What do your tweens do?

[SippingSipsmith]

I'm just finishing a 2 week half term with my almost 11 yr old twin girls.

What do your girls of this age do all day?

I'm not allowing them a phone yet and I have banned YouTube. YouTube is too difficult to get them off of and same with an iPad it's very limited time because one of my kids gets aggressive.

The one that is aggressive is just obsessed with screens. They both are. They'll sit and watch telly for hours in the morning despite me trying to get them off of it. In the end I take the remote and they get dressed.

They don't play with anything anymore which I guess is to be expected. We have a room full of Lego they haven't touched this half term.

They honestly don't know how to amuse themselves. I turn the tv off or they basically have watched all of Netflix and then hang around me. I suggest things to them and they can't be bothered. Occasionally they'll pick something up and do themselves like read or crochet but it's so short lived.

I'm a SAHM and this half term I've taken them to the pumpkin patch, carved pumpkins, made Halloween treats, decorated, taken them into town a couple of times for lunch/Starbucks and played a board game as well as going away for a long weekend with friends.

Im just not the sort of mum to entertain them constantly.

Is this normal. What do your 11 yr old girls do?

DD is older now but is exactly the same.

Dd 11 doesn’t want me organising fun for her. She arranges to meet her own friends (live within walking distance), they go to cafes, cinema etc or each others houses. We agree a time to be home, chores/homework to be done beforehand etc. Phone location must be kept on.
Helps that I know all the friends parents well, all live locally and lots to do within walking distance.

School hols they go further afield with a parent chaperone.

The days of baking, crafts, board games etc are sadly long over for us. Not all her friends are like dd by any means though. She hit puberty early and appears to forget she isn’t 14. I applaud her independence but do rein her in sometimes.

I am interested to know if anyone has had success in encouraging any home based hobbies or activities for older kids. I have three daughters who left to their own devices would just sit and watch tv all day. I think streaming services are terrible for them as they just never get bored of tv like we used to in the past.
I am going to try to get some Halloween crafts and maybe some baking on the go today. Also get them to do some chores and we will go for a walk. They still need my input though and just seem incapable of doing much without an adult being involved.

My 11yo is the same. She does after school clubs a few nights a week and doesn't get home til 6-ish so I do tend to let her just chill when she's at home - she does spend far too long on screens though. We go out every weekend and do something even if it's just lunch and a walk but it is hard to drag her and her db out sometimes. She does like drawing which takes up a lot of her time but even this is using her iPad! It's worrying but then I remind myself that our parents worried about us watching too much tv in our day. Also I'd rather that than the worry of her hanging around street corners with her mates drinking cider and smoking (as I used to do!)

Such a good point - they can never run out of programming now to get bored and do something else

I'm quite relieved to read these comments (although sad). My nearly 12yo is just the same and I just thought we were crap parents not doing a good enough job. We try so hard but she doesn't want to engage. We try to plan some family time at the weekend that takes her out of the house but as soon as we're home she just doesn't want to engage. She does like baking but isn't interested in learning to cook - need to persist I think.

Is there any harm in just letting them slob out for a few days? They’re at school/clubs/activities almost constantly in term time. Let them watch TV and recharge. You may find that they’re keener to play with Lego (though for a lot of kids that phase will be over by 11) or have a go on the trampoline once they’ve recharged their batteries. You’ll probably also find that they’re starting to be left out of conversations and meet-ups if they don’t have phones or tablets to communicate with their friends.

No not at all. They have a lot of sofa time hence my post but felt like the balance isn't right. Reassuring to hear that it's very typical for their age group.

I hear you on missing out due to not having a phone. That's a hard balance too. There are still a handful of girls in their year (year 6) without phones - we might get them a dumb phone as an in between measure but at the moment I'm keen to keep them from not having their own device a little longer. It just becomes something else to police and battle over as they'd be on it constantly otherwise or be battling with me for more screen time - as we know with kids give them 2 hours, they want 3 and so on and so on!!

Pretty much the same. It must be nicer to have another person as mine is an only child and I remember chats with my younger sister filling the time when I was bored (then again we play out in those days and knocked for eachother).

My DD is on the phone chatting to school friends (I can hear the whole convo); gets bored of programmes but has a few hours a day; draws; uses YouTube to learn a new skill like drawing or sketching; plays games. Has Saturday classes.

If she isn’t out with friends then usually I plan a day out for the both of us - I’m also a lone parent.

My DD is 10 and in y6 (summer-born) and won’t be having a phone until she starts secondary school. Like others, she is very busy in term time with lots of clubs and I agree that they need time to chill out in the holidays but I don’t agree that this has to be screen-related. DD has a Switch and plays on this for an hour or so each day in the holidays but also reads (at least 2 novels per week), plays outside (we live very rurally), loves to paint and practises instruments.
As a teacher and former HOY7 I would urge parents to keep them off screens and YouTube as much as possible.