My kids definitely take advantage of screen time in lieu of being bored. I’ll report back in 20 years to let you know how my parenting experiment ended up. :-p
My kids were in aftercare and outside - not mutually exclusive. I think their aftercare person was wonderful. If the weather was nice, they were outside playing basketball, jump rope, word games, spelling bees. There were kids from K-8 so all ages did things together or alone. One kid in my daughters’ class read all the time and her parents wanted her to do more activities so signed her up for girl scouts and choir. If she would have been at home, she would have been reading. They did homework for the first 15 or 20 minutes and then played. My kids came home filthy every day. They could also do other things from aftercare by checking in and out - choir, girl scouts, National Spelling Bee, work with a tutor (teacher or other student), handbells. In bad weather, they cooked, did crafts inside, and on Wednesdays, and only Wednesdays, they watched a movie.
I don’t think it was much different than when I was a kid. I walked to and from school so would stay at school for an activity (Girl scouts, choir), or to the rec center for dance lessons, 4-H. In middle school I did ride a bus and got home around 4:30 which was just enough time to wolf down dinner and walk to the park for ice skating. There were only 2 channels available at most homes (we did have cable so had about 10 channels), but we weren’t allowed to watch Dark Shadows so TV just didn’t play a big role in our days.
@twoinanddone I meant outside for my kids to hang out with! My kids did a thousand after-school programs but everything had to be in a structured program and within a certain time. They were outside in those. But they never had an opportunity to invite a friend over just to hang out or vice versa. There were never kids at the park when they were 4 and 5 and too young for activities. That lifestyle doesn’t exist around here anymore. Luckily, all the same kids tend to do all the same programs so they made enduring friends but they were pretty isolated a lot of the time and just played amongst themselves.
@TiggerDad what is impressive to me about Asian culture in the US is its openness, especially in parenting. Parents learn alongside the children and are fearless about exposing their kids to new experiences even if it means they have to learn to do it themselves. Of course, it’s a highly diverse group, but I have been impressed by the sheer enthusiasm and engagement in all different venues. That cold be characterized as being overly pushy in “collecting” skills and experiences but I think sometimes people miss the point. I see Asian parents humbling themselves to learn the new skills they are asking their kids to learn, too. I think that’s a fabulous thing to emulate.
Yep. And I think the reason for the “relentlessness of modern parenting” is that many people are focused like a laser beam on their children and are overly absorbed with doing everything exactly right, lest their little darling turn out less than perfect… 
^And guess what, things can go very wrong even if you do everything right…
^^Yes, exactly, @MaineLonghorn!
So true. Good luck to today’s parents. It is not an easy time.
I just personally hate the perceived need for an audience in sports. To me if sports is beneficial, it builds discipline and teamwork etc… etc…, then that should be enough. Why is there a need for parents to watch? They don’t watch debate or model UN or robotics at our high school, so why sports? Although I could be helicopter like in much of my parenting I’m sure the tennis coaches and other parents thought we were the most laid back hands off parents ever. I absolutely refused to go watch my kid play.
Fortunately neither of my kids had any interest or ability in team sports because there was no way I wanted to spend any time sitting in the bleachers watching. I did go to the one kid’s NAL matches because that was pretty interesting. And have you ever been to a robotics competition? They can get pretty loud, although the rules of the game tend to be obscure. Although it wasn’t my kid who was involved in robotics, it was my husband as a mentor.
Well that’s sad. I did watch my kids in sports, theater, choir, music and if they’d been in debate or Model UN I’d have watched those too. When they went to band camp, I went to the concert. Girl scouts? All the ceremonies. I even went to events for other people’s kids. I went even if my kids weren’t very good (swimming? boring but yes I went and volunteered to be a timer or a starter or sell snacks).
I think my kids had a normal childhood, resulting in the only two average kids in America. They went to school, came home and went swimming or rode their bikes around our complex. Rinse and repeat. Most of their activities were through the school or rec center and not expensive. The only thing different than when I was a kid was that they needed a ride to activities and they didn’t have 3 horrible little brothers dragged along to dance recitals.
Maybe my mother was a ‘modern parent’ too?
How funny… I always say that I have the only average kids in the country.
Last week my two teen boys spent a morning in the woods throwing large pieces of tree bark into the air so the other could shoot it with a shotgun. They had the best time.
Oh, mine are average too. I caused an awkward silence at a parent meeting – a group of high achiever parents were complaining about how an excellent teacher was “wasted” on a non-honors class of loser kids ; I just brightly interrupted to say Yes, he WAS a great teacher, my kids both had him since they had that class. I think the shock was my complete contentment.
We chose to not rake our children over the coals about grades and accolades and medals. I wouldn’t let them see standardized test results because I didn’t want those numbers to frame their self-image.
Yes, sometimes we second guessed and sometimes it was painful and yet we stuck together. They are fine men, with fine lives. And when they and their SO’s were here last week, they all spent 40 minutes rolling objects down the hall in one of those organically developed activities you just can’t schedule. Good times.
twoinanddone- not “sad”, just different. If you enjoy going to every event, that’s great, but a parent not doing so does not make her any less of a parent.
@Leigh22 not going to any games doesn’t make anyone less of a parent, but I do wonder why they wouldn’t want to go to at least one and cheer their kids on? I can’t tell you how many kids I know who were always. “my dad never comes to any of my games…”
My kids didn’t want me to attend their games. They didn’t like feeling they were performing for an audience. Worked out well for all of us.
I was glad my parents did not come to my HS sporting events, I don’t like being the center of attention. But I loved going to my kids sporting events, school or outside, from little kid stuff through university. Early on it was just a very social local thing, lots of other parents to talk with; later it was exhilarating to watch super athletic kid do fun things and to get to know all her teammates and cheer for them, too. It was always about seeing each kid rise to their potential. In one sport, I was involved over ten years in a way that my knowledge helped other kids find their most successful position and I loved seeing a kid being put in a new position for them and then have a break out experience. Such confidence boosting!
Ha, parenting is still relentless. DS flipped our car on black ice Friday night. Totally not his fault, and he’s OK, but it means we lost a car that would have lasted at least another year.
I would always respect our kids’ preferences. If they wanted us to attend, we were present. If they just wanted us to drive to and fro, that is what we did. It worked fine for them and us. We did attend and enjoy fellowship of other families for some events—soccer, basketball, canoe paddling, scouts. We just drove for other events—math league, various academic contests, etc.
Always scary when there’s an auto accident but sure glad no people were harmed. It does throw things off when you need to replace a big item sooner than expected, like a car.
My nephews play year round sports. My sister says most of the parents are looking at their cellphones most of the time not watching the game.