Can someone remind me how kids kept themselves occupied before screens?

[Anonymous]

I grew up without television. Parents would not allow it generally although we could watch something very boring on Sunday night. Didn’t watch at all until after age 30.
Many projects around the house. Art projects. Reading. Clubs. Exercise. Biking. Brothers were engineers so engineers type projects. Reading books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easy, when kids complained they were bored the parent would give them something to do. Usually it wasn't fun. Kid learned not complain about being bored and thought of things to do.

THIS!! LOL parenting back then !

[Anonymous]

I used to go in my yard and dig up earthworms when I was bored. I also used to play board games against myself. And read a ton. And alternatively fight with my brothers and make up games with them. One time we spent a whole afternoon happily setting up carnival games in our house and putting out our stuffed animals as "prizes," and then when my brother won the ring toss he insisted that he actually get to keep my stuffed horse and we had a drag out fight about it which ended with him ripping the head off the horse. So yeah. --GenXer

[Anonymous]

Geez my MIL used to have an expression “ I think I’ll go eat a worm” Guess after all that earthworm digging.

[Anonymous]

Even in the city, kids just roamed around. My dad grew up in new York city, without any siblings close in age, and as early as 10-ish he would take the bus or train places by himself. Since kids could get in free, he would sometimes hang out at the Natural History museum after school on his own.

[Anonymous]

I used to spend hours searching for and finding four leaf clovers. I watched ants. I listened to birds. I skipped rocks on the creek. I looked under rocks and logs for salamanders. I climbed high up in trees and read books.

[Anonymous]

I sat outside and stared at the sky for hours and hours and hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy, when kids complained they were bored the parent would give them something to do. Usually it wasn't fun. Kid learned not complain about being bored and thought of things to do.

THIS!! LOL parenting back then !

This. Has a kid you learned never to say you were bored. Saying you were bored got you a lot of immediate chores.

[Anonymous]

Church sh*t. Vacation bible school, youth groups, Sunday school, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to spend hours searching for and finding four leaf clovers. I watched ants. I listened to birds. I skipped rocks on the creek. I looked under rocks and logs for salamanders. I climbed high up in trees and read books.

We spent many hours in Bowie looking for and finding four leaf cloves. We trapped tadpoles in the creek and watch them grow into frogs.

[Anonymous]

Grew up on a farm. In the summer, we had chores from about dawn to until about noon, then we were mostly on our own until just before dark when we had to do the evening chores. From noon until almost dark, we climbed trees, built forts, jumped from the hay mow in the barn to the hay pile below, hunted for arrowheads, made stuff up, played cow-pie football and baseball with the neighbor kids, built dams in the creek, caught crawdads, rode horses (and occasionally cows, pigs, and sheep, and tried to ride goats - they were too smart for us.) Thinking about it now, it was a pretty neat way to grow up.

[Anonymous]

Chess and checkers.

The boys built and painted models. I think these were generally cars.

[Anonymous]

We had roller skates, jumpropes, hula hoops, a sandbox.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to spend hours searching for and finding four leaf clovers. I watched ants. I listened to birds. I skipped rocks on the creek. I looked under rocks and logs for salamanders. I climbed high up in trees and read books.

We spent many hours in Bowie looking for and finding four leaf cloves. We trapped tadpoles in the creek and watch them grow into frogs.

Yes! Tadpoles! I loved watching their metamorphosis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean, in addition to the accurate "they mostly worked," or "they played with their 7 brothers and sisters," they weren't used to parents entertaining them or being entertained by a screen, so... they came up with their own entertainment. This was their expectation, so they acted accordingly.

It's not like people were (mostly) complaining of boredom all day every day before the invention of TV and computers.

Parents NEVER entertained their children. Parents read their own books. Once in a while a parent would play a board game but this would be rare.
Parents were parents. Kids were kids.