Single Dad needs advice

....damn original subject line eh?

....anyhoo...

Hi, I'm Eric, single dad in Colorado. I have a 7 year old and a thirteen
year old (both boys), and I'm just in the beginnings of divorce (long
overdue).

My 7 year old has no problem whatsoever entertaining himself. Of course,
here in CO there is so much for us to do that we do many many things
together, but when dad needs "me" time, he heads off to his room to
read, build legos, etc. etc.

My 13 year old, on the other hand, totally lacks this ability. His
comments EVERY weekend are "What are _WE_ doing today". Granted, we do a
lot together (and I do mean a lot, so it's not like I'm trying to avoid
him all of the time!!), but again, dad needs his "me" time (even once a
quarter would be nice). No matter what I say or do, this boy is always
around, always wanting to do something...no ability whatsoever to
entertain himself.

He has a lot of friends who live in the neighborhood, and when he goes
out to play with them they ALWAYS end up back at my house, bored, and
sometimes just stand there staring at me...waiting for me to do something.

I'm not insensitive to his needs, I realize that he misses his mom, and
we are in a new town, but damn...I've never seen anything like
this...24/7/365, "What't the plan for this afternoon?" We've talked
about it and I'm going to try to get him into model-building, since it's
time consuming and something he can occupy himself with when we are in
the house during the winter months. I'm scared though, since he usually
gets frustrated easily and gives things up quick, once again running to
me for something to "do".

Does anyone else have a similar situation? If so, what do you do about it?

Thanks,

Eric in CO

Thanks for the reply!

'Kate wrote:

Such a tough age for kids. What does he say when you ask him, "What do
you want to do this weekend?"

"I don't know" :-) I hear that a lot. During summer, we did a lot of
hiking which I thought he would like, but he seems indifferent. I also
enjoy MTB, so I built him a nice one out of a 18" TREK frame...he rarely
rides. So much for having the same interests :-(

There are a lot of kids around here that are hard-core MTBers, I was
hoping that he would hook up with a group of them and take off on
weekend adventures like I did at his age. He seems to prefer motorized
things (he has an electric scooter) as opposed to things that need work
to operate.

We come from sea level, and it took me about two months to be able to
ride effectively, especially up-hill. I'm wondering if that's part of
his avoidance...he doesn't want to be embarrased if he has to stop on a
big climb. When I ask these things, it's always "I don't know"

... he sound like he's seeking just what he
needs at this point - structure and stability. Has he always been this
way or is this the product of the separation and move? If it's the
latter, this will pass. Take the time now and you will avoid problems
later.

His mother did everything with him (and the other kids too), she was
always afraid of letting him do anything on his own. I think maybe it's
a direct result of that.

Are you interested in model building or is that just something quiet
that will take up his time? Can you slowly build his interest and
ability with projects that are easy to build so that he begins to feel
competent and then work with him on increasingly harder projects?

I loved to build models, sometimes I would take weeks per project. Then
I got married and my hobbies disappeared. I'd like to start again though
and hopefully get him interested too.

Is he interested in sports? Are there local community groups like boys
& girls clubs, boyscouts, etc...?

He plays basketball at school, he also attends the boys and girls club
after school, and is also a Life rank scout. I get him involved in
anything I can to keep him from being idle, but it's the idle times that
drive me nuts.

There's plenty of structure in his life, but it's all supervised
structure. Maybe individual sports would help,like Golf, bowling,
go-kart racing?

Another thing that scares me is that his sister (age 15 and sexually
over-active, with her mother's full support) who lives with his mom is
making overtures to me that she wants to move here too. I would like to
help her, but I can't handle her lifestyle along with trying to raise
these boys. What a nightmare!

Eric in CO