What sort of things do you 5/6 year olds do at home?

[Whatdoesitmatterif]

My 5 (nearly 6) year old doesn't want to do anything other than go on his tablet or the switch- I definitely let this slip as the easier option due to circumstances that have/are making things quite stressful but I really want to deal with this screen time issue, I've given him a daily limit of 1 hour and he just spends all the other hours of the day kicking off about how mean I am not letting him play his games.
he struggles with fine and gross motor skills ( he always has) so things like Lego and drawing he just won't do because it's too difficult for him.
he has lots of toys but doesn't seem interested, just looking for any ideas of things he might want to do/play

Move love a console bit also... Lego.. painting... trampoline in thr garden...

I'm in the 'cold turkey' camp. A couple of days whining about the loss of it is better than running battles over screen time. Once you've had a clean break for a few weeks, you could reintroduce it at very specific times that are clear and simple to follow. We had to do this with TV a few years ago. We've never gone back to allowing it before school as it caused too many issues, and DCs now understand when we say it needs to go off at the end of the film/episode we mean it and if they kick off they'll lose future time.
My 6yo DD2 has a Nintendo 3DS (I'm holding off upgrading to a Switch for as long as possible), but only uses it at certain times and with conditions attached, eg when DD1 has swim training for an hour, DD2 can have it for the second half of training and whilst DD1 gets showered and changed provided she spends the first 30mins reading. The Nintendo is put away once DD1 is dressed.

As for what she does when not on a screen: reading, Lego, Playmobil, crafts & drawing, Barbies, cars, Sylvanians, Polly Pocket, Gravitrax/marble run, making up plays and dances with her sister, playing in the garden, writing stories, dressing up, board games.
I agree with PPs that they need to get bored to learn how to play/entertain themselves. I've also found with DD1 that she will avoid things that don't immediately come naturally to her, so needs to be given a lot of nudging and encouragement to stick at it until she starts to see an improvement - it sounds like this might be the case for your DS too? (DD2 is less focused on results, so is happy to stick with trying something she isn't necessarily great at if it's fun)

OP I forgot to say that my 6 year old also goes to after school club twice a week in the winter (once a week in the summer) as he loves it. He also does swimming lessons once a week and a couple of times a month and activity club after school. We do take the kids swimming ourselves some nights or at the weekends depending on our work schedules plus the trampoline park sometimes. I take them to Lego club and book club sometimes too. They enjoy it and it’s free. It’s worth having a look at your local council to see what free or discounted activities they offer after school.

My six year old would love to spend all day on the screens but he’s only allowed in the switch and we have a default limit of an hour to that. Still get a meltdown (but then his meltdowns were epic even before we introduced games into the house). Good behaviour might, but only might, be rewarded with half an hour of watching something like a Steve Backshall Deadly 60 before bed.

What he plays with the most is cars. Big smashing car races that I don’t understand (but god forbid if I move one not where it’s supposed to be). This Christmas is the first one where he’s done lego (three years older than his brother I this regard), so that might yet come. He will play games if I play them with him - often card games. And he’s just starting to learn chess with his brother. He’s also got a younger sibling and will play role play games with her a lot (vets, schools and mummies and daddies mostly).

there’s a massive correlation of screens to poor behaviour, and he started much younger than I’d have liked but a) he has a four year older brother and b) we got the switch the Christmas before the first lockdown, and having three children at home and two adults homeworking meant something had to give. Can you do sticker charts of days without screens and promise a trip out for 5/10/50?

You mentioned motor skills being a struggle so that’s what I’d focus on. My 6 year old loves scooter, Walks, trips to the park (wellies on in this weather), wake through the forest collecting sticks etc. Fine motor skills you could google ideas.

Im a teacher and parents often say to me ‘we don’t do x at home because they struggle with it’ but it’s those things that need extra work on (even though it’s painful doing it!)

My friend will do screen bans when things get out of control and she's always amazed by how after a few days her son is actually playing with his toys.

I have a baby so not there yet but I'm nervous about this too. I already rely on to to save my skin rather a lot 🙈

I'm also a nanny to an 8 and 10 year old and things can so easily slip and everything else is forgotten if feels like always pulling them off screens!

He will find gross motor skills hard if all he does is play on a tablet!
lego, cars, hot wheel track, board games (snakes and ladders is the current favorurite), top trumps, UNO, bike, scooter or football outside, sometimes borrow a dog to walk, he’s a good reader so sometimes does that himself.

My nearly 6 year old does spend a lot of time watching tv but typically is also drawing/colouring or playing with Lego or playmobil while she does it. We’ve an hour every day where I’m still working and she’s at home so during that time I don’t worry about screen time at all. Recently though I’ve found she’s bored of tv herself and prefers to play in her room with toys. Mostly imaginative with her Barbie a and horses or Lego playmobil etc.

We used to have a tablet but similarly it was causing bad behaviour and actually disrupting sleep as she was waking earlier and earlier to play with it so we ‘lost’ the charger about a year ago and she’s long forgotten about it. Now if we are going on a journey we try and use toys and drawing as entertainment and have our own iPad as a last resort.

DS is 5.5 and has motor skill delays. He plays with hot wheels, playmobil and schleich animals/dinosaurs. We do Lego together as it’s too fiddly for him on his own but he sometimes does small world play with sets we’ve already built.

The crayola magic colouring sets are good as they aren’t messy and the pens are chunky.

As a general rule we don’t have tablets in the week but sometimes he watches a bit of tv if I need to finish working.

Playdough, painting with those paint your own sets, drawing. He also spends too much time on his ipad but also likes his cars and vehicles.

DS2 is 5: at home he Watches a shit ton of Bluey and is currently doing kinetic sand before school. Was obsessed with the cesspool that is YouTube kids but we’ve gone cold turkey and he’s found other stuff to do. He also loves magnetic tiles, playmobil, and drawing tutorials on YouTube (parentally curated YouTube!). Oh and dens! The sofa is never in one piece.

DS1 is now 7 and when he was 5 he spent his life watching fucking YouTube or playing switch or PS. We went cold Turkey on the YouTube and it worked really well and his behaviour improved massively. The PlayStation ‘broke’ and he is playing his switch now, loves it and I like the games on the switch. He gets 1 hour of Roblox a week because it’s shit. Other things he does at home: plays (wrestles) his brother, football, drawing sometimes, reading. Mainly football. Balls in the house ugh!

Oh and Lego!! That’s one channel I did like on YouTube kids - EllieV, she does great builds and it really sparked inspo in DS.

If you limit switch / iPad to weekend I’m sure he will start to play with his toys , I know it’s hard!

we have iPads only on weekend ( and switch for 10 year old ) it stops the constant battle!

if your ds has poor fine motor skills , the best things to help him are play dough , kinetic sand , peg boards . If you sit down with him at first you should be able to leave him to do it himself .
unfortunately my dd5 will not play by herself ever , so I have to find things that I enjoy doing with her 😂
For Christmas she got lightbright, brilliant for fine motor skills, it’s little pieces you put on a board that light up .
she also got an lcd writing pad which I think is her favorite thing she got !

My dd5 loves play dough , kinetic sand , any orchard games , connect 4, frustration , dominos , drawing , writing , any arts & crafts .

she also loves playing with lol dolls , play mobile , role play games - though she mainly plays with her friends /sister because I just don’t have the same enthusiasm for role play

She does watch tv during the week though , I need her to so I can get things done ! Generally about 45 mins in the morning and 90 mins in the afternoon/evening- depending on after school activities/ play dates

Just to add, put the tablet out of sight. I've put mine away this week and they haven't even asked for it!

It’s addiction. Mine loved lego and train sets and reading until I got a switch and now anything that isn’t the switch is “boring”.

We’ve restricted it to weekends only but this has only helped a bit, he moans about it constantly as he ‘detoxes’ on Mon and Tues. It’s like asking an alcoholic to stop after one drink, it doesn’t work.

When he does play it, he’s rude and distracted the rest of the day.

I don’t care how many articles to the contrary gaming-companies scatter around the internet, it’s clear to me that gaming is very very bad for children’s brains.

"I don’t care how many articles to the contrary gaming-companies scatter around the internet, it’s clear to me that gaming is very very bad for children’s brains."

I absolutely agree with this! Some young brains can maybe resist better than others, but the vast majority are seriously adversely affected by access to tech.

It's really interesting how so many parents are saying the same things, that their DC are not interested in toys/games/books if there's any tech around, but go cold turkey and all that healthy, developmentally appropriate playing comes back. For DC that don't have tech limited, they're missing out on irreplaceable play opportunities which has to be negatively impactful at a later stage.

My teens wouldn't dream of playing, exercising, reading actual books if they had access to devices and phones in the evenings. So we ensure they don't. But they are in such a minority of their friends - they know many DC who don't read anything, ever. And because homework is often on line too, digital access and distraction is pretty hard to get away from.