How do you 7/8 year old boys entertain thselves at home?

Plays snooker/pool on a fold-out pool table, plays darts, badminton and football in the yard, plays football in the kitchen if he can get away with it, invents games for the pets involving huge cardboard boxes that absolutely cannot be moved, draws a lot of dinosaurs, tries little projects in the garden. listens to his little collection of vinyl records, chats to me and DH, and watches quite a bit of TV (sport, Dr Who, Spongebob, Is It Cake, etc). Reads if he’s in his room but not if anyone else is about.

No console yet, hold out as long as you can!

Reading, drawing, playing chess (he has a board that shows the other player’s moves when nobody in the family is available to play), lego, other kinds of construction games, sorting his football cards, toy soldiers, audiobooks, etc. He doesn’t have a tablet or any kind of console and we don’t turn the TV on Monday to Friday.

IME you have to limit their game time if you want them to spend time doing other things. Not all children will self regulate the amount of time on it. A lot of them find it so compelling that given a choice they will do nothing else. DS1 did and at this age he would literally do nothing else, even if we limited the time he would spend the whole of the rest of the time complaining it was not screen time yet, flopping on the sofa, sighing like a lovelorn teenager, winding everyone up for attention, insisting we do things with him, asking how long it was until it was screen time or asking for jobs he could do to earn screen time. We had to cut it RIGHT down before this behaviour went away but he was older by the time we worked that out!

Do you have the Switch parental control app? You can set it to automatically turn off at a set time and/or set a total time limit per day, different at weekends if you like. I currently just have it set to play an alarm because I think it's important to get their buy in but if we were having trouble sticking to it or I wasn't actively supervising, I'd probably enable the option for it to fully suspend the game. It comes up with warnings at 15/10/5/2/1 minute before it turns off so they have time to find a good place to stop - some games don't save progress if you stop in the middle of something.

DS2 is not quite 7 yet and struggles with reading but goes on his bike/scooter, will still do all manner of "science experiments" in the garden (water/sand/mud play with whatever added) plays with his younger brother, plays with stuff like a cheap Ring Toss set we got in the €1 shop, builds Lego (we are getting quite into the more advanced Technik stuff recently as he likes the idea of building machines) and will draw some quite elaborate things especially plans or maps. I used to be really into computer games when I was younger, but because it was the olden days I did not have my own device or unlimited access to it, so I did used to spend quite a lot of free time drawing plans for Sims houses etc on squared paper - I have tried to encourage him to draw out plans for Minecraft builds, machines etc on paper but it doesn't quite appeal to him or perhaps not yet. We have Marble Rush and Gravitrax because DH is interested in these - he plays more with the Marble Rush but the Gravitrax is better for 7/8 I think. And yes we have a few Hot Wheels sets and he will still build Brio tracks as well, although more happily if someone builds with him. Oh and we have a couple of those logic type games, too, which are almost like mobile puzzle games but in 3D plastic - we have one where a rabbit has to jump over toadstools and foxes, and the one where you have to slide the cars out of the car park in the right order.

I find that in order to get him doing stuff independently, it helps if I show interest and/or do it with him a few times initially or set it up and sit with him with a cup of tea or something, or doing my own version, and then after we've done it together a few times he gets into the groove of it and will then be coming up with ideas to try out on his own or with his brother or a friend. But I can't push that too fast. If he senses that I'm trying to push it off on him doing it alone he will reject it. I try to pick stuff that I actually find interesting/fun myself and then I alternate saying yes OK let's play something together / no I need to do X right now or have a break/sit down/drink etc.

There is a far amount of gaming (maybe an hour a day) and TV, besides that he likes to draw, play in the garden, lego & dinosaur figures (though has replaced the generic dinosaurs from when was little with overpriced jurassic world ones)

At that age, mine enjoyed reading, playing with lego, building marble runs, occasionally Hot Wheels tracks, playing in the garden, watching a bit of kids' tv, making stuff from whatever they found in the recycling box. One went through a period of writing stories around 7 or 8. They were keen on baking sweet treats at that age, too. Does your son have siblings he can play with and who are happy to play with him?

My boy is currently glue gunning marbles together to make a pyramid 🤔

I have a 9y/o who isn’t keen on reading or colouring and things like that, so I do feel like the screen time can get a bit much. However, he has plenty of sports and activities on throughout the week, so although the screens are more than I’d like I see it as his downtime. He has got into playing with imaginative play with figures eg army men and wrestlers, so I try to encourage and let him set that up even if it takes over the living room. With the brighter nights he is now outside a lot so I have given him some of his own plants to look after and he plays football.

Dicking about generally, but primarily in the garden, building things, messing with his mates in hedges and up trees. Lego. Switch. Watching the TV. He doesn't like reading or colouring in, but will do a birds eye view technical drawing of a house or whatever.

Reads endlessly he goes through a beast quest book a day at weekends and holidays.
Lego he has years of it from his own interests and his brother before him so plays with it a lot
He likes horrible histories and we working through doctor who
Hes enjoying cricket so lots of throwing and catching
Of course tablet time which he'd increasingly be on all day if allowed but we keep him limited

What is this based on? Nobody in here has given any evidence of that. Not the case of any children mine are friends with. I am also a teacher and this is just not true.

Screens dominate children's playing these days. I have a 10 year old granddaughter and because in my opinion her parents let her spend far too much time gaming and watching crap on youtube I have a no screens rule when I look after her, which is often. She never mentions it, I have lots of things for her to do which she really enjoys.
When my now 31 year old son was 7/8 he did the usual playing on bikes/ football stuff outside, and at home he read books, played with toy cars, Lego, Meccano, various other construction toys, scalextric, Hornby model trainsets, we had very small size table football and snooker tables in the garage, if no one was around to play he'd practice snooker shots by himself.

Mine is 9...he does like gaming/watching nonsense on YouTube but he also likes playing risk (against himself), setting up giant battles with his toy soldiers and army ships, doing junk modelling and drawing pretend worlds. (He is really into military history atm hence all the battles/invading fictional kingdoms)

He's always happy to help bake or learn simple cooking.

@dontforgetme
It was a general musing, not directed at anyone on the thread specifically. I also think what I wrote is quite accurate generally speaking. I do think many children nowadays lack the imagination and curiosity that children used to have. There’s probably a lot of contributing factors to that, but it is quite sad I think. If you have ‘bitten’ at it though as you say, perhaps theres something for you to reflect on about why that is.

Digs in the garden, watches TV, Lego and Switch.

Two boys here . Oldest loves drawing , reading dogman , bunny vs monkey. Playing with Minecraft figures and lego . Loves going on his scooter / bike. Also enjoys time on his iPad and switch .

youngest is similar but has less screen time . He still loves toys and playing in general! Xx

Apart from being a wonderful thing in its own right, reading is a great hook to hang other activities on. Is your DS interested in food and cooking? Would he like a children's cookbook? As suggested by a pp, he could develop some skills and make a pizza - with your help of course. If it turns out that you have the next Nigel Slater or Yottam Ottolenghi on your hands, that's great. If not, he still has a set of skills he can use and have fun with. Or is he interested in sport? There are loads of books about specific sports and players that might boost his knowledge and enthusiasm.

Also, don't dismiss the value of just kicking back with a good story, whether it's in book format or a game. Your DS is active outside the house and it's good for him to have downtime, just as it is for an adult or older child.

Everything in moderation. Sounds like hes active outside the house, i wouldnt worry about it. My lads were into Lego, army bases, nerf battles, puzzles eg jigsaws/card games/board games at that age. Play with him or suggest a movie night. Do activities together.

Reading! Fab.

Mine: Lego, Mobilo, crafts, clay, sticking things. Basically anything around building, engineering and making.

He WOULD prefer free reign on the tablet but I won't allow it. I let him have the TV on in the background while he's playing.

My nearly 7 year old autistic son plays roblox, Minecraft and roblox studio, he also draws endless pictures of stuff relating to roblox or sprunki

Tbh I think screens and young people is worrying. You will have lots of people saying it's done my kid no harm but then you only have to look at the obesity problem, issues of socialising and social isolation which is endemic to think actually having a senseable approach to it is really important.

We did no screens (including TV) during the week and a limit of 2 hours at the weekend.

At 8 they played Lego, did make believe games (harry potter was the obsession with all of them!), drew, played with moshi monsters and played ball games and football.

I can see the difference in kids that had limits and kids that didn't. So of their primary school friends barely know what to do other than gaming and say football club.

My son is 8 next month.

We watch a couple of hours of TV on Saturdays and Sundays, no games yet. We don't watch TV during the week so i am pretty relaxed about weekend consumption.

He likes reading, pestering us to play football or tennis in the garden. Wi do lego and stuff like that but only with us or friends. Practises his violin or piano. Likes music. Will generally moan and mither though can get lost in a book. I found a dot to dot book for 6 year old that occupied him yesterday...hah. He's always hated amusing himself though, its the first thing they said when he went to nursery at 11 months!! Couldn't do a thing when he was little.

I have two boys and they are totally different. The one who is currently this age will be in the garden doing football, basketball, cricket. Or playing card games, or gaming. A good mix. My older one at this age was Lego, switch or reading.

I don’t mind the gaming, we moved house 12 months ago and the ps5 has been a brilliant way for him to keep him touch as well as play with his old friends.

@Syuni I’ll bite.. both my kids have amazing imagination and curiosity about the world so I wouldn’t waste your time feeling sad about them 😁