Young teenage boy

[Curly1010]

Hi

Having an only child was fine when he was little, lots of things to do with him and he loved being outside with us, swimming, walking etc Now he is 13 he is still lovely but as he says, (I remember what its like) its embarrassing being seen with your parents so unless he has friends with us, or able to go out with his friends I am at a loss as to what to do.

I really miss having my little boy to do activities with and I don't want to leave him indoors on xbox while I go and exercise. He wont consider joining rugby or football clubs, even though he enjoys PE and is good at it at school.

Anyone else have experience of this? Doesn't really help that we moved to a new area a few years ago and a lot of my primary school mate mums don't live near me any more.

Thanks

is there a youth club near you? i would sign him up for that, and take him along. they usually go outside, and it will be a chance for him to meet new people.

Is there a cadet unit near you? Air Cadets is a great thing to do for teens who aren't interested in football or rugby. My DS joined and was busy twice a week with cadets, did lots of weekend and school holiday camps, he also did sports there even though he isn't massively sporty.

It got him off of the PS4 twice a week and a lot of weekends, he made lots of friends from all over the uk at cadets and has met some of the friends he made at cadets in the city where he now goes to Uni.

There is a YC but that's mainly during the week rather than weekends, really just a hall to meet in. I forgot about Sea/Air cadets, someone did mentioned that to me years ago. I'll have a look, thanks both for your answers.

He just agreed to sign up for Air Cadets opening evening, fingers crossed this comes to something :-)

That's great. Hopefully he will love it. Air Cadets gives them loads of opportunities. My DD is an Air Cadet she is also 13. She flew a plane on Summer Camp this Summer! She is off to Camp over the October half term for a week and is generally doing something at least one weekend a month. My DS was also in the Cadet band, he had never played an instrument before, he learned and played the drum in Cadets. He played in front of the Queen 5 years ago. He also learned to shoot, flew a plane, and drove a landrover off road at camp.

He also got a btech in Aviation at cadets which is equivalent to 2 GCSE's. This was over the 3 years from 13 to 16, on top of his school GCSE's.

Good luck to your DS hopefully he will love it and it will give him something to do, other than play XBox.

If air cadets doesn't work out, there is always army cadets!

Thanks, they haven't come back with a date for their open evening yet but hopefully it will be soon. I'm not sure my nerves could watch him fly a plane but I'm sure he'd love it!

Do a park run? Don't have to actually run together & plenty of teens.

How about Scouts? From 14-18 he'd be in Explorers, which in our experience is a fantastic group for teenagers to meet new people, learn new skills, camp out, attend mini festivals and generally keep busy. Often they can do D of E through Explorers which is fantastic for their confidence, planning skills and independence.