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 didn't have a TV at home until I was in my teens.

When not at school I filled my days with reading, listening to the radio, playing in the garden, crafts like knitting and simple embroidery, board games, writing stories and letters, helping my Mother around the house.
I don't remember being bored.

Yes, I saw that after I posted, apologies.

I mean Don’s kids on Mad Men spend half their life sitting quietly in front of Shirley Temple’s Storybook, so I doubt anyone in here can really tell you about what they did ‘before TV was a thing.’

Probably they listened to the radio programs. Or looked at books. Or played in the garden.

They napped for much longer than kids often do now - my parents were at primary school in the 1950s and were expected to nap, or at least have a rest, after lunch in the first year or so of school. They had mats for it in the gymnasium. Amusingly it still seems to happen at Brownies camp - they go and have a lie down after lunch!

So kids were more rested and also used to spending time quietly not doing much?!

Ah fair enough. Apologies @Clymene
But the point is many of us remember growing up with no tv, we read and crated and pottered.
We didn’t have one for a while when the dc were small. It was fine, I noticed quickly that without it as an option they entertained themselves. It did help that we were in Australia and had a pool! Not sure how we’d have managed in European winter.

I was left on a blanket while everyone focussed on other things. This is the truth of parenting before the 2000s. Nobody even knew I could read until a nursery teacher told them.

I'm 90s and although we did have tv it wasn't like it is now.. Netflix, youtube etc.

I think when we werent watching it i used to do A LOT of drawing/colouring/painting by numbers.
Role playing with my siblings, playing teachers, making up songs and dances to show our parents.

Oh i miss those days! I probably have tv on for my DS more than I should, its just natural to us now🙈 we do go out a lot though... parks, soft play etc

Born end of 60's. I played with dolls. Read loads. Played 2 baller. Skipped. Played marbles/jacks/cats cradle etc. Played out. Had things like "knitting doll" and crochet. My friends and I spentvages doing cartwheels.handstands,back bends etc on the field. Our telly was in a different room to the living room as mam liked to chat. There was absolutely loads to do. Skates, bikes. Played recorder. There was no such thing as too tired to do anything. When very little, Saturday morning cartoons were the only tv I really watched.

I grew up with a tv, but i certainly wasnt allowed to watch it every day. We had 2 shows that we were allowed to see. They went half an hour and were on 1x per week. So we had an hour of screen time every week with the occasional movie night.
We just played outside until bedtime 🤷🏻‍♀️
Luckily in my area that still happens a lot.
My kids (7&8) watch screen of course, but not everyday and not for hours. I read with them a lot to wind down (they love reading) or we play board games. Often they just entertain themselves if they are home they draw or play legos etc.
I make a point with not using the screen as a babysitter. I do use it to bribe though ☺️
If i need to clean I tell them to go play and when im done they can watch something. If they keep bothering me, then obviously no screen after. Same in restaurants: no screens at the table, but if they are good they get extra screen time later/next day.
Also on weekends my friend sticks her children on the screen to sleep in a bit. I taught my kids if they wake me before 9 in the morning, then no screen that day. So they quietly entertain themselves/make their own breakfast until we get up.
Its all about getting them used to it.
Its gonna change a lot when they get their own phones 😩

What were you watching before school in the 1960s?

We don't see screen time as "downtime" at all - quite the opposite. It really works our kids up so we limit it quite a lot, particularly when they're tired. (I'm not mum of the year 🤣 I wish I could sit them in front of the tv or an iPad but it's just not worth the bad behaviour afterwards 😂)

Instead we do a lot of Lego - just simple playing and quietly building things. Books. Listening to music. Usually just quiet sitting on the sofa with some toys

None of this is winding down

Maybe you are not in the UK? No breakfast tv here in the 60s or 70s, I think TV AM started in 83.
My DC were born in the 90s, I remember being waiting till 5.55 am for Sesame Street to start so that I could snooze while they were entertained!
But after school, they'd go to the park, have friends over or visit, draw or paint or do junk modelling, not much tv tbh. Maybe a bit of piano, maybe a board game, or in the summer in the garden with water toys. I used to read to them a lot.
When I was young in the 60s I played with my Barbies a lot, drew a lot, wrote and performed plays/songs/dances with friends, played cards and games, and we spent a great deal of time outside - was a bone of contention, as parents insisted I was out for at least an hour a day - played with the other kids in the street but would have preferred to have been in reading. I spent hours playing games like Solitaire, or draughts with my sibling. I also had Brownies and ballet lessons so practiced steps and for badges, sometimes made my brother practice with me! Someone upthread joked about cross stitch, but yes, I loved sewing and embroidery and making things. There really wasn't much on the Tv for kids.

For the ♾️ time, I WAS NOT LIVING IN THE U.K.

Apologies for shouting. I posted without realising what a stir it would cause! I won't do it again.

Anyway, apart from tv before school we did what other kids did. We ride our bikes and made dens in the woods, played hide and seek in the cornfields and had the kind of freedom that today's children can only dream of.

Well my dad had 14 siblings and they all worked on the farm. Education past very low years was for the rich, so they worked on the farm and played in the fields. Learned music, sewing knitting and tapestry.
Although there's no way now to avoid screens I insisted on keeping them minimal and including outdoor play, Freeplay indoors and music to fill the day along with art/ craft

I grew up without TV in the 60s and my dc are little or no TV as children. Yet my ds has ADHD and cannot visualise in his head . This is due to his dyslexia which he has inherited. So unfortunately no TV and lots of creative pursuits didn't save him from ADHD in the 90s

We’re screen free 75% of the year. During the worst winter months I allow some to help with cabin fever. They read, do puzzles, play with paper dolls, draw…whatever children usually do, just more of it because there’s no tv.

Downtime wasn't a thing, after dinner we would either watch just normal tv or we would be playing a family board game or reading or colouring or something like that. We used to have to sit though the national and local news at dinner time and not talk so our parents could listen. Oh and Saturdays woe betide us if we spoke when the football results were on while we were eating tea.

It was just normal when I was growing up that there wasnt the option of constant kids tv.

Kids were bored a lot. Get too bored and you find something to do. Draw, build with blocks.

I remember making a 'perfume' out of plant juice and flowers - absolutely vile, naturally, but that kept me going for hours.

I made 'pasties' out of leaves, stuffed them with seeds, flowers and whatnot, sealed them with pomegranate thorns, and pretended to cook them in a mud oven.

Caught bees in jars, then let them go.

Pressed flowers

Roller skated

Climbed trees and sat up there watching the neighbourhood for hours at a time.

Biked around the neighbourhood, I used to see how many time I could go around the block without using my hands, just steering using shifting balance.

I also read A LOT. But my DM wasn't keen on me reading as much as I did so I used to hide how often I read.

Made clothes for my dolls out of scrap fabric when my DM sewed. Had a treadle Singer sewing machine so I properly sewed but at a really slow, safe pace.

I used to pick the thorns off the rose bushes and stick them all over my face by licking the base.

Moving into early teens my cousin and I would buy coloured hair spray and cheap bright make up and turn ourselves into punks and roam the streets, stopping at McDs looking like absolute frights!!! Her DM actually took us there once, laughing at us hysterically the whole time.

Same here! I also used to do a lot of drawing when I was little.

My sister and BIL have raised their kids pretty much without TV, and the eldest 3 are turning 18, 17 and 14. They had a TV at home but it was in a cupboard and used it occasionally to play the Switch or watch a dvd/documentary, but that was probably once a week or so, maybe less (there was no screen time scheduled in their week).

They all read a lot (but I don't mean super intellectual books all the time, one was very much into harry potter as a teen, another love science fiction, comics...), one draw, the other is very much into music. They spend a lot of time out with their friends to the beach etc now.
They would do loads of art and crafty things on their own when they were younger to wind down after school, or listen to music whilst day dreaming on their bed...

As toddlers/younger kids, beyond playing, if they were tired as you said I remember them just following us around, sit and watch us go about stuff (with music in the background or talking about our day). They would help a bit cutting veggies for dinner, or bake a cake.... They were probably day dreaming a bit too, or taking a book with them and look at pictures.

I used to read & then play out what I had read with my Sindy Dolls. I am autistic & preferred my own company.

I know we played outside a lot in the garden. I road my tricycle. I had a spring horse that I would ride that thing for hours hahaha
I was reading very early so would get the set of encyclopedias out and read them and look at the pictures in them.
we had a viewmaster and would look at stuff on them. Then I guess around 8, I got a microscope and science kit so I would spend hours with that doing the experiments.

There weren't screen when my kids were small either. Thy went to daycare and montessori from an early age as I worked full time.

They did all kinds of fun things like sing songs, play with various blocks and other toys, craft time, coloring, playing pretend.
We'd go to the library every week. At home, they'd play with their toys, read, sometimes make food in the kitchen.

I didn't have TV as a child. I did things with my mum, cleaning, baking etc. we were very much part of a community and I remember gardening with neighbours, playing with other children outside from a very young age, being with grandparents. I think it's given me a tolerance of boredom and the ability to occupy myself. I have a lot of hobbies.
I have a Tv now since I was age about 30. It's never on in the day unless someone is ill.
I can't think of any disadvantages of little to no TV as a child except I don't have the same cultural references as most people my age.

I was born in 1985 and my childhood was pretty much the same as yours, except my mum worked and my dad was at home (because of a bad accident) but we did all the same things you did. My Dd3 is in nursery and she plays like I did, but she also loves Netflix. I don't know how I managed pre Netflix with my older 2