When their friends come round, what do your 7yo boys play with?

[Awomanwalksintoabar]

Hi all. DS is 6, nearly 7, and is a good kid. He came to me the other day with the revelation that his friend R’s house is more fun than ours 😕. I’m taking this with a small pinch of salt. However, I do think he’s probably right, and I’ve realised it’s a long time since I’ve had a proper clear out of his toys, and made sure he’s got stuff that he and his friends can play with together.

He’s got a load of cars, and Hot Wheels tracks. Loads of lego. Remote control cars (although they always seem to be out of battery). Footballs. We used to have a trampoline but I took it down in the summer, because I realised that during all that time they had at homeschool no-one had bounced on it. We now have swings in the garden.

Can you give me some ideas of what your 7yos play with their friends? I really want the boys to be happy playing here, and I think it would be easier to have them if they had more stuff to do, because at the moment it’s pretty hard work. (Please don’t say PlayStation. I might as well ask him! And I’m not ready for that yet...)

Lego, basketball, drawing, karaoke or dance party, soccer, 4 Square, running around with sticks, climbing trees, digging, making houses with blankets, anything with big cardboard boxes, hotwheels, hide and seek

DS has just turned 7. Not had friends over for some time but... Making dens, Nerf guns, slug hunts in the garden, trying to keep a balloon in the air, remote controlled cars (he's pretty precious about his lego so hates letting his friends getting their hands on it).

Nerf guns are a good idea. Bit worried about the cat, but I’m sure he’ll be fine. And yes, balloons are endless fun! A lot of the hunting for slugs and making dens stuff must come from them, right? That’s part of the problem- that the stuff that comes from them tends to be things I say no to, like kicking footballs in the house, throwing little rubber balls in the house (something annoyingly got broken the other day) etc etc. So I’m probably a bit of a fun sponge, but they’re a pain in the neck! So I’m looking for things they’ll want to do, that don’t piss me off and result in me ruining their fun. Any tips?!

DS and his friends used to do loads of play dog at that age. I know it sounds a bit young, but they really liked it. New tubs (anything better than fresh play dog colours?!) and lots of cutters, rollers, mini muffin trays, baking trays etc. They used to put them in the toy oven to bake!

Also - dens. Either under the dining table or between loads of chairs with throws draped over. And they’d have things like torches and snacks.

I also used to set up the basics of an activity - so maybe out the badminton net up and leave the bats and shuttlecocks on the grass, and put a picnic blanket and maybe a covered jug of squash and some cups or whatever. So that they gravitated towards that.

And we have two football goals in the garden, which is conducive to a one on one match.

Ooh, @WellTidy that’s a really useful piece of advice, setting up a game and some snacks and watching them be drawn to it! I often wonder how much input other parents have when DS goes to theirs, but he’s never been very forthcoming on that score. Unfortunately our garden isn’t quite big enough for 2 goals, but I do have a badminton net! Thanks!

Every time without fail, the first thing is the dress up box. They all kit themselves out in costumes, and then onto toys. The most popular are all the marvel and DC action figures, then pokeballs with pokemon, then the imaginext boxes (the superhero ones), then the air hockey table, then lego building. Occasionally they'll play with cars but not often. If they want me involved then it's a board game like Labyrinth.
They all like to sit and paint warhammer figures but that involves me setting out the paints so isnt often.
Always a game of skylanders on the xbox and group nintendo games.

Attention never stays on one thing for too long, so as long as they have variety and free reign to being out whatever toys they want. House is always a total bomb site by then end

A good nerf gun game is to line up all the action figures you have and get the kids to shoot them all down. We do that with wrestling figure as they're easy to stand up without all toppling over by themselves.

This is so helpful. What I’m taking away is that I should make these games more readily accessible, which I thought I was doing, but maybe I should do more. For e.g. they love Beyblades, so I will get them all out in advance. And that I should think about getting table football. Ok, no-one actually said that, but I’m thinking about it anyway...