To wonder how kids had downtime before TV

[someladdersandsnakes]

I saw a post earlier on a Facebook group from someone who had managed to keep their 3 year old screen free, until out of desperation recently she started giving her one cartoon a day so she could put the younger child down for a nap. And she feels she's destroyed her kid's creativity. And most people were saying it's admirable you've managed this long but go easy on yourself because screen time is incredibly helpful and gives your child a chance to wind down too.

Now I see a moderate amount of screen time as pretty much essential to my own parenting. It's not just that it gives me time to get things done without being interrupted. There are also times particularly after a long day at nursery when my DD seems too tired to engage with play, and can't maintain interest in anything and just needs TV/tablet to zone out a bit. And this seems pretty normal/common to me.

So I'm just wondering, before TV was invented (and/or if you're genuinely a screen free parent but I've never met one of those) what did young kids do when they were too frazzled to play? Were they more creative than modern kids and just played nicely anyway? Or did they sit there whinging? What if they were ill? Did they just lie in bed staring into space? I'm a 90s kid and always had TV so I have no idea and cannot imagine this world 😂

We had no telly.
Read a lot, books and magazines.
Played out with friends. Lots of crafty and arty stuff. Toys.
As a result of no telly I was music obsessed- listened to the radio loads!!

I was bought up without a tele although all my friends parents had them in the late 70s. I was either in the local swimming pool or out with friends on our bikes in the forest or if at home i read books or knitted/ sewed outfits for my dolls. Played with cars on a big floor road layout we had. The kids next door had a massive train set in the garage so spent a lot of time in there.

We have TV in our house but it is mainly on a weekend morning so not downtime so much. We do put it on more if they are ill. DC listen to music bouncing on a ball or on their rocking horse, they look at books, do playdough/jigsaws, ride a toy car round the garden. They like us reading stories when we have time and will help with cooking. Of course they squabble too! They will moan they are bored at times but can usually find something to do with a bit of encouragement. Tbh I would probably have introduced more TV time but DH wasn't keen and it has worked out for us as they are fairly good at entertaining themselves.

With their dad they watch TV but for quiet time with me they read or draw with an audiobook or some music on.

There wasn't any morning tv until the 80's. I was born in the 60's too and we quite often just had the radio on in the mornings or nothing.

I didn't have a TV growing up until about 12. I pretty much spent all day every day out playing. Sometimes on my street or at a neighbours but often further afield and my parents may or may not have had a vague idea where I was.
I was also fairly obsessed with TV as I didn't have one so I was always trying to orchestrate ways to get friends to put the TV on.

Born in 1965. My father was at university as a mature student. Wife and 3 children. My mum didn't work until my youngest brother went to secondary school and she didn't learn to drive until I was 14.. We didn't have a TV when we were small. We children are very close in age. We used to play together every day. We had a sofa called a studio couch. It was a type of sofa bed. We used to turn it into castles and ships and forts.My mum read to us. Our father used to 'play fight' with us. We had a dressing up cupboard full of hats and beads and my mother's dresses from her youth and fabric my grandma git from jumble sakes. We used to pretend we were all kinds of things. We had a spare bedroom that was full of boxes and bottles and all sorts of things we could use to make models. It was brilliant when we got a TV and could watch Blue Peter and make the things they showed. There were only a few TV programmes we were allowed to watch. Definitely no TV in the evening and definitely not ITV ( it was common).

Sometimes just being a bit bored

One of the most valuable life skills, parents seem to want their children to be entertained all the time.

I was born at the end of the 90s so hardly a tv free time but my grandma didn't have one and I spent a lot of my earlier childhood at her house- especially on sick days as she was retired. I had a shelf in her airing cupboard of my things to play with
Like a shoebox of playmobile
Drawing supplies
A colouring book of fairies and elves
Some little metal cars and a plank
A tape player and a cassette box of childrens stories on tape- this is what I listened to on sick days or before bed.
She also liked me to make up stories for her and she would write the out for me on printer paper do I could do illustations for them.
She also had a big oldfashioned dolls house that she let me play with.
There were lots of relaxing minimal effort things that we did that were not TV.
She also had only sons and I was her first grandaughter so she liked doing "girly" things with me. She taught me to plait and would paint my nails and let me dress up in all her hats and jewelery.
It was fun- I don't know if we would have been as close if she had been able to just sit me infront of the TV when she was busy- she just had to bring me along.

RTFT, people! She didn't grow up in the UK.

I spent a lot of time drawing as a child, which is odd as I can't draw for toffee. Mostly I read, though, when I wasn't playing outside. I remember a phase of throwing a tennis ball against the back wall of the house and catching it, which involved turning round on the spot before it bounced, or similar. Skipping. Going to the shops on errands (unaccompanied by adults). I was rarely bored. I think unstructured time is good as you have to learn to cope with it and to amuse yourself.

I got rid of our TV when my daughter was 2. She is now 4 and it hasn't been a problem at all. If she is getting tired she potters around with toys or draws.

I dont think they are

They have already said their not in the UK

@talkingdeadscot - as I've already said, I didn't grow up in the U.K.

This isn't a U.K. only board.

Born late 60s. TV was never on until the evenings so when we were small we didnt see much as in bed early.

We drew, read comics, helped mum from a very young age, played with whatever was available from packs of cards, draughts/Ludo etc but mostly if weather was ok we were out playing. We always found something to do as the alternative was we would be given a chore to do.

We read, listened to music, played with the little toys we had and fought like mad, also TV and just sitting about.

Downtime wasn't a thing but we just played outside with our friends on the street for literally hours (tig, forty forty, manhunt, football, kerby, elastics), climbed trees, made dens and played in the park. We played out in the rain and snow. We did watch some TV but not much. Otherwise I was always reading, writing stories, making shite, playing endless board games.
I have tried very hard to not let my 4 kids have so much screen time. COVID fucked it up a lot but they still have screen free days as teenagers. They tend to play boardgames, read, play football.in the park, draw, walk the dog, and do a lot of sport. I would have absolutely loved them to get the same playing out I did but so many of their friends are stuck playing Xbox or whatever no one would play out.

I agree. Brain downtime without entertainment encourages daydreaming, which is very good for a child.

Love the given chores to do!
I still say this to mine when they mither that they're bored.

My grandmother was born in the early 1920s and as a child I asked her what she did without tv and she said she loved reading but didn't enjoy crafts much but they still did them. Very talented with sewing and knitting.
Helping her mother to cook and bake she enjoyed and she'd talk about the community spirit during the rationing. Apparently lots of young people would go into the homes of a family who were baking a cake with use of their neighbours weekly egg and watch the mother bake so to learn the skill.

It sounds so unbelievably wholesome ♥️

Born late 50s. There was a lunchtime TV programme called watch with mother, black and white of course! Andy Pandy, Tales of the Riverbank, Bill & Ben. Apart from that all I can remember is step dad watching Dr who (which terrified me, cybermen in particular) & dreaded the sound of Coronation Street music as that meant upstairs to bed (probably so mother could watch it) but way to early. I would read for hours. If ill you were in your bed and I would re-read books that I had read many times before, Enid Blyton secret seven or old annuals. Didn't have many toys or games, one baby doll and trolley, tressy & toots dolls bought by my gran. I knitted and sewed from 6-7, made my own clothes from age 10.

Friends of my DPs had 4 DC and didn’t own a TV (this was in the 90s/00s). They were all very musical so spent most of their time at orchestra or playing piano. One of them played football and the daughter did ballet when younger. Two then went off to specialist music schools.

I used to babysit for them- their “downtime” was reading, playing instruments, tinkering with bits and pieces, bike rides etc. An idyllic set up, if you ask me!

I remember being bored stiff for quite a lot of the time as a child. I also rambled off into the countryside by myself as we live outside a village. I read. I spent a lot of the time in a fantasy world. No great shakes really.

Born in the 80s but hippy parents so no TV. I read huge amounts, wandered around the garden muttering to myself and making up stories, I had a shed load of Sylvanian Families I played with, I drew on everything (including the wall and most of the furniture when very small), and between the ages of 3 and 6 I had a series of imaginary friends.

I don't think I was ever bored but I also had a level of freedom I think would be illegal these days. I suspect kids need screens etc now because there is less to do.

I don't remember needing downtime in the same way that I sometimes feel I need it now after looking at screens for too long. When we were small we used to play together and at teatime my mum would get a plastic broom out and split all the toys we had got out into 3 equal piles. We each had to put the things in our pile away. My father would come home and we would sit at the table and eat a meal together. After the meal there was quiet time playing in our room ( we 3 shared until I turned 8). We had a bath one at a time or hands face 'bits and bobs wash' then dad came and read us a story and then it was lights out, bit of chatting and sleep. The routine was the same every day so by the time you went to bed you were calm and ready to sleep even if you'd been running around in the garden all day. We did huge amounts of lego, sewing and cutting and sticking type things.

It’s an interesting question. I grew up in the 80s in a foreign country and school finished at one. There was not a lot of TV because the country didn’t import foreign cartoons for ages so sometimes we’d get Mr Magoo etc. I used to ring up the speaking clock for entertainment! I remember a lot of mooching around on my own in the garden setting up jumps and pretending to be horses. I made treasure maps in the oven and wrote stories. Played endlessly with our hamsters. I’ve always been bemused by people who say their kids are bored of their hamsters and worn play with them - we created whole worlds and mazes for them to run around in! Then the usual stuff like reading, dolls, Lego, bikes. I think we had long attention spans and much more creativity than children today. My brother and I would come up with a project eg trying to make his bike fly and just get on with it.! I suppose for downtime my mum sent us to our rooms to read or play quietly. No idea about the toddler age but life wasn’t as full on and stimulating back then so perhaps we weren’t as tired!