What to do with 13 year this summer?

[Sallyssss]

Hi, my 13 year son struggles with friends and doesn’t have many friends. I am at odds what to do with him for 6 weeks?! Left on his own - he’ll be on the Xbox all day every day - so any help/suggestions would be appreciated!! We live just outside of London.

Does your local council do a playscheme for younger children that he could work/volunteer for?

I’m in the same boat. No idea what to do.

It’s such a tough age, we tried Warhammer and skateboarding, might be worth a go

Are you working or able to take him places ? What sort of things is he interested in aside from the x box

Swimming once a week at least? Gives an excuse for fun exercise and leaving the house with an objective in mind

Food and Top Golf are my go to activities

I was worried about this too, we're just going into week 4 of the holidays in Scotland. But my son got himself into a nice routine of sleeping later then getting the train to the gym, he's out for a couple of hours, he's had exercise and it breaks up his day. Could you get him a gym membership? He also goes for a round of golf a few times a week.

We've had a week family holiday and will do a couple of days trips and meals out to break it up too - top golf has been mentioned above, he enjoys that.

Snap!!
we were talking about setting him challenges. i got as far as getting the bus to the city (about 40 minutes) buying lunch and coming home.

he cycles about 3 miles easily so we might suggest he ups his stamina to make it 5?
but then I got stuck

Does he enjoy anything outside x box? Our local area has sports camps for cricket etc through the holidays. Arts/crafts? Theatre groups?
If you're at home with him all summer and want him to get some fresh air and exercise try geocaching? You could buy some travel bugs or small bits and pieces to put in the caches (or just collect bits from home) and there are adventure lab caches to do (they’re virtual so involve finding info from landmarks)

My 12 year old DS (also struggles a bit with friendship and isn't great at making plans) enjoys

Climbing (we have a decent wall near by)
Table tennis
Golf- especially crazy golf
Warhammer
He's currently selling stuff on Ebay which seems to take quite a lot of time - writing listing, taking photos, going to the post office etc
Coding
Card/board games
Cooking and baking

On the days DH and I are working/working from home, we make a list of things to do the night before. Might include piano practice, reading, sports session at the local leisure centre (walking distance), go to Tesco (walking distance) to choose a nice dessert. Etc. If all of the things on the list get done, he can mess around on Minecraft etc for the rest of the time (he does tend to play online with friends so I see this as a 'win')

Do you have a holiday planned or any time off to spend with him?
It’s ok for him to relax and play on the Xbox, just not all day every day!
you may have to rethink the structure of the day if you’re working, so he’ll probably get up later than usual and go to bed later, leave him a job or 2 to do - empty dishwasher, hang washing out, pop to shop to get milk?
then in the evening you can plan stuff for when you get home from work, not every day but a couple of times a week - mini golf, cinema, walk and an ice cream, dinner out.
what does he usually do at weekends?
any family he can visit and spend an afternoon with?
Day trips at the weekends with you - beach, lake.
teach him to cook - life skill and it will get him off the Xbox.

In a similar position with my dc, some good ideas on this thread. I'm working 4 out of the 6 weeks too.

Does he like football? There's usually lots of week long football courses near me for kids and teens.

Been there with dd1 last year. Dd still had weekly swimming lessons which we kept up through the holidays to keep her busy, though she really wanted to stop. You can hire a table for table tennis at tenpin for £7 for an hour we did that a few times in the holidays last year. Walking to the local library to pick up books that have been ordered in or going into local town to the bigger library. I took a day or two off work to take her to a sports camp - awkward location and only 9-3pm 🙄I also made dd's take it in turn coming grocery shopping, not exciting whatsoever but meant no screens. Luckily she is quite good at entertaining herself she likes lego and doing large jigsaw puzzles so wasn't terrible with screens.

Dd2 is currently 12 but slightly more fortunate in regards to friendships and being sociable, but all friends are dotted about no one particularly close by. Dd2 wants to be on screens constantly though, so not looking forward to the holidays (starts next week here).

Same no fixed friendship group but knows lots of people at school and from sport.
We have 2 weeks off and scattered days with grandparents but otherwise he will be glued to his xbox.

If you are ok with them spending sometime on a screen but learning something, look at https://idea.org.uk where kids can earn badges for learning about the digital world (not just coding). There are a surprising number of courses they can do using online resources eg Egg and Soldiers do remote cooking. Depending on where you are there are also a number of f2f summer cookery schools, although they do tend to be slightly pricey. Local leisure centre might also have some multisport activities where he can mix with other young people.

Can you take a few days holiday through the holidays to do something with him?

Send him to a Grandparent or other relatives for a day here and there or a few days if they live far away.

Look for clubs/activities. There are loads for older kids in London if you're commuting distance. There are usually some kind of coding/game design type ones if he's into that sort of thing.

Let him chill, set a list of tasks to do around home for extra pocket money. Kids don't need to be entertained every single day.

I've got the same problem. My DS not only doesn't have loads of friends, but goes to a grammar school with a wide catchment so those he does have don't live particularly close. I've signed him up for a couple of sports based clubs for older kids and he spent most of yesterday making warhammer models (sadly can't find a suitable club nearby). He'd probably quite like the gym, but the only one that takes at all under 16 needs an adult to accompany them, not great when I'm working.

Have a look what local leisure centres have on offer. Encourage him to reach out to the friends he has to do something. So you have friends with children of a similar age you could meet up with ? Would he be interested in cooking for the family a few days a week, looking at recipes, shopping and cooking. For future would he be interested in joining something like cadets , my daugher is in air cadets and goes on 2 weeks of camp each summer and they run the regular meetings in holidays and do day activities.

I am going to get my DS13 to plan, shop for and cook a couple of meals a week.

He will probably be persuaded to come for a few country hikes, golf driving range, fruit picking, day out in London, 10 pin bowling. He will hang out with friends, play football etc too fortunately but his default would be the Xbox day in day out if he could.

It’s tricky though, especially if you’re on a budget and working.
I like the idea someone mentioned of setting him little challenge like going on a bus to a nearby town, buy lunch and come back.