What are your 9-11 yr old girls doing all weekend? At a loss with this age group :(

[noshiforever]

DD does one hour of dance on Sat morning but I/she struggle to fill the rest of the time and it's getting us both down. She's an avid reader and reads 7.30pm-9pm every day.

What are your 9-11 yr old girls doing all weekend?

Our younger DS is happy with parks, Lego, playing football all day in the garden. I feel DD has outgrown all the typical kid stuff and needs new ideas.

She does have a few friends and I will invite one of them for a few hours next weekend but I don't think this can be a regular thing as I get the impression most families do value their family time on the weekends.

I do let her play Minecraft for 45 mins/1 hr each day. I try to get her out for a walk but that is an absolute chore to her and I've given up with national trust and places like that is it holds zero interest for her. Obviously I take them to trampolining parks, crazy golf etc but days out like that are too expensive now for us to do often.

We don't have any family/extended family to see.

I feel she has done every craft project known to man over the last 9 years and now isn't interested.

Any ideas so welcome! Weekends have become a complete drag and often end in tears :(

@yellowdigsaur

10 year old boy here but similar. Really noticing how he has outgrown all of his toys now.

Things we do....

• lots of computer time sadly. However, not online with friends so that's quite good.
• beach walks (not happy to do but will tolerate)
• Sunday afternoon Is family film time. Greater selection now he's older
• Fun swimming every Sunday morning
• music instrument practice
• board games - again more selection now older
• occasional surf lessons
• and then more gaming time....

Sorry - not very inspirational. He's not interested in toys / crafts / playing in the garden etc any more.

Some great ideas actually, thank you! The fun swimming on a Sunday morning is something we can start for sure!

11 year old boy.

• homework
• helping with cleaning- not fun but necessary!
• Swimming
• dog walking/ training
• computer games (currently restricted to 3 hours max / day)
• cooking together
• bike riding ect
• meeting with friends
• reading

So many ideas thank you!

What Netflix series shows are your girls watching? I actually think that would be a nice thing for DD as she doesn't currently watch anything on TV as she's outgrown the cartoons and I don't know what else to suggest.

OK from Netflix DD loves:

Little witch academia
My hero academy
Avatar
Hilda
Miraculous
Unwatchable Nickelodeon stuff

Forgot to say she also games (Roblox, Royal High, Fortnite). She has also started to read bits of the weekend papers with me. The fact that they are physical newspapers and not another screen turns it into something different / a bit of a ritual for her. We have started to have more in depth, adult-ish conversations based on the bits she wants to read. Failing that we have a good laugh looking at the fashion magazines

Our weekends tend to involve:
Board game or movie night on Saturdays
Both kids have musical theatre or acting classes on Saturday morning.
Sunday's are often a walk, homework, roast dinner and actually just letting them chill out for a few hours. They draw or often we bake or craft in the darker months too with Halloween and Christmas coming.

Running, reading, chess kid, playdates, tree climbing, cooking, sewing, soldering and woodwork, writing stories/diary, TV and board games and swimming if possible.

With the Lego up with a stop motion app

Definitely get her going with housework… putting shopping away, sorting laundry etc. Helps you and makes her value her downtime more.

Board games
Park
Homework
Making cards depending on the time of year
Watching YouTube
Playing out in the road with friends
Barbies with a younger friend
Baking
Watering the plants

My 11 y.o. DD likes:
Screen time. On Netflix She currently likes Heartland and baking shows
Reading
Drawing still very popular
Bike riding or inline skating
Playdates most weekends
Going to the park with a friend or ad a family
Playing with her sibling
Recently has absolutely loved learning to cook meals
Chores - she likes steam cleaning our tiles, washing the car, and I make her do some other chores too
Homework
Music practice
Helping me sell old clothes and stuff on FB or Vinted
Board games if I have time
And sports practice every Sunday (takes up 3 hours)

My DD’s 8 so heading into this territory though not quite there yet so I’m taking notes….

At that age (9-11) I remember spending a lot of weekends on long play dates and sleepovers, where I’d go to a friend’s house and do all the 1980s preteen kinds of stuff (making pretend radio tapes, making Fimo, watching films, making pretend “perfume” out of flowers in the garden, board games, crimping each others’ hair, and so on). 😂 Lots of craft stuff and play girls that age will be absorbed by with friends when they’d be bored by it on their own).

So is it possible to arrange sleepover/play dates for Saturday afternoon-Sunday morning? If you arrange it in time, other parents would presumably be more than happy to parcel a kid off for 24hrs 😂

If she enjoys dance is there any scope to increase that? It was about that age I added jazz, modern, etc onto ballet and tap. Took up half a day by early teens and is great as you can drop off, leave for a few hours and pick up later.

Have a look at The Week Junior. It’s a magazine that comes every Friday with news stories (including lots of funny ones - and you can discuss them together), a craft project of some kind, book reviews and puzzles.

Dd is 10 and loves to face time her friends, edits videos, makes TikToks, follows drawing tutorials. She has a lot of screen time at the weekend but does a lot of activities during the week. She likes to come on everyday errands with us (not good shopping) and gets involved with ordering takeaway etc. Sometimes has a friend over, we meet friends at the park for a couple of hours. Cooking, I let her choose something and she has a go. Hello fresh has been good for that as we can do that together.

DD10 and her friends are all watching the next step on Netflix or iPlayer

I second (or third) swimming

Swimming/ messing about in the pool is still popular here.
Also a big hit is going into town with a friend. I sit in a café reading while they look round the shops together being all grown up.
We still do national trust/ Kew gardens/ visit a forest/ go to a museum etc... They don't mind that but it's not massively exciting for them
Pub meal out with another family
Park with friends.
It's basically all about minimal supervision from us and hanging out with friends as they get older.

@Ionlydomassiveones

I mean this nicely - but can’t she entertain herself? Why do you, the adult, have to find her something to watch on Netflix? She’s of an age where she can scroll through herself can’t she? It doesn’t do them any favours to schedule their lives for them. Learning to be happy in their own company helps their resilience when life really gets boring and mummy isn’t around.

Yes she can and has done her whole life actually, even through months on end of being locked down at home. To be fair I feel she has exhausted all possibilities within our home over the last several years. We/she has hit a brick wall and given half the chance would play on her Nintendo Switch all day. If given free reign of the tv she'd choose Minecraft videos on YouTube. I just need some new ideas to direct her attentions elsewhere.

@HaggisTheGreat

Have a look at The Week Junior. It’s a magazine that comes every Friday with news stories (including lots of funny ones - and you can discuss them together), a craft project of some kind, book reviews and puzzles.

Thanks, tried this already. I loved it but DD not interested in what's happening in the world 🤷‍♀️

11 year old DD. Sometimes a sleepover with a friend. Sometimes a birthday party. Sometimes meeting a friend to walk to Starbucks for a ridiculously expensive drink. Almost always we do something as a family one of the afternoons, a walk or cycle or trip somewhere interesting. We might cook together. We might eat a 'carpet picnic' one evening where we have a dinner of snacks in front of the TV. Board games and garden games (netball practice, badminton, spikeball). We might socialise with another family, meeting for a meal or a walk. Lots of reading, drawing and room pottering listening to music.

I feel similarly, my DD (9) seems to have outgrown things like playgrounds and soft play but hasn't really replaced them with anything - except staring on the tablet, which she would do all day long if I let her probably. She does read but seems to link it with evenings/before bed so she isn't that interested during the day. She does Stagecoach for three hours on Saturday which gives a bit of shape to the weekend. Other than that, things we do relatively often are:
Swimming (usually drive to a pool which is a bit more exciting, has slides etc.)
Baking - we get a Bakedin box once a month which gives it some structure, started in lockdown and have continued
Out to the shops, browsing, buying a small toy or something, going to a cafe
Day trips to places like museums, art galleries, farm, zoo etc. relatively often though these do get expensive (also we're in London so quite a lot of places to go) - I find she likes going somewhere for the first time, less keen on return visits
Sometimes go down to see my parents for the day

Basically in general I throw money at the problem which isn't the best strategy really. I want to get her enthused by some kind of hobby but she's in a bit of a "not liking much" (apart from singing) phase at the moment...

There's often an idealised view that in the glorious past children spent endless hours on independent, healthy pursuits.

The reality is for many there was as much watching rubbish on tv, whining, boredom etc as there was 'out on our bikes or down the woods climbing trees' type stuff.

Every parent I know with a child aged 10 or over complains they resort to screens if left to their own devices (pun intended) for too long. Every single one.
That's regardless of where they live, how many children they have, how much disposable income or time they have.

Their kids might not be on TikTok or gaming and might not have a phone but the allure of screens (and the whinging for them) is still there.

So yes, many parents do impose blocks of structured time, in between which there is free time (often filled with screens).
I don't think this is necessarily endless entertaining of kids or stopping them being independent. Its the reality of parenting today.

OP - sport/dance/hobby of some kind helps. Dd has to do one activity each day of the weekend (she doesn't do tons of clubs during the week as we're working and can't take her).
That still leaves her plenty of free time to sleep in and do other stuff but gives a bit of structure to the day. Screens are post dinner only.

What about Park Run - 5k on a Saturday, or the Junior 2k on a Sunday?
Drama
Taking a basketball round to a court
Having a friend over or playing out
Strictly
DD (9) loves Free Rein on Netflix
Coding projects
Does she play an instrument?

My daughter spends most weekends at the stable horse riding/caring and the rest is usually filled by us watching Netflix together/having her friends over/ going shopping/ eating out etc. Lots of things you can do on weekends, but I must say my daughter's horse hobby is what's mostly keeping her off her phone/ipad.

Maybe take your daughter horse riding and see if she enjoys it enough to join Pony Club?

I don't agree that thr past was idealised. It's clear that before cars were ubiquitous children had far more freedom. Plenty of research to show children now tend to rarely go beyond their own street whereas one generation back their dad or grandad would have been with large group of kids at park.

To me thus age group are missing out on the natural freedom that should be coming at this age and that is why they are bored.

I would say 9 or 10 onwards ideally they would be able to start going out to park or out on street to visit friends...with bit of help getting that going at First

I also think youth clubs are sadly missed. There should be a space for all kids to just go and safely meet children their own age once they are old enough. Makes me sad so many kids including my own are sort if stunted developmentally spending so much time at home bored or dependent on adults for entertainment. They need other kids really and just the hours of being able to play with children of all ages.

Today my daughter has:

Slept in, then went to the horse yard at midday and spent half a day there. Now she has one of her friends from the yard over for a sleepover and they are watching Netflix/youtube and tomorrow they will again sleep in and go to the yard for half a day. Honestly horse riding is a nice hobby to get them out of the house into the fresh air doing something physical and an opportunity to develop lots of friendships outside of school