We’re quite bored yes. The rain has cancelled a lot of our plans!

Does your DS know how to solve a rubik’s cube? If not great time to learn by getting a cube and practicing whole watching youtube videos. We’ve been doing a lot of cubing!

Otherwise walks and shopping centre and cafes and Minecraft 🤷‍♀️

I'm working, so mostly DC11 stays with their dad and plays computer games. They might go swimming.

I did an Easter egg hunt for DC and friend. We went on a nature trail day out. Next weekend seaside and animal sanctuary, hopefully with bicycles although that's a struggle on public transport.

We agreed no sats revision because it's boring and we don't care, as long as DC does music practice instead.

Today we wandered in town whilst it was dry, played board games (11yo) and took a nap (13yo)

tomorrow we are going for a long walk in the morning and then I might relent and allow screens in the afternoon.

also on the list climbing, swimming and they would love to go to the aquarium or big museum so maybe those.

cinema would be on the list if we were at home but not so easy here at mum and dad’s.

Things I'd planned if I hadn't had to work (we're in a city so activities are easy):
climbing centre
train to seaside or countryside with bikes for day trip
zoo
boat trip on Thames to Hampton Court
long weekend in Edinburgh, in order to go on day trips birdwatching outside Edinburgh plus Edinburgh zoo
canal boat trip
park with big adventure playground
ice skating

Mines been binge watching their latest obsession. They have plans with friends next week and mock revision to do. They did mention going climbing but other than that we don't have much planned.

Other things I could suggest:

• baking or cooking - find something you want to try and actually do it from beginning to end. I often say no to things because they are faffy but my kids always remember the cookie cups they drank milkshake out of (thanks junior bake off!) the ‘boom bars’ that tastes like snickers (thanks Aquila) and the proper bourbon biscuits.
• random one but mine loved ‘tiny food’ day 🤣 I just came up with it and we went to the supermarket and only bought mini things. We made a mini Victoria sponge, mini cupcakes and mini s’mores over a candle with mini marshmallows toasted on toothpicks between cookie cereal. We made mini sandwiches (next time I am going to slice those mini brioche to make these more authentic 🤣) we even used shot glasses for mini drinks. I should have got the espresso cups out as well 🤣🤣
• Go to the shop and pick out a favourite chocolate bar or buy some random sweets you’ve never heard of.
• board game café - or do this at home if you can borrow/buy a new game even better. Escape rooms are good for this.
• in the summer we do ‘pub garden’ which is where the kids have a can of coke and we have a g and t and bowl of peanuts and we pretend we are in a pub garden (simple pleasures 🤣)
• the other year I did an awards ceremony for my kids. We all got dressed up smart and i wrote speeches for all of them and bought some little plastic trophies and had photos handing them out.

This makes it sound like I am full of good ideas but my kids were also bored today and had a scrap whilst I was on an important phone call
so 🙄🤷‍♀️

Dd is 13...she never socialised much previously but is going to a friend's house this week.

We are also going to the dentist....not very exciting ! We've seen family today and been to the park with her younger cousins.

We are going to try to do a cookery course one day. Maybe go to an exhibition. Otherwise just chilling at home...she wants to do some baking.

TV shows/movies and jigsaws with me.

On call playing roblox with her friends for hours.

Some revising for upcoming tests.

There's a birthday party coming up, going away for a few days and going into London to meet friends for one day.

We'll have a meetup at my house with her friends. Hopefully the weather is nice and they can actually go to the park/shops.

Very muddy and long bike ride. British museum and sight seeing. Gaming, walks with friends.

Next week I'll have to balance work and kids, less easy to get out.

So far with 12yr old
Day 1 - nice weather, sat outside cafe in city with friend & their dc. 2 eldest children played tennis on nearby court.
Day 2 - Old uni friend came for lunch with us. Neighbours child popped up to hang out with dc whilst I chatted to uni friend.
Day 3 - Trip to beach with dc and friends. Evening ended with kids in hot tub and sleepover.
Day 4 - Family meal for Easter.
Day 5 - dc went to gym with friend and then back to their house for afternoon. In the evening different friend popped over and dc baked caramel shortcake under supervision of DH, followed by playing on switch.

Day 6 plan tomorrow - dc going to gym with friend.
day 7 plan -Dc Going to friends in evening for sleepover
day 8 plan, - stay at sleepover friends during day, then family goes to neighbours for games night.

In the gaps, there is a lot of playing of Roblox, Minecraft & Among us!

Daughter has ADHD and needs to be busy and fairly physically active.

Nothing planned for week 2 of holidays yet . . .

Day out somewhere tomorrow and hopefully a day trip to the seaside at the weekend if it doesn't rain. Otherwise, they have entertained themselves with YouTube, books, Switch games, scooters, the park, the library, friends' houses, cooking, chores (!) and all sorts of things. I have more or less left them to it.

We're lucky as she has friends on the same road so they end up in each other's houses.
They've also decided to learn rollerskating so that's keeping them occupied.
Apart from that, it's Stranger Things, baking, reading and meeting friends and family a few times with me and siblings.

We're currently staying at a theme park resort overseas with friends with similarly aged DC.

We'll have 2 days at home then we're off to visit family elsewhere in the UK for a few days - 11yo is a registered helper at the riding school there so will probably spend most of his time shovelling shit and carting a wheelbarrow about (he loves it!).

Then the last 4 days we'll be at home but one of them the DC will be at a holiday club so I can catch up on stuff at home and another day they'll have friends over.

Thanks for the replies - lots of lovely ideas.

@lilsupersparks I love the total randomness of 'Tiny food day' and so thoroughly done too! 🤣

I think DD not having friends to meet up is not helping. And the relentless rain means we can't get out as much to do cheap easy things like trip to the park. Though I guess at 12 that's probably not the most exciting thing to do!

@ThisNiftyMintCat

That sounds interesting could you give more details on square space please.

Op my dd is quite hard to get out but she usually loves it and then says she wants to live there!!

Day trips at home are also hard the best thing is to get her on holiday so that's what we have done this time.

I find Easter a good time to get away to get yer weather

Thankfully mine are musical so in the school holidays they either went to orchestra/ choir things a bit and/or I would despatch them down to the local nursing home (my friend was manager) as the entertainment! They did enjoy the reaction, though the tea and scones went down well too. Kids might as well be useful. One of mine is autistic so the music was her outlet, she would also practice for hours. (She's currently composing a concerto, now an adult)

I think the randomness and my evident excitement helped capture their interest 🤣im
still quite excited by it as you can tell!!

13yo DS (3 weeks off) has done a few days of his sport, we are going away for a few days and he is consolidating the bits of the GCSE courses they have already covered.

Other than that, he meets up with friends in our local town or for a kick about (I am not involved in this), lies in his bed or games. These are his favourite things, so he is not bored as long as he has access to these!

I’m mostly following for ideas but so far DS (nearly 12) has seen his younger cousins and played in my parents garden, bought a new x box game called planet zoo where you make zoos, gone to the cinema, made brownies.

He does meet friends in the park usually but his best friend is on holiday so he hasn’t done too much of that. He has done a bit of playing x box while talking to friends. He has expressed interest in a day out at a local animal place, probably another cinema trip (it’s his birthday this holidays) and we are hoping to meet up with a friend and her son in London and 🤞 do something that isn’t too expensive! We also have some herb, chilli and mini cucumber seeds to plant that he seemed interested in doing but we will see.

so quite a few screens but hopefully will feel like he has done some other things too.

DS is 12 and quite happy to entertain himself in his room but he would stay in his room on Roblox the entire time if we let him! So far he’s been to softplay, a trip to the beach with fish n chips and ice cream, a local walk, seeing Grandparents and lots of Disney films with snacks as a family. He’s had a few Lego/science sets for Christmas and will probably have a go at those at some point too.

We are going bowling, played sticks yesterday, have done a few board games gone to both of his grannies and gone out for a hike. Other than that it’s screens (trying not to get them off the screens as much as I want to), Easter eggs and today he’s going to have to start a project due for next week. I think he’s possibly bored but won’t complain because there’s cleaning he can help with😉

edited to add he loves Lego so did some of that too