Dreading School Holidays

[BaaBaaMa]

We have had a really crappy Easter Holiday, granted not helped by the weather. I am now dreading 6 weeks of boredom in the summer! We are away the first week but after that have hardly any plans. I always used to fill our summers with days out with different friends, but now the kids are older (11 & 14) they don't really 'play' and don't want to hang out with kids that they know through my friends as they are at different schools & although they spent loads of time together as littles don't think of each other as 'friends'. I don't want to spend a fortune on days out just us as they don't get along with each other & will just bicker all the time which gets me down.

Any suggestions of days out or ways to entertain them? I'm in West Yorkshire, I drive, happy to travel about an hour or so. We've had many fantastic days at Cannon Hall, Stockeld Park, Bolton Abbey. They just seem a little too old for that now. They'd be happy sat at home on their tech but that would drive me crazy!

Not local to you, so no specific recommendations, but I have had success getting kids to make a wish list of things they want to do over the summer and then each week picking a couple of things to tick off. Last year’s list included a few big days out, but most of what they wanted to do was fairly mundane (day at beach, baking or gardening projects, getting ice cream from favourite place, etc.) I like it because it puts some of the responsibility for planning on them , which removes pressure from you and is also pretty empowering for the kids. We had a fair few days where we did just veg at home, but we had just enough planned out that we had some structure, and working through the list meant that at the end it felt like we had accomplished something.

i also think summer is a good time to tackle life skills and hobbies that get overlooked during the busyness of school. Things like learning to cook, crafting or making projects, accomplishing a fitness goal, etc. that benefit from time, space and repetition.

As I was going to bed last night I did think I better ask them. If they say Alton Towers I'll be gutted. Hate the place!

If you don’t fancy the places they like and vice versa, then it’s tricky!

Try to have a discussion and come up with some suggestions that you can all tolerate and do one a week. Otherwise, let them see friends! Are you going away?

At 11 and 14, yours are like mine a few years ago.
We have done shopping days out (with lunch), Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Brimham rocks, York, day out in Harrogate, walking the length of the canal, water taxi in the city centre, trip to Birmingham (with overnight stay), Xscape. At home we've played cats games and board games and on the Switch on multiplayer games.

*card games not 😺

would they like to do something like tennis/football/sailing/riding camp for a few days? I don’t have teens but my siblings have plenty of them and they seem to do a fair mix of lots of vegging at home days interspersed with three line whip were going on a family hike to X with ice creams when we get there so get on and bloody well enjoy it. You could get some kits in for your 11 year old like tie dye or home made pottery etc?

When mine were that age we did a mixture of local sports camps, a few days with the grandparents.

At 14 the oldest might be coming up to D of E age - you might be able to use that for ideas - so he could learn a skill - cooking or crafting or start a new sport.

If you can tolerate sleepovers with school friends then the boredom will be less.

Mine are a year younger and we're also in West Yorkshire, have you been to the gaming place in Kirkstall that's supposed to be good, mine do jobs for spending money in the holidays then we'll have a shopping day in Leeds and I'll treat them to lunch usually somewhere like zaap Thai, if I can I'll drag them round a museum art gallery etc before the shopping!
We've started to go more towards Bradford, Bingley, Keighley, Haworth for a change of scene as well as Skipton for a wander round.
Keep an eye out for cheap cinema tickets for rainy days.
Then I'm going to try and encourage my two, especially the eldest to just hang out with their friends more!

This is where holiday and sports clubs come in. Ours don't have a choice as we both work full time so they're used to being packed off somewhere. They will complain but have fun when they're there!

I like the idea of the list. Two things a week and each child picks one of them.

You could (dons hard hat) drive them to Burnley and let them wander for half an hour so they can appreciate how lucky they are to live on the right side of the pennines.

If I was you I would give them a list of suggested activities or places to go and say pick one from the list and you gotta pick one! Just so you actually get out the house

Can you get them to do camps or classes? Where we are there's coding club, sports, swimming, art and theatre. They should be able to tolerate at least one. Can you see if they'd do a udemy course on their tablet or laptop?

Agree I wouldn't make it open ended.

Will they not hang out with their school friends and do their hobbies?

My 14yo DS will do 2x 5day camps for his sport and then club sport 2 x week the rest of the time. He will organise football/ coffee etc with friends at least a couple of times a week. We'll get to do some days out with him- if he can fit us in!

This summer DS also has to tick off his DofE volunteering section so we will be beach cleaning on a regular basis. 🙄

We also play a family game where we visit random villages we pick off the map for a walk/ coffee/ bookshop then we rate them in a grid I keep on my phone. Playing 'Inconsequential Villages' can always kill a couple of hours.