Is 6 year old DC's daily routine normal?? Is DC having enough fun?

[Sussexmom]

Hi,
I'm wondering if my DC has enough time to play during term time? DC does like routine and gets very bored / stressed with too much unstructured time, but at the same time will ask for more play time, and of course a 6 year old need play! I'm just not sue if our routine is normal compared to that of other parents?

School day:
7am wakes up spontaneously and plays quietly in room.
7:30 arrives in kitchen for breakfast. Usually revise spellings for 5 min over breakfast.
8:00 gets dressed
8:20 leave house for school.
School is fairly low key - lots of sports and interesting stuff, plus good range of after school clubs. Does a club every day.
4:50 arrive back from school, play until 5:30
5:30 do 20 mins of homework, occasional musical instrument practice for 15 mins.
6-7 dinner (slow eater)
7-7:15 reading
7:15-7:45 play
7:45 get ready for bed.

Weekend days:
15 mins reading, 20 mins maths, 20 mins making stupid sodding show and tell thing, instrument practice on one day. (With breaks in between, not straight after each other.) plus usual drudge of weekend shop etc.

Is my DC having enough fun?

Do you go to the park after school sometimes or go out for the day at the weekend to country parks/national trust/play football/whatever rocks your boat?

It think its fine.

Do you do the occasional treat?
Could you make efforts to make chores fun? - Mum used to drag me round the supermarket weekly, but the cheese on a stick shaped like a foot that I munched on during, and the magazine for being good made it worth it.

Weekdays sound fine, weekends sound very boring.

Don't you have days out? See family/friends?

Swimming, cycling, slobbing in front of the telly? Do you do these things with him?

If your DC is happy, then he/she is having fun. Can't you feel it yourself? Children are so different, there is no fix answer I would think.

Weekday looks fine, weekend looks a bit boring. At least you can have one day doing different things, going to the park, cinema etc.

Weekends - I suppose it does sound boring! :-(

DC loves board games, so we do those. Plus making up own games which we join in with. And playing with Lego / watching films and all the usual indoor stuff.

We do have one family member nearby so sometimes go to see them. Nearest friends are 2 hours away as we relocated and have failed to make new friends. DH will take DC on walks and to the park (I have health problems so avoid the walks) and we do sometimes do the very boring local tourist attractions. In half terms we usually stay in a relatives empty house in London for the week.

Money is very tight too - we cannot go on holidays or re decorate the house, partly because we pay £350 a month for DC's private medical bills as the NHS are so sh!t (long story, major clinical negligence, will not trust them again!). We are lucky that the relative nearby does babysit, however we can't actually afford to pursue any hobbies to make friends, and the local pub crowd are so absurdly cliquey!

God, do I sound like a miserable whinging cow with a crap life!?

I don't think that children need to be entertained with lots of exciting weekend activities. I think it can be a mistake to fill up the time with loads of things and you have to watch out that they're not getting tired out or learning the ability to do things on their own/for themselves rather than looking to an adult to entertain them. This is something that should be starting to develop in a 6 year old and will come gradually.

At the weekend the types of things we tend to do as a family that are free involve walking which you obviously can't manage. Or we just hang out at the local playground where we quite often will bump into her friends from school.

Alternatives are local museums that are free. We might even make a morning of a trip to the library to change books. (Not exactly the most exciting thing but it gives the time a focus). Or any free entertainments/markets/food fairs.

You could look into beavers/rainbows/brownies as cheap activities.

Your 2nd post portrays you as a perfectly normal family

Thank you for the reassurance :-) maybe we are not as bad as I feared! Thanks for the ideas. when DC is off stabilisers I might look in to getting myself a cheap bike so we can cycle as a family (more manageable for me than walking).

And don't underestimate the benefits of slobbing in front of a DVD (or 2 or 3) together