What do your 11-12 year old girls do all day that do not include electronics? Looking for independent activities or just some hobbies your preteens have that they enjoy*My kiddo doesn’t have any hobbies and I’ve just limited her screen time to an hour a day. Today we have baked, made chapstick, played sand, Barbie’s, talked, colored, card games and it’s not even 2 o’clock yet….
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I have an almost 11 year old.
She enjoys crafting so I keep her craft cart stocked up.
She reads a lot but mostly she just follows me around and talks to me while I’m doing whatever I need to do.
She is involved in dance, gymnastics, chorus and drama outside the home.
And sometimes when she tells me she’s bored I tell her that’s good, it will spark creativity and I send her off to figure out an activity.
She doesn’t have a phone or tablet of her own either. She does have a Switch but she rarely plays that.
There are some great suggestions above but don’t feel overwhelmed trying to entertain her or plan elaborate outings. It’s good that they learn to be bored and not always entertained by another person or a screen.
Oh! Check out books from your local library & see what else they offer. Take academic or movement classes online or in person or check out the library’s DVD collection. Maybe your daughter would like to read for weekend story hours for tots.
Look up info and plan a real & a fantasy trip (or maybe you can make them both come true). One to a neighboring amusement park, old towne for shopping and a meal, or a hike in a bigger park, a zoo, museum, planetarium, factory tour, weird local landmark—day trips to whatever is in your neck of the woods.
Then plan a trip to a foreign country, (separately or together) looking up attractions, history, food, customs, holidays, language/s, games and typical activities, music. Find out how the schools and government work. Not too deep, it shouldn’t be a chore. Plan an itinerary to one or more locations in the country and the sights you’d want to see and what you’d want to eat in each place. Check into flights, accommodations, admission costs, ground transportation and make a budget. Learn a few words in the language/s and find some recipes and make a dish or two from the country, listen to some famous music, see if there are any Olympic medalists from there.
If you live in a diverse area, maybe you can invite people with that heritage over and ask them about their native country and to teach you something. Maybe they could read a children’s book or poem to you and explain it, or teach you a song, or play favorite traditional music or a game.
Ask what would seem weird to someone from that country coming to the U.S., or what you’d find different going to that country: what’s for breakfast, how bathrooms are set up, public transportation available, what holidays they celebrate, school cafeteria food, what’s cheap and plentiful and what’s scarce and expensive, slang terms (not swear words) and idioms, favorite sports.
Look in art books and discover famous works of art & learn a bit about them. Try your hand making something similar to something you like in the style of that artist. Jackson Pollock party on paper, an Alexander Calder style mobile out of coat hangers, an oversized detail like Georgia O’Keefe or a block or LEGO construction like Louise Nevelson, an ancient sculpture out of Pla-Doh, a crayon drawing of pointillist dots? A Helen Frankenthaler abstraction? A Frida Kahlo self-portrait? A papier-mâché figure like Nikki de Saint Phalle, or a perspective drawing to a vanishing point, or your own cairn or Stonehenge out of rocks.
Look nearby for festivals and performances including those celebrating other cultures and attend as many as you can.
If you’re up to it, foster dogs or cats to be adopted, if you can give them up to a good home. Or get a little pet to care for like fish, hamster, Guinea pig, small reptile.
Can you afford some classes and do you have transportation or can you carpool? Dance, karate, sewing, woodworking, singing, computer coding, robotics club, a foreign language, or team sports like soccer or softball; or ice skating, gymnastics, tennis, swimming, painting? How about clubs or scouts or getting involved at the animal shelter, gardens or parks, stream clean up, or visiting old people at nursing homes?
Is there anything available through the school or your religious organization or a Boys and Girls Club? Is your area safe for bike riding and do you have or can you buy new or used or borrow bikes (wear helmets!)? Are there any local attractions or museums? Even if it’s not something she’d normally pick, every new thing is something new and different. Try everything at least once.
Is she learning to fend for herself? Cooking, cleaning, laundry and other chores? How to check the oil, change a tire, fill the car fluids, pump gas? She doesn’t have to do everything all the time, but make sure she knows how to do everything for herself. Plan meals & grocery shopping together, let her rearrange/redecorate her room, help plan a birthday or other party & bake the cake. Do it quick before she becomes a sullen teen!
Maybe there’s something you can do together or something she can do with friends. My kids always had so much homework we hardly had time for anything, but we did soccer, karate and Girl Scouts for my daughter over her elementary and middle school years, she did gymnastics, track and field with her high school and kept up with Scouts, which was full of all kinds of activities (hiking, rock climbing, sewing, dance, helping in costume at a historic colonial attraction, even helping plan a bat mitzvah as a troupe, etc.) in addition to camping.
We kept our kids busy with wholesome activities and they pretty much stayed out of trouble and made good friends that they’ve kept up with into their 30s.