Hobbies and activities

[Newuser75]

I’m wondering if people can give me some ideas which might help my son.

He is 13 years old and more and more we are seeing that he just hasn’t got anything that he can occupy himself with while in the house.

He plays football and goes to drama after school and loves TV and does play on games too but we don’t want him doing that constantly.

More and more now he just walks around the house like a little lost soul and unless he has a phone or screen of any kind doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Things he won’t entertain:

lego
art of any kind
crafting
coding

Please tell me what your teen boys do in the house that doesn’t involve a screen!!

How keen is he on drama?

Reading
Playing an instrument
Drawing
Cooking

Is what our teen does at home if not watching youtube.

He has two activities that he really enjoys, which are gaming and TV. You've stopped him from doing those, which is why he's bored. I'm fairly sure that if there were other things he liked doing, he'd do them.

What’s wrong with walking around the house being bored ?

Mine is a girl but also had no hobbies. We watch a lot (A LOT) of films and TV. Get him into Game of Thrones or Grey's Anatomy with pizza/snacks.

I haven’t stopped him doing anything. He watches plenty of tv and plays plenty of games but he isn’t allowed to sit on the sofa from getting out of bed to going to bed at night which I don’t think is unreasonable!

Likes it! Does LAMDA at school as well as a drama club one night a week.

Has watched all of greys anatomy! Not game of thrones yet though.

I guess nothing but would be nicer for him if he had something to do maybe.

Thanks.
yeah he will read, has no interest in any instruments, won’t draw, will cook sometimes so could do more of that if he wanted.

Whenever I said I was bored as a child, my mum would always say she would find me something to do. I soon learned that it would be housework. I very quickly found something to do!

Whenever my DC complained that they were bored, I told them to do the housework. They manage to fill their time just fine now. I have plenty of cleaning supplies should entertaining teenagers ever become my responsibility and not theirs

Haha! Snap

It’s a very effective method!

Since he likes drama, would he enjoy reading a play with you, each taking different parts? It could be ten minutes rather than finding a whole new hobby. Borrowing scripts from the library might give him a few to try without buying anything.

Hmm, tricky, as it sounds like he's already rejected a lot of indoor hobbies and there's a limit to what can be done outdoors over the Winter obviously. At a similar age two of my DC were out doing organised sports most days and the other one played an instrument so there were lessons twice a week and daily practice, plus he spent a lot of time doing various types of modelling (in fact he still does as an adult). Between school work and those things, spare time wasn't usually a problem.
If he reads, how about setting him a challenge to read a long book or complete a series? Is he interested in puzzles or quizes, or something like chess?

My DS 13 is a gamer but will be persuaded away from the screen to do actual games like cards or a board game, or to do any sort of cooking. He is also happy to help with practical tasks like putting furniture together.

By the way Do NOT let him watch Game of Thrones yet! It is full of inappropriate sex (rape, orgy, prostitution… very graphic)

Thanks. Yes he does like chess so that is always a good option.

Oh no way! Thanks for the heads up! We haven’t seen it 🙈

That’s a good idea, thank you.

Get him doing housework if he says he is bored. He’s 13. It’s not for you to find his hobbies for him.

If he will read and you’d like to foster that, maybe do a bit of legwork to find more books he hasn’t come across and might like? DS is younger but we’ve found great stuff I’d never have stumbled across without searching out recommendations and lists of top books for his age, etc. I do think the key to reading more is to find the really good books (obviously, and also, subjective!).
Kids can reserve books at the library for free generally which works well if you want to read a series in order or just get your hands on books that are on the shelves of other branches of your local authority libraries.

Thinking back to my gamer/coder DB his favourites were:

• Reading
• Darts board
• Half-size pool table
• D&D and similar games
• Magazine subscriptions about science and gaming (grown up ones not kids ones)
• Electronics (db built his own gaming computer eventually but at this age was just tinkering)

For my nephew it was:

• Home gym equipment (pull up bar, exercise bike, dumbbells, mat to do pushups, sit ups, squats and lunges etc etc)
• Board games with his brother/friends
• woodwork (he had a workbench in his dad’s shed and he made all sorts of things - a cricket bat and stumps, shelves for his room, a chest with a hinge lid to keep his Stuff in
• Duo Lingo
• growing cacti and succulents (not hugely time consuming but does require a bit of faffing about most weeks. There are lots of YouTube videos explaining how to make terrariums, or make cuttings grown on a pebble etc)
• Learning to juggle! Seriously good in the end - could do 5 balls!

In a similar vein: stunt yo-yos are fun (I had one).

My brother also learned to spin our sofa cushions on his finger. It drove my mum WILD as inevitably eventually they would fly off and smash into the TV or the lamp.

He also used to make little model aircraft from Airfix kits - I know that’s a craft but he really liked building them and painting them.

And one year he got into Origami and also making paper geometric shapes from templates .

Then there was the year we both got into making fudge, honeycomb and jam. It’s quite tricky and also relatively dangerous due to the high temperatures involved! So not one for a kid who lacks common sense.

Oh and growing crystals! Actually this was really my mum’s hobby - she could make HUGE sugar crystals, perfectly smooth. Her salt crystals were magnificent too. There is a real art to it and lots of variables both making the solution, finding the right jar, seeding the crystal then putting it somewhere it can grow perfectly. We would compete to see whose solution made the best crystal.

And finally I recall him growing chilli pepper plants and mushrooms, both from kits. Both these activities annoyed my mum as they took up loads of space and didn’t yield much! But enjoyable.