So what are kids into these days?

Mojisola

Don't kids bring all their own electronic friends with them these days?

gingin_2

Very good suggestion about minecraft. I have a 9 and 13 year old girl and boy and age appropriate things they both enjoy are Simpsons hit and run for the pc, younger one likes spore. We also buy points for the xbox and download some of the old arcade games ( I'm sure you'll like them, too). I buy most games and dvds second hand, I love zoverstocks you can get a lot of dvds for 1p with £1.26 postage and can sell them back - Harry Potter films might work for them both, mine have watched them multiple times.

For games we like the challenge/ competition type games - Bop it, Jenga.

Things for the park are fun, any rocket launcher ( fake obviously!) toys, frisbees, bats and balls, cheap kite. I like taking a bottle of wine/ cider to the park and just sitting there in the evening in a group and letting the kids pay/ exhaust themselves.

TeamLowe

maybe you could ask if they have their own xbox and if so they can bring their own games/pads?
I don't play first person shooters- i'm sh*te at aiming and genuinely too scared to play ones like BioShock lol
but the Rayman ones are good, although if you want something cooler but still not shooty Portal is fantastic.
Minecraft you can get from the Arcade- in fact there's quite a few kid friendly ones on there like Viva Pinata and daft little free platform games, including Ninja+ which I think is kid friendly and addictive although the little pixel ninja does get blown up sometimes....

Tropez

HeadAboveWater wrote: »

Ditto what CoffeeandStitches says! Loved reading your post :D

13 year old girl, an 11 year old girl and a 8 year old boy?

Our 12 yo girl usually has her phone glued to her hand.

In saying that, she does enjoy racing games on the xbox (we're talking PGR or moto GP, not Super Mario!!)

Also a hit is karaoke on the xbox too come to think of it...

LoveFilm or Netflix should have most of what they'd want.

Day out to a park/farm/swimming/something would be good.

McDonald's is usually the food of choice :eek::p

Justin Bieber and One Direction usually the music of choice. For girls at least! Dunno what guys are into, sorry!!

One last thing.... good luck!! :rotfl:

EDIT:
Just thinking. My niece (7) and nephew (9) both like to do online games. The likes of the Disney or BBC site for interactive games maybe?

Karaoke? Possibility, but I've been banned from singing in the house by my partner. My rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" at 4am several months back caused what I can only assume was an involuntary muscle spasm in which she unfortunately hit me in the head with our alarm clock. Fortunately, as is so often the case, we have been able to use our phones as alarm clocks instead. I set my alarm to Bohemian Rhapsody... dastardly things happened to my nipples.

Still, nothing was said about anyone else singing...

McDonalds? Yuck. They can have KFC for their fried genetic material in a box and like it.

Okay, so I vaguely know who Justin Bieber is now, but what the hell is One Direction? Am I really going to have to start watching The Box and Kiss for the next few days to know who the heck anyone is? Is Britney still around? I remember her... her and... ah, I got nothing.

I shall bookmark those websites.

DKLS wrote: »

If you want to entertain yourself, buy the two youngest some of this stuff.



The vivid blue version has spectacular results :rotfl:well it does on my neices, but I have been banned from buying it them again.

They are visiting this weekend and whilst I havent stocked up with panda pop, the parents didnt mention anything about Ice pops

Wow, that stuff still exists? Seems a bit more "high tech" these days.

Blue version it is.

Spendless

I have a 13yo boy but he's a gamer who seems to have been attacked by a permanent sticking charm to the seat by his pc (haven given up on ps/xbox/wii). The girls in his year, seem mainly fascinated by who is which one's best friend, how they look and falling out with each other -all on facebook! Agree with the minecraft comments though for the younger one - though at 8 I'm sure mine wasn't far off your idea of destroying stuff with a rubber mallet.

Scrub the idea of dolls for the 11yo, unless they are into something they still consider 'cool' like monster high. My 10yo girl is mostly entertained by her ipod, making up daft scenes, dances, skits etc and filming herself doing them!

Spendless

Oh yes, definately one direction for the girls!

HeadAboveWater

Tropez wrote: »

My rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" at 4am several months back caused what I can only assume was an involuntary muscle spasm in which she unfortunately hit me in the head with our alarm clock. Fortunately, as is so often the case, we have been able to use our phones as alarm clocks instead. I set my alarm to Bohemian Rhapsody... dastardly things happened to my nipples.

:rotfl::rotfl:

Tropez wrote: »

McDonalds? Yuck. They can have KFC for their fried genetic material in a box and like it.

Pepperoni pizza always good too. Ours are somewhat fussy eaters, but they love spag bol, chicken curry, fajitas, chicken mini fillets and burgers.

Tropez wrote: »

Okay, so I vaguely know who Justin Bieber is now, but what the hell is One Direction? Am I really going to have to start watching The Box and Kiss for the next few days to know who the heck anyone is? Is Britney still around? I remember her... her and... ah, I got nothing.

:rotfl:

I can't keep up with music either

Our 16yo came in to me the other night and started raving on about this 'hot' new singer dude. From Australia or somewhere. He's this. He's that. He's the other. Actually had to stop her and ask if he was any good at singing :rotfl:

Mojisola

The problem with not knowing the kids is that they may not be typical.

The 13 year old girl might want to dismantle your car engine, the 11 year old might want to spend all her time on her skateboard and the 8 year old might want to help your OH sort out her wardrobe and discuss fashions!

valk_scot

Lots of good suggestions above. You could also add some outside trips though...many councils have free swimming sessions for kids over the summer for example and a trip to the cinema + somewhere like Pizza Hut usually goes down well. If they're active kids (and you adults are up to it) you could also look for one of the woodland climbing adventure parks locally, they've become really popular and have terrifying zip lines and scramble nets 30m above the ground. Or a theme park for a treat, of course, and don't underestimate the lure of a zoo even for an otherwise sophisticated 13 year old, or a trip to the beach.

(Kids today still like traditional things but don't like to admit it in case they get sneered at by their pals. Drag them along for the sake of the youngest sibling though and you'll find they have a whale of a time though they'll ask you not to post the pictures on Facebook!)

Tropez

Mojisola wrote: »

Don't kids bring all their own electronic friends with them these days?

I don't know, as I said, not down with the kids. When I was 16 my cellphone was a Philips Savvy. It didn't have games on it. I used to envy the kids with the Nokia phones who could play snake. It could only store 10 SMS as well, and it was limited to those 140 character ones.

These young whippersnappers with their tablets and smartphones and synthetic implants... they don't know the world I did.

gingin wrote: »

Very good suggestion about minecraft. I have a 9 and 13 year old girl and boy and age appropriate things they both enjoy are Simpsons hit and run for the pc, younger one likes spore. We also buy points for the xbox and download some of the old arcade games ( I'm sure you'll like them, too). I buy most games and dvds second hand, I love zoverstocks you can get a lot of dvds for 1p with £1.26 postage and can sell them back - Harry Potter films might work for them both, mine have watched them multiple times.

For games we like the challenge/ competition type games - Bop it, Jenga.

Things for the park are fun, any rocket launcher ( fake obviously!) toys, frisbees, bats and balls, cheap kite. I like taking a bottle of wine/ cider to the park and just sitting there in the evening in a group and letting the kids pay/ exhaust themselves.

Well I think I have some spare MS points doing nothing so I'll let them pick some stuff up off the arcade. Ahh, the wonderful world of paid DLC and fake currencies, where you always end up with more fake currency than you need.

So you take cider to the park and let the kids pay for it? This sounds like a fantastic idea! Does it work with steaks and MoT tests too?

Seriously though, there is a private park nearby that I am, of course, a member of (la de dah!) so I think I could take them there. Pretty sure I saw a play area once, but it is intended for the upper classes so it could just as easily have been some sort of bondage device for deviants... I shall have to check.

Thanks for the tip about zoverstocks. I'll have a gander shortly!

TeamLowe wrote: »

maybe you could ask if they have their own xbox and if so they can bring their own games/pads?
I don't play first person shooters- i'm sh*te at aiming and genuinely too scared to play ones like BioShock lol
but the Rayman ones are good, although if you want something cooler but still not shooty Portal is fantastic.
Minecraft you can get from the Arcade- in fact there's quite a few kid friendly ones on there like Viva Pinata and daft little free platform games, including Ninja+ which I think is kid friendly and addictive although the little pixel ninja does get blown up sometimes....

I don't tend to play FPS games on the Xbox because I grew up using the mouse and keyboard. I'm lethal on a PC but have the aiming skills of a 300-year old with degenerative nerve disorder with a gamepad. I could ask though, but I shall have to do so through my partner, as it has now occurred to me she neglected to even tell me the names of anyone who is coming.

Ah, I like Bioshock though not played the recent one yet. Finished off the new Tomb Raider most recently, that was awesome, though wholly inappropriate for children.

Rayman? Wow, I remember a Rayman game from when I was a kid. Heh. I'll have a look for that and the others you mention