Reply to Does your 13 yr old do *anything* at hom to entertain themselves that doesn't involve a screen?

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Reply to "Does your 13 yr old do *anything* at hom to entertain themselves that doesn't involve a screen?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Do any of your kids just go............outside........and....play?[/quote]

I'm the "wrestle with the dog" poster above.

The question was, what does your 13 year old do to entertain themselves . . . at home.

My kid certainly does things outside, but then he's outside, he's not "at home".

Having said that, this is the age when there are 3 major shifts in how most kids spend their time.  The first is that most teenagers do fewer things more intensively than younger kids.  They start to figure out what interests them, and put a lot of time into a handful of things.  My son, for example, has moved from dabbling in a bunch of sports to playing or training for 1 sport year round.  The same is true with his involvement in the arts and community service, he is involved in fewer things, but the things he does do take up more of his time.

The second is that there's a shift from a lot of time spent on "play" to activities that are more goal directed, like studying, helping with housework, working out for a sport, taking care of a pet, volunteering, preparing for a play or a performance, earning money at a job etc . . . There's less down time where kids are "entertaining themselves", and more time when they're "working", even if the things they're working on are things they selected and enjoy.

Finally, this is the age when kids become very peer focused.  If my son does have downtime, his first choice is to spend it with his friends, whether that's hanging out in the park or our local "downtown" area, or meeting up online to play video games.

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