Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 51 total)
  • Unimaginative children
  • flip
    Free Member

    My sons at mine for a week he’s 12, it seems that unless i hang out with him or take him somewhere he’s bored.

    He has no friends here as he goes to school 30 miles away at his moms house.

    My dilemma really is that my parents (im 46) didnt ferry me anywhere i made my own entertainment, so are kids different now? I try to encourage independence in him but his mom is overprotective.

    Annoys me.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    My sons at mine for a week he’s 12, it seems that unless i hang out with him or take him somewhere he’s bored.

    Forgive me if I’m making assumptions as to why he’s with you for a week and ordinarily 30 miles away, but isn’t hanging out with him what this time is for?

    (This is not meant to sound like a criticism if it does).

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    my parents (im 46) didnt ferry me anywhere i made my own entertainment,

    Times have changed. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but you don’t see kids on the streets anymore. Nobody could have the childhood now that we had. I don’t know how you’d even start to change that either.

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    glasgowdan
    Free Member

    Plenty kids playing outdoors here and everywhere I seem to go!

    And what’s with “mom”?

    He’s just in a different environment, he’ll be quite happy doing nothing and will find something to do if he wants. Maybe the issue is that you’re just not used to him?

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    …so are kids different now?… his mom is overprotective.

    I think this is the big difference in kids these days.

    When I was 12 I’d regularly be off with my mates all day. Sadly the media-fed paranoia of paedos, child abductors, knife gangs and drugs on every street corner means parents (understandably) don’t give kids that freedom any more and often end up ferrying them from one pre-canned activity to the next.

    Not sure what the answer is, but it probably involves bikes.

    (And dens, climbing trees, mischief, jumpers for goalposts…)

    duntstick
    Free Member

    He has a bike at yours? Get him what the kids have at the local skate park. Soon make friends

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Get him what the kids have at the local skate park.

    Marijuana and BO?

    flip
    Free Member

    Im at work some of the week hence he’ll have to amuse himself, my wife is disabled so unable to ferry him around too much.

    Me and his mom have split up she moved away with him.

    flip
    Free Member

    He’s got scooter, bike , skateboard just lacking imagination

    wanmankylung
    Free Member

    Do you live in the USA?

    flip
    Free Member

    Usa?

    Er no.

    Or to quote Mr Milliband

    Hell no!!

    wanmankylung
    Free Member

    Mum.

    muppetWrangler
    Free Member

    Minecraft. Problem solved. Admittedly you’ve started a whole new problem but I can only deal with one problem at a time.

    flip
    Free Member

    Everyone says mom here, South Staffs.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    If you’re at work then fair enough. Books, films?

    wanmankylung
    Free Member

    In that case everyone in South Staffs is wrong.

    lazybike
    Free Member

    Maybe use your superior imagination to inspire him….

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Times have changed. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but you don’t see kids on the streets anymore. Nobody could have the childhood now that we had. I don’t know how you’d even start to change that either.

    I do. Send him out to play and leave him at it.

    Also visit living streets, Tim gill and grounds for learning.

    nuke
    Full Member

    Well I’ll empathise with you OP…daughter here whose 9 and is struggling already on 2nd day of hols: played Monopoly Empire, watched movie (Teen Beach Movie), sent out to buy her lunch from convenience store, cooking later etc but as soon as we stop suggesting stuff, is then bored 🙄

    Her brother (12) took the tactical decision to clear off around his friend’s house 😐

    scandal42
    Free Member

    He’s got scooter, bike , skateboard just lacking imagination

    here’s the problem, buy him a knife so he can at least play with the other kids.

    StirlingCrispin
    Full Member

    Give them a chance to be bored and after a while they’ll go find something fun to do.

    kids aren’t allowed enough down time – let them have it.

    Drac
    Full Member

    Times have changed. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but you don’t see kids on the streets anymore. Nobody could have the childhood now that we had. I don’t know how you’d even start to change that either.

    Well you could start by changing your perception. My youngest has been out all day except for he lunch, my eldest was out earlier. When I was walking the dog there was loads of kids out.

    matt_outandabout
    Full 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 8)

    molgrips
    Free Member

    You might not see kids out, but they are there. In my street they are out every evening during BST if the weather’s not too bad.

    donks
    Free Member

    I have to agree with op here. But as for parents being worried about letting kids out I reckon it has as much to do with Internet, iPads and games consoles. My 2 can happily spend entire holidays just sitting in and watching you tube or shouting at there school mates over the gaming headset things. I have no major problem with them running wild outdoors as I did but they end up coming home half hour later sometimes as no one else is out!! Or the few things my eldest ends up doing are vilified by the authorities. He likes the free running but as it’s an urban activity most of these places object ardently to kids jumping over there walls and street furniture ect so there a seen as a menace. The same for bmx as we have no skatepark or other facilities so again their closed down by the security or proprietors of the town.
    I used to fish loads as a kid…. But never paid a fortune for the privilege but you try to just nip down to the local lakes which are all syndicate owned now for a couple of hours. We played footy from dawn to dusk at our local pitches but now the groundsman is out like a shot to shoe them off so they just have a local park with grass 3″ high and dog s..t everywhere. Same for tennis, cricket and all number of other sports that we could use facilities without getting turfed off in seconds.
    It seems like there’s so much to do these days with special facilities that we never had when I was young but very little to do that cost nothing or doesn’t involve being driven to or picked up from.
    I’m sure someone will be along in a mo to tell me how wrong I am but that’s how I see it?

    cheekyboy
    Free Member

    Do they have soccer moms down in south staffs ?

    😆

    longj
    Free Member

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

    SiofCannock
    Free Member

    Too right. I’ll never buy a Mother’s Day card that says Mum on it. And that’s not easy.

    duntstick
    Free Member

    I was one of six kids, one of the reasons we spent so much time outside, was that my parents were very much a part of the pub culture of the day. The rest of the time they were working.
    They really didn’t apply themselves to parenting in the same way modern parents often do.
    That is why over a period of time we developed our own interests.

    BillMC
    Full Member

    marijuana and BO

    Sounds like you’re being overprotective.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Not at all, the latter part of my formative years were spent in a heady mix of marijuana and BO.

    And that’s why I’m a software engineer 😀

    bruceonabike
    Free Member

    Take the week off. Did you not know he was coming?

    South Staffs? That’s near Cannock innit? Go hire some bikes.

    Mum in my part of the Midlands fwiw

    senorj
    Full Member

    When I was growing up I went to stay at my paternal grandparents quite regularly.I didn’t have the confidence to bowl up to kids in the village and say “can I play”. So ,i spent alot of time mooching by the river, reading ,wordsearch mags, walking and bored. 🙂
    Pre computers obviously.
    In no way trying to make you feel bad , but, He wants to be with his Dad.Can you not take a day or two off and show him how you would occupy your time. Give him a task to do to fill the hours you have to work-garden clearance/model to make maybe -My grandad had me out at dawn catching moles!

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    My grandad had me out at dawn catching moles!

    I have no animus against moles, but this is rad. 🙂

    convert
    Full Member

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

    Only the uneducated can’t differentiate between the spoken and written vernacular 😉

    dudeofdoom
    Full Member

    Only the uneducated can’t differentiate between the spoken and written vernacular

    I like this 🙂
    (dunno what it means thou sounds good…)

    DrP
    Full Member

    Get him what the kids have at the local skate park.
    Marijuana and BO?

    And a rather blue vocabulary…

    DrP

    edhornby
    Full Member

    go out in the morning and ride bikes

    does he play an instrument ? get him a really cheap guitar

    get him to cook for you

    chomp
    Free Member

    Kids don’t see being bored as a good thing – whereas it’s a skill worth learning to embrace I reckon.

    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.

    It’s not his fault, just let him be bored and he’ll soon get used to it – or work out how to amuse himself

    cookeaa
    Full Member

    Dare I say this?

    Rather than blaming “Kids these days” could this be a lack of parental imagination?

    I know it’s easy enough to plonk them in front of some internet-enabled device and let that entertain them for a bit, we’ve all done it,

    But, given your circumstances, if you want your kid to go out and do stuff and there’s no other kids for them to hang about with, you are going to have to come up with some activities to do with him yourself.

    It doesn’t have to involve travelling miles or anything particularly complicated, got a park nearby? or a Garden, have a kick about, fly a kite, ride a bike…

    If you have to work, especially if the weather’s shite, leave him a bit a of a project to do while you are out, get him an airfix kit to assemble or a model castle kit and you help him paint it later…
    You really want him to be keen and excited waiting for you to come home and show him stuff, but it doesn’t just magically happen, you have to provide a bit of positive input…

    What’s sort of stuff is he into? try and find some activities that can cross over with his interests, however tenuous the link might seem…

    The last thing you want is for your son to associate visiting his Dad with simply being bored… That way lies future resentment and hostility…

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