What do your kids do after school (other than stare at a TV)?!

[icravecheese]

I have 3 kids (7, 5 & 2). I work 3 school days a week.

After picking them up from school, our afternoon is as follows:

Arrive home, kids demand copious amounts food, someone invariably throws a tantrum about something. 7 yo switches on TV in playroom and would happily stare at it for the rest of the afternoon, with a short break for tea. 5 yo half watches tv / half plays. 2 yo potters around playing.

I sort out school bags/ lunch boxes / post / start cooking dinner. I'm in and out of the playroom doing bits & pieces and chatting about their school / nursery day.

I just have an eternal guilt that the kids shouldn't automatically switch TV on as soon as they arrive through the door, but if i'm honest, it buys me time to do the above (sort out school bags/ lunch boxes / post / tea etc).

What do your kids do after school? Are we normal, or a terrible TV addict family?

My DC (8 & 5) come home from school and have a snack, the youngest eats some more.

Sometimes they play, sometimes they have afterschool activities. The younger ones usually reads to me, every other day the older one reads to me. They both do their spellings.

I float about and tidy out school bags whilst preparing tea.

Usually they will watch a little TV before dinner and then about half an hour after dinner or they will play. Then it is upstairs for bath, story and bed!

In the Summer we usually stop at the park on the way home, in the Winter we are in indoors more often.

I would not feel bad about what you decide to do it is your life and your children!

Snacks
Tv/iPads
Dinner
Homework/reading
Games/colouring/guitar practise
Bath/shower
Tv
Bed

This time of year it's usually TV straight on. It gives me a chance to get the dinner on in peace! After dinner they might draw or play a game, and DD2 does her reading. At the moment they are so tired it's not uncommon for them to watch tv all evening (with a break for dinner!) In the summer they'll be out on the trampoline etc.

To be honest I always watched TV straight after school and I came out with straight As! I don't see any harm, they are tired after a long day.

We certainly my watch much more tv winter.
In spring/summer they play outside after school/go on a bike ride/paddling pool etc.
So dark so early now :(

Yeah, I think we're just feeling abit cabin fever at the moment, and all we seem to do is stay inside, go abit stir crazy so turn on tv for entertainment. Certainly in the summer, they're home from school and straight outside and barely watch any tv.

I've let them watch 20mins this afternoon, then switched off TV. DS threw a strop and cried initially, the two DD's sat and drew quite happily. I played a board game with DS and now they're all playing happily in the kitchen whilst I cook tea.

Perhaps switching off the tv hasnt been as bad as I thought it would.
Defo changing back to 1 or 2 progs per eve going forward.

ps blackandwhiteandred - i was similar to you as a child, was allowed to watch any tv I wanted, and ended up a total geek with straight A's all the way

Oh, don't feel bad about it cheese. We only have one tv and we just don't seem to go in that room until after dinner. It's habit and what suits your DCs. Mine love their story tapes, but they are equally addictive!

Homework has to be done. Then they often make something. I don't mind if they then watch tv for an hour, if it's CBBC it's often quite educational. No TV after supper at 6pm though, then it's bath and reading/play.

Yes we only watch cbeebies or CBBC, don't have any of the other kids channels. I quite like my DS (7yo) to watch Newsround as its a good prog for kids, plus we've enjoyed Junior bake-off, Deadly 60, Operation Ouch, all good & educational.
We don't have any computer systems as such at home (Other than a laptop, which they might play some cbbc games on occasioinally). Don't imagine we'll ever invest in wii / xbox / etc as both me & DH have never been into that and I would personally hate to spend that much money on such a system.
We have masses of crafting stuff available, and my daughters do love cutting / sticking etc.
If i'm honest, now I really think about it, its my son who is the TV addict as he finds it very difficult to entertain himself, he ALWAYS wants someone to be doing stuff with him - playing lego, crafting etc. My daughters would happily play on their own for hours, but my son requires constant entertaining. Its either a boy thing, or 1st born, but he has NEVER played well on his own, hence he looks to TV for entertainment.
Round 2 tonight of only 20mins TV in total after school. Wish me luck

We find it easier to have a 'no TV on school nights' rule, as that means that it never goes on and thus we never have the row when it has to be turned off.

don't worry about it, I watched as much tv as I wanted (seem to remember watching it till 6pm - cbbc then neighbours at 5.35) and then having dinner and doing my homework before a bit more tv and I came out normal, sociable and with straight A's all the way through. who cares? they like it, and they've been doing stuff all day at school!

two DS's ages 7 and 4 here plus a baby.

We banned TV during the week except on Fridays as the amount they were watching just kept creeping up and up. Now they play in the garden on the swings, build lego or keva blocks, occasionally play imaginary games, draw, make stuff out of tape/ string/ boxes etc, DS1 likes writing little books. They do fight a lot though, especially at the moment and they often demand a lot of my attention so I can't really get on with anything much when they are home.

We only have one that’s school age (and a baby). But when we come home she has a snack and then we either do homework or she goes outside or somewhere in the house to play. Sometimes I leave her outside to play in the garden for 2 hours on her own while I feed ds, sort out the house, etc. Sometimes we go straight to the playground and don’t even come home til later. One day a week she has a class we go to.

What’s helped us is having a rule that the tv doesn’t go on until 5:30pm. That’s when I start dinner. So she has to entertain herself or we’ll sit and read or she can play with her brother or whatever until then. Unless it’s a particularly stressful day, I stick to that. So she watches an hour a day (til 6:30) then it’s supper and time to get ready for bed. Also just keeping her outside helps a lot too as the temptation isn’t there so much when she isn’t staring at it.