Ideas for 15 year old boy activities

[zippyzloppy]

Just wondering if any mumsnetters can give me some ideas of how I might get my 15 year old boy out of the house? He is fairly outgoing, but doesn't yet seem to have a social life, and seems to be coming quite depressed as a consequence.

I was trying to think of ideas where he could go and meet other teenage boys and girls of a similar age. I've thought of Youth Clubs, but most of them near here are run by churches which puts him off. We tried a local swimming club, but because he hasn't swum for a few years, he wasn't good enough to go in the group with his peer group.

Any ideas gladly received.

Is there any cadet units nearby? They can provide good a social life. My son attends air cadets and he can be busy with that 6 days a week! I must admit I don't think that is totally the norm for atc, I think we just have an outstanding squadron. You have air cadets/sea cadets/ccf/army cadets so do a Google for what's in your area. The uniform sometimes puts them off, but they all wear it so don't care really. Our squadron only costs me £11 per month in subs and i would pay double that. For his uniform I only had to pay for his shoes and boots - so not a big outlay

Also look into duke of Edinburgh, that is also good for teens. They can start that from 14, so he isn't too late and will be umongst his peer group.

Would he do something like cadets, or CCF? St John's Ambulance?

If his school doesn't do Duke of Edinburgh, he might be able to join a local group with participants from all different schools.

If he is in Year 11, he could sign up for the NCS Challenge, which takes place over three or four weeks in the summer holidays after GCSEs.

Could try golf lessons, or a climbing wall.

If he runs, there are lots of park runs which take place on a Saturday morning.

Climbing - it's fairly interactive...they need to work together but there's time to chat too.