How I entice my teenagers down from their bedrooms

When my children were little they always wanted to be close to me. They only went to their rooms for sleeping, and they never got up to any mischief because they were always in the same room as I was! Now they are older they prefer their own space a lot more, and spend most of their time when at home in their bedrooms. This started during the pandemic, when they did their home schooling video calls in their rooms, but of course it's a natural part of growing up too. 

Sometimes it's nice for me to have a bit more peace and quiet to work on my own projects! But I do also miss them, especially at the weekends when sometimes it feels as though the entire day has gone and I've hardly seen them. So I've been trying to find ways to entice them out of their rooms and into spending some time with me.

Anything food related is a good one for Mia. A few times I've taken her out to the café at the garden centre around the corner and treated her to a fancy hot chocolate and a cake. As a bonus there is a Hobbycraft in the same retail park and so we often make a stop there too. We always seem to have a voucher to spend, or else there is something on special offer!

I can also entice them downstairs to watch something together if I provide a favourite snack like popcorn or chocolate fingers. And Mia loves baking, especially if licking a spoon is involved!

Sometimes I'm able to drag one child at a time out for a walk. We have a little loop that runs down through our estate and back through a foresty footpath. I entice them with the promise of some private talking time with just me which they like, it's a good way to both get some exercise and also chat through anything that's bothering them.

Recently I've got back into doing jigsaws again and I've discovered that they both like helping out from time to time. Mia spotted this Squishmallow jigsaw while I was browsing on Amazon the other day, and I had a voucher so I bought it for us to do together. It's a very challenging one! I'm trying to keep away from it during the day so that we can do it together!

I also like to find a television show or film that we'll all enjoy watching together. At the moment I'm sitting down with Harry and we are working our way through Red Dwarf, which has recently been put up onto iPlayer. I was a massive fan as a teenager and watched it over and over, I always have a Red Dwarf quote in my head! But I discovered that there have been three more seasons that I've never even watched because they were on Dave and I didn't know how to watch them! So we are just about to get to the new episodes which is quite exciting. Harry has also been loving Look Around You which is also on iPlayer, it's a sort of spoof science television show series which was on a few years ago. It's very surreal and very funny. 

Sometimes I can persuade the children to come downstairs and sit at the kitchen table with me while we all work on our own projects, especially if there's a pack of biscuits involved. They often do some homework, and I like seeing what they are up to at school. They also do things without screens, like reading or drawing. It's nice to all be in the same space but still doing our own thing!

I much prefer this stage of parenthood to the early baby and toddler days!