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

[Anonymous]

Like Little House on the Prairie. Or anything up until the 1950s. Assuming you weren’t big enough to go out on your own and had to stay at home with mom.

[Anonymous]

They didn’t know any different. They had dolls made from corn husks, bowls and spoons to bang on, a ball to roll. 50 years from now there will be some new technology and people will think “how did we manage without that in 2020?” We just don’t know what we don’t know.

[Anonymous]

Reading/ being read to. Playing. Helping around the house. Napping. Drawing.

[Anonymous]

A lot of time outside. If you needed water, you drank from a hose. No snacks between meals. Neighborhood kids hung out together with no real supervision.

[Anonymous]

Probably a lot more helping around the house, on the farm, and playing with other kids.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably a lot more helping around the house, on the farm, and playing with other kids.

Right everything else took a lot more time to do then.

No emails or phone - they had to write letters by hand, lol.

[Anonymous]

They were beaten. Also, even from a very young age, many many kids worked, either on the family farm or in factories. As young as age 3 and 4, doing very simple tasks.

[Anonymous]

We did pound on each other a lot . . . .

But I also remember a lot of backyard carnivals and bike rides (we had woods and meadows close to our house), backyard baseball games and weddings and playing war in the woods with sticks

If by screens you mean complete on demand entertainment, that didn't exist until maybe the 80s with cable TV

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They were beaten. Also, even from a very young age, many many kids worked, either on the family farm or in factories. As young as age 3 and 4, doing very simple tasks.

In the 50s????

[Anonymous]

Never bored after mom told me to go weed carrots or do the dishes. There was so much to do, and we were allowed to be outside on our own at 3 or 4. Mom may have taken a peek outside every once in awhile but that's it.
There was snow, water, hill, sand, flowers- anything with nature, and when I got a bicycle, you couldn't' get me inside.
At grandmas, we climbed on top of a cellar roof and pretended it was a horse. There was just so much crap lying around at a farm plus animals and plants to keep us busy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did pound on each other a lot . . . .

But I also remember a lot of backyard carnivals and bike rides (we had woods and meadows close to our house), backyard baseball games and weddings and playing war in the woods with sticks

If by screens you mean complete on demand entertainment, that didn't exist until maybe the 80s with cable TV

Hahaha, same.

[Anonymous]

They were allowed to roam free outdoors. Plus chores or work, or helping take care of younger children, or books, or simple toys. Or just staring into the fireplace, whiling away the time.

[Anonymous]

We've been doing a ton of crafts around here, personally - my kids are 4 and 7 year old girls.

[Anonymous]

I was an only child who lived in a rural area, so there were no neighbors. I read a lot. A LOT. I'd play games by myself. Or I'd just go outside and explore the forest for a few hours, though I probably didn't do that until I was 8-9 years old.