Can anyone share any positive tips for family life at present? Especially preteens

[parrotonmyshoulder]

Not a discussion about schools etc.
DD (year 7) is getting on fine with her home learning. This week is different as younger DS bubble is closed so he and I are at home. Both children have ‘coped’ well in lots of ways, with not seeing grandparents or wider family, holidays cancelled etc, but (older one) understands that we are fortunate to have a nice space, area to walk in, things to look forward to, enough money etc etc.
But she’s starting to feel low, definitely. It’s hard to motivate her to ‘do’ anything much. Generally feeling bored, malaised, anxious. She is in touch with a couple of friends but she feels like she’s exhausted all her ideas to keep busy.
I understand! I’m glad I have work. At the moment, all of my suggestions are met with a ‘nah, don’t feel like it’. She bakes, reads, plays with her pets, has some apps that she likes, and does her work. It doesn’t sound bad.
Sorry for the waffly post. Not sure what I want to ask really. Maybe just to share thoughts on things being different, but fortunately not terrible for us.

Will she go out on a bike ride ?
Can she meet a friend for a walk ?
Do you have a Boots nearby where she could choose some smellies ?
My DD likes to go out for a drive ending in a Maccies or Starbucks.
I always make sure mine gets a couple of walks a week, after school work is finished, and I always get her out Saturday/Sunday.

My DS2 is the same - really mopey yesterday.
We're going to facetime Grandma later.
It's sad, but necessary and it will be over soon hopefully.

Thanks. I’ll get our bikes out at the weekend if the weather is okay. Often family rides are awful because younger DS will have a tantrum - so I’ll just go with her. He’s SI anyway!
She’s meeting a friend at least twice a week for a walk. We started that a couple of weeks ago. Friend’s mum drops her near us and they walk together for an hour or so.
She could go to school as a KW child but really doesn’t want to and the school based offer isn’t great. Also our cases have just rocketed and she has started to say she doesn’t feel ‘safe’. We’ve talked about the relative level of risk (as in how severe the illness is likely to be if she/ we catch it) and she seems quite reassured. More worried about grandparents but we can only help them by staying away.

My 12 year old is similar. I insist (and I do have to insist) that he does some exercise every few weeks, and comes for a walk at the weekend. Although he doesnt really enjoy doing either of those things, they do help with his mood generally.

My dd plays computer games with her friends. They WhatsApp videocall and then play minecraft or roblox together. They chat about all sorts and really enjoy it.

We did a couple of long walks at the weekend and they do help (even if resisted at first!). She has said that the weekends don’t feel different to the weekdays, and actually are worse because there’s no school work to do. DH and I are around more at the weekends but obviously there are house chores etc to do.
I’m feeling less motivated too this week - I feel like I need to find the energy myself to start some exciting project time redecorating or something, but I don’t have the reserves.

She does FaceTime one friend and they chat, play with the pets etc, but she’s not interested in gaming. Quite socially aloof and had only made one friend so far in the new school. Grandma rings her every day and they sometimes play a game together over FaceTime.

My DD does her work over 7 days as she prefers it.

Thanks for starting this thread. I have two the same. My y7 seems to have lost touch with her friends too (doesn't help that some of them have been allowed to meet up against covid regs ). She's not even complaining about feeling bad she's just very listless, have to drag her out of the house, and is turning to food as comfort more often than I'd like. So no advice sorry, bit solidarity.

Firstly, and I'm sure you're probably doing this anyway, it's important to validate her feelings. It's perfectly normal to feel low at the moment and all the activities in the world may not change that.

I think new things add a bit more variety. So new recipes, new tv programmes, new books, new crafts. We're watching a lot of (new to us) movies, they stimulate the imagination if nothing else. You can do watch parties with friends to make it more social?

Thanks for the solidarity. Food is an issue here too - not eating though, rather than eating too much. Always room for a biscuit or something she’s baked, but never ‘hungry’ at meal times so won’t eat. I can monitor it when I’m here but not normally when I’m at work all day.

But yeah, my yr7 is the same. It's hard for them, but we just need to survive and I'm sure they'll bounce back.

We’re looking for some new things to watch. She’s just at a tricky age where she no longer wants to watch the same as her brother (well, sneakily she sometimes does!) but the stuff DH and I tend to watch isn’t suitable for her. I had started a thread for tv ideas in the TV section. We do like lots of the same things - fantasy and history in particular.
She’d hate to watch along with friends, but it’s a good idea for those who would.

My 10 year old is a little bit down, too. He plays (too many) video games but it's a way of connecting with his friends so I try not to worry about it. As a family we have a board games evening once a week and plan the week's meals together. They do sleepovers in our annexe, walk then wash the dog, and DS12 suggested watching the simpsons from scratch so we watch two episodes every evening. It's so difficult finding things that are exciting though!! I can't wait for the warmer weather as swimming was a lifeline for them last time.

We play boardgames against another family, winner gets a prize on Friday. ( no more then £5 worth)
Zoom calls with certain task master cards?
Bake something round Robin with friends
Kids to take charge of evening meals, planning, cooking etc...
Come dine with me competition , go crazy, make a video of what you think will happen, dress up etc .
Grow veg competition ( pumpkin)
Fundraise for charity, friend DD runs a mile a day and has raised over £2000
Get on top of DofE

My DS bit older 13, nearly 14 a bit like this. He’s into football big time and missing it so much. I found an online course working towards his FA coaching badge level 1 he thought this was great and so I signed him up. He completes this at the weekends at the moment. Also before pandemic he walked two elderly people’s dogs once a day and he has continued this-not sure if it’s technically allowed.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I've got a 12 and 8 year old, they go into school 2 days a week as me and dh are working all day.

But they are both very argumentative at the moment, everything is a battle. Dd1 is lethargic, upset about not seeing friends or friends not replying to messages. Dd2 is like a whirlwind she needs constant entertaining and its exhausting. She needs the social interaction and seeing friends/family, I just can't give her enough.

Not sure if it will help some of you with walks, but we play pokemon go as a family so often go for walks to catch new pokemon we've seen on the map. Sometimes it gets quite competitive whos going to get the best one or level up first. Me and dh both grew up playing pokemon as kids so reliving our youth a bit!

parrotonmyshoulder my dd is in year 7 too, we watch a TV series together once her younger sister is in bed, only 1 episode a night (except weekends when its 2). We've watched once upon a time, stranger things and just started buffy the vampire slayer.

All together as a family we made our way through lord of the rings, the hobbit, marvel films, pirates of the Caribbean. We quite often watch Disney plus I often suggest films I know she likes as though I'd really like to watch them. Then she can feel grown up but still get to watch them. Plus I quite like a disney film!! We've watched films i remember as a kid, some have been truly terrible and others quite dark and a bit scary!! Brave little toaster was quite scary for a kids cartoon!

Could you set her up with a project that it relatively in depth but also beneficial to you all. Something like coming up with 4 weeks of family meals and setting up online shopping lists on a supermarket for the meals and other essentials. Or making a calendar of family birthdays and she comes up with present ideas within a certain budget. Or buy all of the birthday cards for a year.

I bought a jigsaw and me and my DD are doing it together.
It’s actually quite relaxing, and it’s great because we do a bit and then leave it. I’ve even seen her doing a bit on her own , even though she said jigsaws are for grannies !

Oh yes, family tv sessions are a good one. We've just finished the musketeers which was excellent. We also do fancy breakfasts at weekends (French toast, pancakes, not that fancy really) to try and make weekends different.

I've got 4 children. The primary two are fine but my older two find it hard some days. I have a yr7 who started a huge secondary with no friends from previous school and had started to make a lovely friendship group but that has slowly stopped without school as she is very shy and found it hard to keep up new friends on social media. We stick to a routine and they go out scootering or walking every day after lunch but it is hard to keep them motivated and I feel sad they are missing real life.

Y7 twins here too. One difficulty specific to this cohort (or my members of it at least) is the new-ish friendship groups. I have an older teen with a lovely group of friends who she is in touch with a lot and that makes a difference, but the Y7s still have quite new friendships and it's hard to keep those going when there's nothing much happening and you're not seeing each other.
DS is a really keen footballer and really missing that. Also his new friendships are largely football based (so in a big pack), and while they can have a bit of a chat about the weekend fixtures, it's not really enough to keep those new friendships going. It's rubbish!
I'm trying to get them out in the fresh air at least a few times a week, encouraging exercise, doing lots of baking and hoping we're back to normal in the summer.

All lovely ideas thank you. I will definitely look for some new TV for us to watch - we have been doing an episode a night too but have just run out of what we were watching. Hard when they both get fractious with each other and both want my time. Usually the escape to school works for everyone.
She’d enjoy planning a holiday but I don’t want to tempt fate!
It is so hard for Year 7s, as some of you have said. So hard for all of them of course, but those new friendships are so fragile!