Ways to Keep Pre-Teens Occupied and Out of Trouble

I know there are millions of parents who are tired of hearing their kids say “I'm bored.”

Anytime there is a vacation or break, your kids will need to be entertained or occupied, otherwise there may be trouble. Pre-teens or “tweens” are defined as the ages of 9-12, still young enough to be considered a child, but not quite a teenager. This is a funny age and girls are usually more advanced that boys, so don't assume they will want the same things. Scheduling their activities and having a written contract in place that you all participated in is a big help.

 Most of my friends have dreaded the vacations and summer breaks, because they need to find babysitters, classes or some creative outlet for their youngsters. Leaving them home to be entertained by the television or computer, is not a wise decision today. The internet is unsafe and parental controls need to be initiated. I had to help a family member set the parental controls on their computer because they never used one. Kids will take full advantage of a parent who is computer illiterate.

Since pre-teens are too young to work at a real camp,then making up a local camp is a good option.

When I was a teenager, my friend and I set up a day camp type of summer school program for the local children on our street. We charged a small weekly fee to cover materials, snacks,and miscellaneous expenses for our day care.

The children were gathered up, one by one from each house at 8 am, and we all walked to the back patio of my partner's home or my garage on rainy days. We had the kids sit on a picnic table with fun activities, and some school lessons. For one hour, we taught a math lesson, then a snack break was given for 15 minutes. The next hour, we had a fun crafts activity, such as making stick houses or finger painting. other days we taught writing or read a story. Science lessons lead us on walsk around the enighborhood gathering insect, rocks, or flowers for discussion. The point is,kids have to be creative. Today I can see having young children using a laptop to learn some simple math games.

This activity will give the pre- teens a sense of responsibility and give some valuable time to younger children. It will also help them earn some community service points for their upcoming school year.

The tried and true activity that usually helps parents and kids alike is sports-related. Soccer is an excellent outdoor activity in the summer months. Most kids learn valuable lessons while playing on a team. Baseball, basketball, tennis, badminton, outdoor bowling, golf are other options as well.

Indoor bowling has teams that they can join and occupy their time for a few hours each day. The indoor games such as Wii has video bowling, tennis ,baseball, boxing that will help them stay physical. I know parking the kids in front of the television or video game is a habit for many, but it just doesn’t teach social skills which is sorely lacking today.

Tweens have lots of energy and ideas so ask them what they want to do and try to accommodate them as reasonable as possible.