Tween friendly summer vacation activities are hard to come by, right? The kids are really too old for a lot of the summer camps but not yet old enough to be a counselor and get paid for going. They can stay home alone but if they should stay home alone is really a question. They are at the bitter sweet point in life when we both want to clasp tight to them and feel a little relieved when they stomp up to their bedroom. It’s hard to find activities we can all do as a family.
My oldest is 12 years old and so I’m kind of new to this tween world, but I’m catching up fast. My daughter wants her freedom but also desperately needs the net underneath her in case she falls. She has opinions (about everything) and no longer gets up early to beat her brothers to the TV. She reads 500 page novels with ease and can also spend 4 hours at the neighborhood pool as long as there are 1 or 2 other giggling girls there too. To say she is a contradiction is an understatement.
This summer, I have had to get creative to find tween friendly summer vacation activities. The key, I’ve found, is to give her a bit of authority and some creative choice, and then stand back and let the magic happen. Here are my tips.
6 Tween Friendly Summer Vacation Activities
1. Let them eat cake. And bake it too.
If you have a tween who likes to cook, or just knows how to follow directions, why not employ her or him to bake tonight’s dessert? Or even cook tonight’s dinner? Not ready for all that? Put your tween in charge of lunchtime for your younger kids. Not only are you giving them an activity, you may be taking some work off your plate.
2. Get slimed.
Yes, the slime craze is still going. Though your tween might pretend he or she is SO over it, I doubt that’s really true. Ask them to make slime for younger kids. Don’t have littler ones? Ask your tween to create a video tutorial of their slime making and put it on YouTube. I found this unique outdoor DIY slime recipe from Juicy Juice. Try it out!
3. Have a playdate…err…have friends over.
Whatever you do, don’t call it a playdate. The eye rolling and side eye you’ll get will scare you. With tweens, adding in a friend takes all the pressure off of me. I just make sure they are fed and not playing with knives or fire. This works for my almost 11 year old boy too. The kids can be “like totally bored” (as if they were Valley Girls in 1986) but take in another tween and suddenly there’s tons to do.
4. Get crafty with it.
It’s been well documented in this blog that I’m not super crafty. Or crafty at all. However, I have kids who love them! I love these family friendly crafts and kid-led crafts because they are easy, don’t take much clean up and the kids can do them by themselves if I’m busy. Check out my 3 rules for when it comes to crafting. I’m not sure why but one of the most fun craft projects lately was painting rocks. My daughter got so into it! They just need to go hunting for some smooth rocks and then paint away. Check out this Monster Rock tutorial for inspiration.
5. Play a board game.
Remember when you bought all those board games in your 20’s and saved them for when you had kids? Well break those babies out! Your tween is finally old enough to graduate past Chutes and Ladders and into Scrabble or (if you’re a glutton for punishment) Monopoly. If you don’t have board games handy, grab a deck of cards. On a recent “boring” day on vacation, I pulled out a deck of cards and taught the kids how to play Speed. It’s now a family favorite.
6. Go for a hike.
I’m learning that a tween friendly summer vacation means getting out and letting them move their bodies. Just going to a playground might not be good enough anymore though, especially if you have tall kids who might feel out of place. Instead, look for easy (2 mile tops) hikes around you that you can take with your kids. We hiked to the top of Kennesaw Mountain after seeing it was listed as one of the top family friendly hikes in Atlanta on 365AtlantaTraveler.com. We also visited Morgan Falls Overlook Park in Sandy Springs last week for a really nice, unscripted (and free) afternoon outdoors. Don’t live in Atlanta? Google it baby!
No matter what you do, focus on tween friendly summer vacation activities that keep your tweens kids just a little longer. How many summers do you have left before they go to college? Gulp!
