Preteens
Alternatives to screen time for 11 year old ds
wellies · 28/08/2014 21:21
My ds is 11 and would spend every waking hour in front of a screen if I let him.
Everything else is boring.
We have had some good bike rides, done some cooking, geocaching, swimming and seen friends over the summer but each thing has been met with shouting, ranting and despairing resistance because he'd rather be on the wii/PC/iPod.
What does your 11 year old ds like to do? Ideas for new non-screen activities to try would be very welcome. Or even new screen things but which involve some creative thinking perhaps.
Thanks 
LastingLight · 29/08/2014 12:28
My dd sometimes has a terrible attitude in this regard and I've found that going cold turkey on screens for a week makes a big difference.
Alternatively tell him that he can have x hours of screen time a day / week and every time he complains when you tell him to get off the screen, he loses an hour.
Alternative activities: Reading, building models, trampolining, skateboarding, learning a new skill.
pennefab · 30/08/2014 17:35
A different, creative screen thing would be to learn to create& program video games. Can coach him to first story board the type of game he wants to make - what's the story line or goal? If it's a more mindless type game, what sort of graphics or how does he want things to look.
Then you could show him the "scratch" video game design program developed by MIT. It's free. Can either create online or download the program and create from there.
It's a pretty intuitive programming source and you can tie it into reinforcing other skills you want him to develop or practice.
wellies · 30/08/2014 20:22
Thanks both.
The game creation thing sounds good; we'll look into it together.
We do trampolining, reading (he loves graphic novels) and some of the other activities mentioned it's just the initial reluctance to anything other than screen time which is so off- putting (and upsetting) I'm worried dh and I are reaching a point where we'd rather not argue and will give in all the time.
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.