non food preparations to improve lockdown for teens

[6thformcolleges]

Looking for ideas to buy/prepare to make it easier to live with 4 kids age 10 - 16 over xmas and this winter. For example for first lockdown I prepared with computers for possible school closure, kindles for library closure, turbo bike if isolating. Kids are now all getting very fed up with each other so looking for any ideas to prepare to get them through the school holidays and possible school closures/isolations. Thank you.

Are they into crafting?

Thanks. A couple of them are but I think we have most crafting options, board games, jigsaws etc.

Noise cancelling ear protection.

I love my family very much, but we've just gone to tier 4 and I can always hear at least one of them.

That sounds like a great suggestion! Definitely looking for ideas to keep us sane.

Mine enjoyed a grown up ‘painting by numbers’ canvas (comes with mini paint and brushes. No talent needed but it looked really good at the end and kept them occupied for ages.
We also made a cheap gym in the shed with some bits and pieces but that’s not so much fun in winter.

What about cooking. Cake, biscuit, muffins etc... or indoor gardening projects. Learning a musical instrument. my son bought himself a guitar during the first lockdown (this time round he is learning how to dehydrate food). Decorating a room together maybe.

They would love to decorate their rooms! We have the gym thanks. I will look at painting by numbers.

Bottles of favourite alcohol, treats and a few good books you seem to have everything they need, want plus all Christmas bits they will get at their ages nothing you will offer would probably help so as long as the house is still standing no blood is flowing I'd leave them too it

I've bought Christmas monopoly for my teens, they seem to make nodding noises when I brought it out, also they all seem to like Uno (cheap card game to play together). Maybe buy a few indoor plants to get their enthusiasm going for growing stuff.

Thank you. Any other ideas. We hired a hot tub which was a successful distraction but not sure if there is anything else we could hire. Any new sports? Online instructions or zoom classes or challenges like not parkrun or turbo bike challenges? They are doing origami at the moment. We have prime and netflix. Is anything else worth it?

I'm just impressed that your teens will do these things! If I brought out origami they'd stare at me and slink back off to chatting on houseparty

The new PS5? 🙂 Print easy recipes they like and teach/challenge them to work together and cook and set the table nicely for the family once a week. Old fashioned domino game on the floor. A fitness hula hoop and skipping rope for indoors or outdoors. A hamster to take care of. 🙂 Buy white plain t-shirts and let them print their own iron-on designs.

Thank you for being impressed but you dont need to be - my youngest is only 10 so not actually a teen and they dont like each other and the older ones would happily only be with friends or on electronic gadgets. Am trying to get a cooking rota going but it has to be individually - they cant do it together!

Lots of cheap or free courses on Coursera and Udemy - I currently have a teen working their way through a dog first aid course.

We have a cooking rota, they have too cool once a week and we ran 'come dine with me' through the last lockdown. The 11 year old went first and set the bar really high, hand drawn menus and waitress service!
This time we're having a card night each week, and will be making them cook a 'formal' meal each around Christmas.

We do take turns with cooking but I like the idea of a rota etc. We usually only play cards on holidays/travel but that could work at home as everyone enjoys it. Thanks

I will look at the courses on coursera again thanks - I had looked in first lockdown but now with winter our needs are very different!

This might not be helpful at all but if you have a Nintendo switch we have just bought the ring fit game, great way of keeping them moving while gaming. My youngest has a hammock swing in his room which he sits in for ages chilling out. We’ve been discovering new things to do with Alexa as well (you can get one very cheap just now if you don’t have one) turns out you can get her to play escape room games and she is very good at 20 questions:guess the character. Challenging the kids to beat her is fun.
Getting outside despite the cold dark and rain is also good and we now have lots of different hot chocolates, marshmallows and cream always in for afterwards. Walking in the dark with torches is quite fun too and a little scary as we live next to lots of creepy looking woods.
We’ve also taken up cold sea swimming/body boarding but we all have wetsuits already so maybe not an idea that would suit everyone 😀

And maybe a little tricky if you live about as far from the sea as it is possible to get!