Mine went to the pool with two friends today (we dropped off). When they left they walked to 7-11, walked to one friend's house and are likely watching the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders doc and perfecting their kick line and attempting jump splits currently while listening to "Thunderstruck." Great life.

With two or more friends, they might play hide and seek or twister. They will work on dances. They will start a movie that they won’t finish. Whoever has a phone in the group will use it to text someone else and say dumb (but harmless) stuff and they will all laugh hysterically. They might put makeup on each other — including gory, Halloween type makeup, etc.

Let them be mall rats

Mine is on that tik tok

My 12yo DD will play on the switch attached to a TV.
Sometimes dance to music,
Play soccer in the back yard or basketball in the driveway
Play stupid games that are on utube , like one kid has a mouthful of water and the other kid has to try and make them laugh…. Yes it’s stupid. I’m not 12 though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They make up dances and plays, karaoke, draw with colored pencils, play board games, watch movies, etc.

This sounds like my 12 yo when she hangs out with friends, plus goof off outside or bike.

Mine does the same in addition to playing Minecraft and Roblox. They build houses and decorate the bedrooms for themselves and their friends.

Anonymous wrote:Tweens should still like to "play".

Young teens like going places alone-Starbucks, Boba, Target etc

Agree, although I think teens should like play too. Just my opinion, i was like that as a young teen

Anonymous wrote:They make up dances and plays, karaoke, draw with colored pencils, play board games, watch movies, etc.

This sounds like my 12 yo when she hangs out with friends, plus goof off outside or bike.

Anonymous wrote:Tweens should still like to "play".

Young teens like going places alone-Starbucks, Boba, Target etc

Agree with this and 12 year olds are probably in the second bucket.

Tweens should still like to "play".

Young teens like going places alone-Starbucks, Boba, Target etc

Is your neighborhood walkable? Bikeable?

That would take care of this problem. Give them some lunch/snack money and send them out!

Oh, my teen DS says a lot of the girls he's friends with are getting into pickleball.

They can do their nails.

Drop them off at the mall

My 13 and 15 YO and their friends have done lately:

making slime again after a two year hiatus.

Walk the dog/go check out the newly refurbished neighborhood playground

Play "volleyball" in the basement with a lightweight play ball. We also have a plywood covered wall down there for kicking the soccer ball

Roblox has made a reappearance

Crazy braiding

Going to Target--they can easily spend an hour just wandering there

They make up dances and plays, karaoke, draw with colored pencils, play board games, watch movies, etc.

12-year-old has no camp this week and having a friend or two over each day, some of them are new friends who haven't been here before. But already today she's at a loss for what to do. I was going to have them hang outside today but it's raining. They don't want to do art projects, one girl doesn't like video games and they think board games are boring. No tiktoks. They don't want to cook. Any fun projects you've found to have around for situations like this? I'm trying to work and out of ideas.