What do your 12/13/14 year olds do in their spare time?

[PrimalLass]

I have a very bright but very bored 12 year old. He was born bored. We've counteracted it by sport sport sport until now, but neither running his energy out nor high school is cutting it now.

He is very resistant to any suggestions other than hiding away with the XBox. Not the sort of mental stimulation that I'm looking for.

What do your kids of this age do to keep their brains going?

What kind of school is he at? Here the grammar gives out hours of homework each night, but my DCs school gives half termly projects and the most able are expected to produce something quite in-depth. I've bee astounded to see what some of the most able pupils have produced...one boy is currently carving a totem pole extremely well, but it's quite time consuming!

Can he meet up with friends?

I have a 12 year old addicted to Youtube, but he is really happiest when mucking around with friends.

DS joined army cadets at 13 and has gone through the ranks to Sergeant at 17, in charge of his platoon. It has worked wonders for his confidence and maturity, as he has to lesson plan and deliver lessons to the cadets, arrange charity events and supervise the junior cadets on camps. He is also doing a BTEC in Team Leading through cadets.

DS (13) is a scout. It's school holidays here and he's just been on a hiking and camping weekend with them. He also plays rugby and just started guitar lessons.
He loves reading especially Warhammer and sci-fi and visiting bookshops. He's also helped set up a creative writing group at school.
He has periods of playing on his xbox and loves YouTube too as well as bike rides with his dad or pals too.
He's bought himself an airfix model to do during the holidays.

I could have written your OP. I'm despairing at the amount of time DS1 spends on the ps4. He doesn't really want to do anything else, and the only positive I can see is that at least he has headphones and chats a lot to his friends who are also playing. They all walk to school together and chat about it then too.

Maybe I just need to resign myself that he's a gamer?

As another poster says, if I take it off him, he can just go round his friend's houses and play there instead.

We've tried to get him interested in sports, musical instruments, coding. He's got a dog, which he walks every day, but he's not interested in training him or anything.

Cooking, piano, climbing, dog walking, reading, gardening, talking with friends.

weegiemum The special effects make up sounds like an interesting gift for Christmas - what kind of make up could I get for a good starter kit?

Mine goes dog walking but spices the walks up by going geocaching at the same time.

If he does football 4 x a week, tennis 3 and an instrument, tbf, I think the rest of his free time he's allowed to be bored!

It's a difficult age, they're too old to have stuff forced onto them and in some cases not yet old enough to be confident enough in their own choices.

Dd is 14 now and did piano and violin and dropped both at 11. Guess what? She started violin again last year and has just asked if we can re-mount the Yamaha keyboard in her room as she's been teaching herself from YT on the quiet. She did volleyball for 5 years but now has said categorically she doesn't want to continue- fair enough, but has asked to do Spanish classes.

No is is v upset about being bored, that's the problem. Nothing is engaging his brain so he wants to do things he shouldn't, like spending all day on the XBox. I don't want his mental challenge to be that. The sport is great but isn't making him 'think'.

he's just at a normal Scottish comp. We went for a private school bursary but 'earn too much'. Despite being in the top maths class it is stuff he did 2 years ago...

Isn't boredom a sign of low internal motivation? What does HE feel passionate about? What does HE want to get better at or develop?

I had a "coaster" at high school who got by with good enough results while being capable of much better. No competitive instincts, loafed around with his mates and online (parentally controlled, obviously) and was glued to his phone.

The only thing he showed passion for was music, composing, playing and performing classical and modern. He got to Conservatoire Degree Entry level and stopped to focus on his school exams.

Did he tranfer that passion to his schoolwork? Like hell he did.
Scraped an 82% and blamed the shortfall on his teachers not liking him....

We had been telling him to "Wake up! Realise your potential! Put some effort into it! Take off the handbrake!" for years (see my username!) and all we got was lip service because he had NO INTERNAL MOTIVATION. A lovely lad, kind, polite, would help anyone but lacking a direction.

Well, the failure to get recognition in his high school exam must have pricked his self pride and given him a wake-up call. "So I'm not as wonderful as I thought I was..." This summer he knew he had to get into Medicine by competitive exam. HE'd chosen to do that and there was no Plan B.

Top 4% nationally and an immediate offer to his first choice of University.
I'm letting him draw his own conclusions...

Moral of the story: Your DS has to know what he wants and you will be more than willing to help him find it.

Play Sims, watch Netflix, bake, paint nails, mess about on phone - instagram, snapchat etc

She works hard at school so I try not to judge.

I actually approached 15yoDS's last piano tutor and said "I want you to be his mentor as well as his teacher."
Paid through the nose (high level academic) but it worked!

What does HE feel passionate about? What does HE want to get better at or develop?

Xbox. That's the problem.

To be fair, there are some pretty intelligent games available for the XBox, like "build your own universe" or " use your ingenuity to carry out this quest". Not just shoot'em up games.
Are those the ones he likes?

This has come about after a fight about GTA. He's not having it, but what came out of the argument is how bored he is. I think he was very tired and extra emotional, but it has been a huge wake up call for me.

Draws, plays piano, teaches the dog tricks, reads, bakes, crafts.

GTA isn't for 12yos. Who bought it?

No one bought it. It's peer pressure from friends at his high school.

Ahhh, so it's the old "Everybody's doing it and you're the mean ones." argument. Know it well!

That's the one I do feel sorry for him as he just wants to fit in.

I've just Googled this for you.
It gives strategies for recognising and offering means to self motivate and thus reduce frustration or "boredom".

I realised our DS was a "people pleaser" way back but only grasped the idea of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation a few years ago, unfortunately. It would have saved a lot of trial and error in my parenting.
My MN username comes from what was definitely a period of error which resulted in one of his best academic achievements- I use it as a daily reminder to myself!

Thank you so much. I'll look at it tonight.

I'm having the same battle with GTA so you are not alone, he is at a Scottish private school with everything on offer but is still bored. He does well at school but just doesn't seem to have enthusiasm for anything else, we have tried every activity there is!

Ds has long school days and does a lot of sport outside school. He also enjoys watching sport and reading sports magazines, but other than that all he wants to do us FIFA on tn Xbox. I have no idea how to motivate him to do anything else. So interested in all these responses.