mate… it’s pretty easy to see who he inherited his lack of imagination from!

I wonder how annoying he finds you?

The thing that bugs me about modern parenting is the solution these days is to take them somewhere to have fun. Kids are bored, take them to a play centre. Kids are bored, take them to the cinema. Kids are bored, take them somewhere that you have to pay for.

It infuriates me tbh. We have 2 kids and tend to share childcare through the holidays with other family memebers with children of similar age. The kids come to us, they play outside (We bought our house specifically because it had a huge grass area outside for the younger kids to play), they play on bikes, they play on roller blades etc etc. They get fed at lunch time, my wife keeps an eye on them and sometimes allows the groups that naturally form to come into the back garden and the kids can play whatever they fancy.

If my kids go to their cousins house it always, and I mean always ends in them visiting some attraction of some ilk. Little hobo’s come home full of sweets and how amazing some overpriced 60mins of fun is.

My lad is now 12 so he doesn’t always want to spend time with his younger cousins so I have finally let him have a phone and can disappear for a few hours with his pals (Pals he has had for most of his life). I got the privaledge of looking after him by myself all of yesterday.

9am – Swimming for 2hours at local pool
11am – football in back garden for 1hr
12 am – lunch
1pm – he went to his room for a couple of hours
3pm – We brought his xbox down and hooked it up to the big tv and had a couple of hours playing
5pm – Pizza time
6pm – Mum and sister came home

It wasn’t the norm of a day but it was great fun to have just me and him time all day.

er hang on guys – I’m gonna defend the OP here, teenage lads are seriously hard work to entertain, I know I was !! especially as his usual mates may not be around

tell him to do his homework 😀 he’ll soon find entertainment

No they are not, like every child they like to manipulate.

My teenage boys start by claiming they are bored and being ‘seriously difficult to entertain’. I tell them to do one and find something to do.

Yesterday afternoon was spent making bows and arrows and lighting a fire in the woods.

Get your play face on.
[video]https://youtu.be/B1y5RyPoBYY[/video]

matt_outandabout – Member

^crispin has it. Let them be bored. It is painful, but you only learn creativity by being bored – and the wider mental health benefits of it as massive for teens/tweens…

Furthermore they also need to get tired (physically, not sleep) on a regular basis, as this is great for them physcially and mentally.

And they also could do with getting cold regularly, as this mahoooosively boosts the teen immune system.

So all our kids need to be bored, cold and tired. It is good for them

oooh, and another one. They need to do big physical work as well, to develop proprioceptive sense.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/29/why-kids-are-getting-more-aggressive-on-the-playground/

like every child they like to manipulate

Er.. yeah.. what a lovely outlook you must have on family life…

Its actually quite healthy for kids to be bored. They need it as part of their development. It helps their their imagination and creativity, which is seriously suffering because parents constantly seem to feel the need to entertain them. Its not doing them any favours, long term.

As for not having the same childhood as we had. Why the hell not? My kids disappear off into the woods behind our house for hours with their mates, building dens, and rope swings, playing football, and only reappear (usually covered in mud) to be (frequently) fed. Or they’ll sit drawing or reading for hours.

There childhood seems pretty much identical to mine, except when they get in later, theres a better choice of telly

With kids having access to everything they want/need entertainment wise (for the most part) in seconds via the internet they just need to get used to waiting for stuff.

I remember my grandad droning on about how there was no TV in his day, and how they had to make their own entertainment.

Plus ca change…

It’s mom in the Midlands, mam in the north, mum in the south. Get used to it cockneys

Balls! I grew up in Leicester but have lived in Yorkshire for the past 15/20 years. It’s mum, Fact!

😉

Airgun. That’ll keep occupied until he discovers motorbikes or girls (or both).