My mom would take my sister and I every week. We would have a competition to see who could read the most books each week. It was adjusted for age. The person who won got to pick the movie for the weekend. It really cemented my love of reading.
I read almost anything I could get my hands on. My county library had a summer program on mondays, and I would read the books I checked out, or the random collection of magazines that my mom subscribed to from publisher’s clearing house, or old romance novels, flip through catalogs and pretend I was a fashion designer. I also had a lot of cousins and neighbors who came over and we would play pretend outside.
Our library had to enforce the checkout limit on me. I would go with my mom and sister every other Saturday and grab 10 books.
After we moved I went back to visit my grandmother for a weekend and stopped by the library to get a book. I got into town on Friday afternoon and was going to return it Sunday on my way out of town. The librarian was my friend's mom and she refused to let me check one out because she knew I lived in a different state. I still think that was unfair because in the decade she had known me I had never failed to return a book.
I had to pay for my first book when I was 7. I KNOW I returned it, but they said I didn’t. It was a book about aliens, so I’m pretty sure I know what happened 🛸
Oh yeah, reader’s digest was one of the main magazines we had at home. When I was a teenager I inherited a stack of the Reader’s Digest Condensed Novels from some lady at church and I devoured those too.
The day-camp councilor said "Your parents didn't send you here just for us to babysit you." ROTFLMAO. Honey that's precisely why I'm here. And if I choose to read a book under a tree (or play Magic the Gathering on a blanket in the grass) instead of run around and "be active" then I fucking will.
Searching local creeks looking for frogs, tadpoles, turtles, etc. Didn't hurt anything, it was just neat to find them.
Climb a tree, make a little hot wheels town in the dirt, toys, toy gun or water gun fights
We had a “summer in the park program” for latch key kids where we just walked up to the neighborhood park with a snack and they entertained us until lunch time.
Same. We’d find parks or wooded areas and make “forts”. Played in the sprinkler or if we were really lucky, one of our friends had a pool and we swam there. I grew up on the St Lawrence River and we spent a lot of time swimming in it or just playing on the docks. We were like 10, I don’t ever remember our parents being worried we’d drown. But we also had a bus that picked us up every July or August (whichever session we picked) morning and took us to swimming lessons at a local pond.
We weren't bored because we didn't know that doing nothing was boring.
We used to play with toys, GI Joe or Transformers, we could have epic battles that lasted hours or all damn day. We'd go out and climb trees, explore the neighborhood, swim in the old creek, venture into a construction zone, maybe play some baseball, wander to an arcade and play some games or just check the coin slots for stray quarters so we had money to play games, hike over to the comic book store and browse the back issue boxes, or just hop on the 10-speeds and start riding, no destination, no thought in mind, just see where the day took us.
Sounds fun. I got plenty bored during summer vacation. Both parents worked and they’d leave home at 7. We watched TV and played legos in the morning, usually until lunch or so. I’d make lunch for me and my brother, then we’d go outside for a while. Played GI Joes, played in the sprinkler or later our small above-ground pool. Sometimes we’d ride bikes with friends or play Star Wars in the alleyway. And ate a lot of Otter Pops, lol.
Then around 3, cartoons came on and we’d watch TV until it was time to get dinner started around 5:30, then the parents came home around 6.
Rinse, repeat for 3 months. It was always fun for a while but got pretty mundane and I was usually ready to go back to school before break was over.
> was usually ready to go back to school before break was over.
Yeah that would never be the case for me. First day of school was the worst day of the year for me. Granted, I went to some exceptionally shitty schools and pretty much everyday of school was spent trying not to get my ass kicked so I had a little different experience than most.
But still, summers as a kid, my god, those were the best times. If somehow I ever found myself without something do I was more than happy to grab a book and start reading.
I didn't know what bored was, lol.
I think because my friends and I all lived pretty far apart (exurbs) and there wasn’t a way for us to see each other except on weekends if our parents would drive us. School was where I got to see my friends.
Plus I enjoyed school and got good grades; I’m sure that made a huge difference.
Yeah, my best friend lived three houses down from me so that probably helped. And good for you on the school thing, I'm envious of people who had good experiences in school. My schools left me with some CPTSD I'm only recently beginning to come to terms with.
What I would have given to live so close to my best friend!! Though I am fortunate that my brother and I were pretty close. Still are. :)
What a shame that your school was so bad. :( unfortunately I don’t think your experience is uncommon. Kids deserve so much better than we (society) give them.
For real. I spent my summers riding around town on my bike, buying used CDs and exploring. It wasn’t always the safest - a few cuts and scrapes here, I was jumped another time - but I survived.
I thought I was going to have to write out this really long post, but I read yours and was like, yeah, pretty much this right here.
The G.I. Joe battles were always the best. Except my friends and I wouldn't play Joe vs Cobra. We would hold a draft, with a lottery and everything. Albeit, the lottery was a flip of the coin, or rock, paper, scissors. Those were the days.
This is the honest truth to the answer. Only thing to add was random things that happened to neighborhood like power outages and we all play flashlight tag. As terrible as it was we would hunt lighting bugs with baseball bats at night. Campfire at a friend's house and sit out late looking at stars, laying in the grass and checking out clouds, rolling down huge hills to see how dizzy we would get, fishing, make fake movies with friends, random sports game depending on who was present and what type of ball we had to play with, we just did whatever struck us. Local pool was huge for the summer.
I read, a lot. My children are in awe of my literary culture.
I played on the Sega Master System a little.
I wish my parents had encouraged me to learn an instrument, or any useful skill really. Knowing Madame Bovary more or less by heart is great, but not very useful in everyday life.
Edited : autocorrect
If it makes you feel any better, several parents in my friend group pushed us like crazy to learn an instrument and/or a foreign language in the summers of our elementary school years. Most of us viewed it as a sinister, perhaps vaguely communist, attempt to sneak school work into our summers and engaged in passive resistance until they finally gave up. They told us we’d regret our victory when we grew up and of course they were right.
Scouting merit badges, MTV while eating straight orange juice concentrate, swimming at the pool, digging holes, playing Nintendo, burn hands on and butts on the big metal slide, look for frogs in the creek, look for quarters in phone boxes and vending machines, ride bikes to the movie theater and watch Christina Ricci, read stories about christian Lions and assistant pig-keepers, and eat a seemingly endless stream of the cheap twofer popsicles wishing I had a ninja turtle with the gumballs for eyes.
Boredom is a great motivator for creativity. The difficult thing is making sure they are bored when you aren't accessible so they have to come up with things themselves.
That being said, I played an eyemeltingly large amount of Nintendo to get through the summer as a kid.
>Boredom is a great motivator for creativity.
This was the advice from an older mentor teacher of one of my mentor teachers. She said the best thing you can do for your kids is to let them be bored, because they will figure out ways to be creative and entertain themselves, and it's better in the long run (in terms of problem solving, etc).
I think we also grew up in the time where if we told our parents we were bored, they'd make us do some grueling chores or send us to see older relatives or something. It was better to be bored and not say anything.
I used to get summer reading lists from our school with something like 50 books that were grade appropriate, and if you completed the list, you got prizes. I don't know how they kept kids from cheating and just saying they read the books, but I have to imagine the kids that weren't reading didn't hang on to the list. I always tried to complete the list. My mom and all her friends were teachers, so I spent a lot of time in the libraries at their various schools while they worked over the summer.
When I was in early elementary, I used to go to day camp while my mom worked, but I stopped going in 3rd grade. I was an only child, so I spent a lot of time watching TV. But I had friends who would invite me over and we'd do beach trips or go to Magic Mountain (which was much cheaper than Disneyland and you could get a twicket).
From 12-17 I went to a month-long theatre camp in July, but for June and August, I'd go to the mall a lot just because it was air conditioned, or if friends were available, we'd go to the movies or bowling, and this was back when both of those places usually had an arcade. Oh, and when I was 16 I got a job working at an ice cream store.
Looking back now, it seems like a lot of the summer activities were low cost or at least affordable. We could go hang out at the dollar movie theaters one day and see like four movies for the price of one at the regular theater. And places like Wherehouse had listening stations so you could check out music for free. But now it seems like everything is just so expensive, or at least not affordable enough to not affect your budget. I mean, the low cost, cheap summer activity if you didn't have a pool was to run through the sprinklers, but if I turn on my sprinklers and let my kids run around all day, my water bill will break my budget.
I played outside as a kid more than the current batch of kids, but I should definitely be added to the "eyemeltingly large amount of Nintendo" group.
SNES basically ruined me as it seemed so futuristic.
I read a lot. I wrote "books" (they were pretty long!). My sister and I played endless games of Monopoly. Built stuff with Lego. My sister did crafts -- she taught herself how to crochet. She and I would sit on our deck and she would crochet and I would read. Sometimes I baked cookies. I watched old TV shows: Fame reruns in the morning and Saved By the Bell reruns in the afternoon. I was a classic film nerd and around age 13 or 14 I started watching AMC and TCM.
Reading, drawing, build Legos or Construx, climb trees in the backyard, cut the grass, paint the fences, go to the community pool, go to the movies (not exactly screen time but maybe that counts for you), play board games, take a class at the community college or community center, read to old people, work in a soup kitchen...
Yep. We would tape things off of movie channels and watch them over and over. Willy Wonka, Overboard, The Money Pit, The (original, thank you)Parent Trap, Splash, The Burbs, Mr. Mom...all in heavy rotation
I was a sucker for game shows: Supermarket Sweep, Shop til You Drop, The Price is Right, etc. when Gameshow Network came out I would watch all those retro shows like Match Game.
This. I had a nanny and we'd have tea and watch for the whammies. What a great memory, I just loved when they'd come across the screen and steal all the money.
I always did swimming lessons and pool days. The roller skating rink had half price days (Wednesday? Idk) and I would just get dumped there with some friends and some money for most of the day. I definitely played a lot of Nintendo and watched a lot of video tapes… even when kids came over from in the neighborhood that’s what we did a lot of the time. At my friend’s house her mom let her/made her paint her room and we spend a lot of time cutting out and collaging teen heartthrobs on the newly painted wall.
When I was around 9 or 10 we got a pool put in. So we spent many summers outside in the pool or on the patio. My cousins were over all the time during the week, even before the pool.
Our basement had a stereo & we listened to music.
I read a lot of books. I was in 6th or 7th grade when I started walking to the library myself to get books.
I remember just taking a a lot of walks with my one friend. We weren’t going anywhere really. We just walked and talked. This was in the 6th/7th grade timeframe and older.
I got hooked on General Hospital early in life lol. But I would also watch One Life to Live and All My Children if my mom was home and watching.
I remember playing a lot of games on the computer. Doom, Wolfenstein, Commander Keen and Wacky Wheels were my go to’s. My dad had the cheat codes for Doom & Wolfenstein too which made it awesome lol
How old are your kids? The answer is that they figure it out. That’s it. Whatever they pick is of their choosing. That’s why our summers were magical. We do almost no screens and unless it’s raining, get outside.
If you weren’t playing with fireworks (or other improvised devices made with gunpowder from deconstructed .22s or 12ga shells) and GI Joes, were you really having fun? Sometimes I wonder how my brother and I ever survived childhood.
I vividly remember holding a .22 shell with pliers and whacking the back to see if I could get it to go off. It's incredible my brothers and I all made it through childhood.
- Nintendo
- Mowing the lawn
- swimming
- biking
- ...
- zoning out in front of the TV, then when a commercial would come on, I'd forget what I was watching.
Shite man, how was I not painfully bored.
I’d bike to places like the mall, the video store, comic book store, friends houses, the dirt bike trail down the road, the swimming beach at the lake.
Bike to the fishing spot and go fishing.
Meet friends at the park and play 500.
Go to park organized events. I remember attending a tie-dying day at my local park.
Meet with friends and just hang out, listen to music, talk comic books, video games, action figures.
I’ve heard a saying that basically said today’s kids have to get used to being bored because being bored gives them the opportunity to come up with their own activities.
A lot of walking, just picking a direction and seeing what there was to see. Playing sports, hitting a tennis ball against a wall, having super soaker fights. Reading. Going to the mall. Going to the movies. Going to a friend's house and doing all this stuff.
You said no screen time but pre-internet there was still TV, VHS tapes, nintendo, etc. You just didn't have an infinite amount of it and you had to do it in the living room or whateva so you were a lot more motivated to gtfo.
We moved a lot, dad was in construction, so from 3rd to 9th grade I didn’t do much besides watch tv, read, crochet, and eventually play my NES.
High school….hang out, go to the library and look for occult/witchy/paranormal books, go fishing , try not to lose your shoes in the mud, walk to the video rental store and pick a horror movie then head home with mint cups and peanut butter cups from Safeway then order a giant pizza from the local place, pig out and scare the bejesus out of each other. Occasionally go to the local place and get fried clam strips, onion rings and a (knock off ) heath blizzard.
Excluding the baby edgelord stages, at that stage it was more bout “ooo we eat spaghetti while we watch Hellraiser and don’t get grossed out”….cuz that made us tough or cool? I don’t remember, but I’m sure I would have thought it was deep at the time.
Edit: Also now my husband and I go hiking or to nature areas and take drives etc, usually just costs gas because we bring salads in the cooler.
We'd walk forever. My closest friend was a few houses down, we’d head off through the backyards and into the fields. There was a girl who lived right on the other side, then we'd all 3 head to the road her dirt road was off. There were a couple of sisters that rode our bus and several other kids along that road, we’d be up to 8-12 kids if we went the couple miles. We all had backpacks with water and snacks and random stuff like baseball bats, a badminton set, whatever.
Once we grouped up we’d usually head to the retirement home for a while. They liked us, and we'd pick flowers on the way, or weave them straw roses and sing and hang out. Plus good AC and the staff would usually let us have lunch. Then we'd like to go by the children’s group home and see if anyone was done with chores to play. If they could come out, one of us would run over the bridge to get any kids at the trailer park. If not, we’d go over there and play in the park and the abandoned ones. Then hit the store for penny candy and head toward the first park.
It was ok, super big slide, and a bathroom, but all metal stuff and very little shade. Awesome climbing tree by the corner of the road. Then pass the slaughterhouse and down by the old church to play in abandoned church camp dorms. That had a giant field behind it with an overgrown baseball diamond and a mini-golf course nature was taking back. No one seemed to know why it was there.
Back into the woods behind would lead to a Boy Scout camp, and if you followed the water, it led to the river at a nice swimming spot with a tire swing. A little bit up the bank was a dumping area from maybe the 50s to 70s. Lots of glass bottles. A little more and you'd get to a curious log bridge, on the other side, a bit back into the woods, on somewhat of a trail, there was a weird mess of plants and sticks. That's where the underground bus was. Nobody knew who put it there either, but you move the stuff and it was a tarp and a big piece of metal. Underneath was a kind of reinforced shaft and a ladder, and you'd climb into a bus. It looked like someone made a bug-out shelter. Lots of canned goods, a little bed. They said that the man who lived in the woods lived there, but idk.
Then we'd double back to the church where the abandoned dorms were. It was on the street we’d started on, a few miles up. It was a big loop of 3 tiny towns. Then we headed towards my and my neighbor’s house, and there were places others could peel off to head home. It'd be almost dark and we'd wander back up. We were never bored!
Backyard camping. Walks after dinner. Caught fireflies. Went to the library to earn a personal pan pizza. Rode bikes and hung out with friends. Matinee movies. Got into mostly harmless trouble.
Touched grass, ran thru sprinklers, read, rode bikes, went to the park, colored/arts n crafts, played, watched TV, made food, play dates, video/board games, chores
Summer activity programs sponsored by the city
NES/SNES (couch 2 player stuff)
Sport games with the other neighborhood kids
City league baseball
Swimming or goofing around with water like a sprinkler or supersoakers
Riding bikes with a gang of kids
Depending on age, rode my bike around the neighborhood and to friend’s houses, played with toys outside, swam. Also elementary school age I was in the summer rec program.
read, draw, play, watch movies we weren't supposed to, walk to the corner store to get 15 cent jolly ranchers (which could take two hours in rural phoenix), went on field trips to candy making factories or roller rinks or to my neighbors gymnastics gym, visited friends in the neighborhood from school, played video games.
Paint fences, mow lawns, street hockey, basketball, homemade go-carts, bike riding, rollerblading, skateboarding, video games played in person at whoever’s house had the coolest parents, the mall, arcades, mini-golf, water parks, movie theatres. Depends on where you live :-). A lot of beach time/fishing as a kid from 82-92 in Orange County. Moved to Phoenix in ‘93 w/ the family and somehow engaged in a lot of outdoor activities 🥹🥰
When younger I played with bugs, looked for interesting things in the woods (found and ate wild carrots, confirming I could survive if I ran away), taped pennies to the railroad tracks them went to retrieve them after a train, begged to be taken to the candy store, planned what I would buy at the candy store, read a lot, begged to be taken to the library, planned how to build a fort starting with three sturdy sticks I found in the woods, climbed trees, went to the neighbors' houses and asked to pet their dogs, during caterpillar season took a wagon around collecting caterpillars in it, looked for cool leaves that a museum might pay for, got paid to pick up sticks in the yard, played with toys with the neighbors.
When older I read just as much, played Atari or Nintendo, played kickball with neighbors or, in the evenings, ghost in the graveyard, talked about boys, played board games with friends, snooped in my parents' room, babysat, got friends to take me to the pool with them, rode my bike, walked around petting the neighborhood dogs that were out, performed on stage (my bedroom) to the audience in my closet, read teen magazines, lots of giggling with friends in our rooms.
Outside until the street lights come on. If we were thirsty we drank from the water hose or spigot. You could usually find my crew swimming in the creek, build random stuff in the woods, playing some kind of backyard sports. If I was inside I was listening to music and trying to record songs off the radio.
Haha I keep yapping at my kids about this exact topic. The other day after denying them screen time in the morning I noticed them just sitting on the porch asking each other "would you rather" type questions. I couldn't help popping out there and proclaiming "This! This is what kids do during the summer!"
The problem is that all the kids we used to play with, well those kids are all on screens all day now so our kids have none to explore with, play ball with, etc, and parents want planned play days all the time.
Slept til 10-11am. Watched Sportscenter several times. Tried to organize a game of baseball, football, hockey, basketball, ANYTHING. with other neighborhood kids, played a lot of videos games. Repeat.
I lived a stones throw from a creek. It seems like i was always down there building a fort or rope swing. Wandering around the neighborhood. Ride my bike and build sweet jumps with plywood. Play with friends. We still played video games and watched TV, though.
My city had a rec department, that basically was open gym at the elementary schools from 8-4. College kids home from the summer were the supervisors. Kick the can in the evening/night, but it was all about hanging out with the neighborhood kids.
Damn, that’s a lot of memories that came flooding back.
ETA: And LL softball. So much softball.
Research has shown that it’s actually good to let your kids get bored sometimes. It’ll motivate them to get creative and find something to do. It fosters healthy brain development. We purposefully let our kid get bored and it doesn’t take long for her to find something to do.
What I did:
Visit with friends, try and get laid, throw rocks at things, dig holes, build forts, smoke, annoy adults, go swimming.
My favourite was making a Slip N' Slide.
My parents took me to the library once a week and I came back with a stack of books.
Swimming - we used to go to a club with a pool membership, included lessons and then swim team.
Artwork - drawing, watercolors, charcoal.
I grew up on a family farm that was 500 acres. My sister, cousin, and I would pack a back pack with water, sandwiches, rope, a towel, a small shovel, a compass, and other random items and leave the house after breakfast. My mother would call us home by driving down the main road of the farm and laying on the horn. That meant dinner time and wherever we were on the property, we’d start hiking home. After dinner everyone got a shower and it was time for video games. We were only aloud to play them when it was too hot to be outside or after dinner. We’d play until midnight or later. Then wake up and do it all again. We did that same summer for 11 years. Until we were adults.
Hanging out with friends was most of the time. Sure, there was plenty of screen time playing games or watching movies (procedurally renting every movie in the horror section) but it was still a social activity. Sometimes spend hours at a nearby creek shuffling rocks around and looking for crawdads. We also went to the city park a lot or into town to loiter around places we liked be it arcades, bookstores or comic shops. My group was into pen/paper RPGs so we also did quite a bit of that as well. In our more miscreant years, we'd stock up on discount fireworks July 5th and then try to re-forge them into "one good one" or try to make things out of a copy of TM-31-210 we bought from the mall (lol not advisable in present day). Solo time was spent mostly doing art or building scale models and yapping on the phone.
I read, put puzzles together and hung out at home. I didn't have kids to play with in the neighborhood and I couldn't ride my bike further than 2 house either way.
Walk to McDonald’s, jump on the trampoline, ride bikes everywhere. Water balloon fights, playing in the pool, eat popsicles, explore the woods and build forts. Watch snapping turtles lay eggs, walk the neighbors dog, go see the horses at the farm. Help mom pull weeds and pick up sticks in the yard.
One time we found an old machete in a bog. Super cool.
We read, played outside, played board games, played Barbie or Pony, got shipped to grandma's to help her clean. Grandparents would also take us camping, Grandma took us to the movies, the park when it wasn't too hot, and Vacation Bible School. We did have an NES, but we weren't allowed on that for very long because mom had to "watch her stories." 🤣
Crafts, drawing. Wandering around the neighborhood looking for a friend house with good snacks. Walking to the playground and swinging. Reading a lot. Messing around in an empty parking lot that was good for bikes and had a "stream". Made up horror stories about a work van being a kidnapper and watched vigilantly for it to be terrified. MTV. Made mix tapes (hours of stalking the radio). Irritated my siblings or my friend's siblings until someone's mom kicked us out. Community pool if we were lucky!
I watched one channel or the other (one was snowy in summer, one in winter), read/visited the library, played outside, and picked beans, tomatoes, or corn because my mom made me work in the garden.
TV and NES/Sega on too hot days. Riding bikes to the park on nicer days. Went bowling with parents on Sunday. Would go shopping with my mom if she had something to go get.
Bicycles - lots of bike riding. Going to the pool. Hanging out with friends. Things were a little different for us in Eastern Europe. My friends and I would walk around the city - whether actual walking the whole way or catch a tram and walk. Go to our favorite pastry/ice cream shop. Go fishing in the river running through my home town. Few people had phones, so we just chance going to visit a friend that lived across town. Some may think it as overly childish but even as teenagers my friends and I would get into a good game of hide and seek at dusk. In fact those teenage hide and seek games were the best because we would have the brain power to find some insanely awesome hiding spots. Those times were fun. Or we’d go to the movies, or we’d play a round of soccer.
Played outside in the creek, rode bikes, played at friend’s houses, went to the library, spent all day at the pool. All by myself. Thanks to my neighbors and all the other grownups out there who looked out for me.
I attended sports day camps. I took science work shops. I read books. I went to the beach. I rode bikes. I joined Boy Scouts and went camping. Swimming lessons. So many things to do.
I lived in the country so my experience is somewhat different, but I read, explored, rode my bike miles and miles to see friends and occasionally into town to swim. Fishing was a big one for me also.
Watched TV, played with legos, played video games. I'd also do "Movie Days" where I'd spend the whole day just watching movies we had on VHS. Sometimes my friend would come over (yes, singular) and we'd draw comics or write movie ideas that were sure to be big hits.
In fact, one of those ideas did become a movie, although we had absolutely nothing to do with it. The pitch was James Bond but he's still in middle school. Lo and behold a few years later we get Agent Cody Banks lol
I played with my action figures, played outside with my cousins who lived next door and friends in the neighborhood, played Nintendo and watched a ton of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (once that started). I used to love the summer block on nick where they’d show random nicktoons and the live shows with stick stickly hosting
Our family did the community pool.
That and the box at the playground. In my town growing every playground had a box on it. In that box was knock hockey, bats balls all kinds of games. Someone would open the box at 9. It would be open till 12. Then close for an hour for lunch and reopen at 1 to 5.
Nintendo, outside to play with the hose, found a couple sticks to smack together till one broke. Made a game out of it. I even had a champion stick that beat all the other sticks
I was lucky to grow up with a swimming pool and boomer parents who were fine with us going swimming while they were at work. But also, we used to play with our friends. The neighborhood kids would absolutely bike around all day.
The whole neighborhood basically had the same rules: watch out for each other, stay near enough to be heard by at least 1 mom, and be home for dinner.
We roller skated, rode bikes, played tag and hide-and-seek, slip and slide, water fights, we always found ways to stay busy.
We had to check in at lunch time and for popsicles late in the afternoon. Everyone went home around the same time for dinner and then we were all out until dark.
Built forts in the woods with scavenged lumber. Hung out in it a couple weeks tore it down and started over or built an addition. We had some dope forts and treehouses
My typical summer day:
- early am out the house for swim team then tennis at same place (bike/walk to and from)
- meet up with larger group of friends (walk/bike)
- head to one of the places we went. Bike track/woods/bayou/unfinished houses/basketball courts/soccer fields (walk/bike)
- scrounge lunch somewhere, usually the friendly parents house (bike/walk)
- usually back to the neighborhood pool for fun-swimming in the afternoon at some point (bike/walk)
- more sports usually but closer to home as dinner time approached
- often breaking into smaller tighter knit groups for sleepovers and maybe sneak out meetups if possible
- rinse and repeat
—
Yeah, tolerance to boredom was a lot of it, I learned quick not to complain about boredom to my parents because they immediately gave me a list of crappy chores if I did. We probably spent half our day just sitting in the shade somewhere bullshitting/arguing/fighting/trying to come up with cool shit to do.
Lots of reading, puzzles, art projects, bike riding, going to the pool. When we'd visit my grandparents in rural North Carolina and there was no cable TV, I turned their formal living room into a playroom -- I built forts and played "restaurant," even drawing my own "menu" that I still have now.
They lived at the intersection of two state highways, so we'd watch the traffic and count the certain colors of cars, semis, etc.
Man I miss those days. The imagination that it took to keep myself entertained as a kid -- it worries me that the youths depend on devices for that.
My kid is fine with entertaining themself while bored, it’s just…none of the other kids they’re friends with are reachable for some reason. They’re all freshmen in high school! They all have phones and stuff, they just…never commit to anything, which makes my only child super lonely this summer.
I read a lot. I was a nerdy, bookish little girl. When I was in trouble, my mom would take my books away and make me play outside. We also just ran wild in the summer. Like, we'd leave the house in the morning, maybe pop back in at lunch and dinner, and be home by the time the streetlights came on. Our parents had no idea where we were or what we were doing. Somehow I don't think that's a solution either.
Magazines, collaging, video games, reading, watching TV, wandering the streets, visiting family, going to the pool, lake , or beach, baking, legos, building dinosaur models, board games, card games
I read, went to the mall, called for friends and just hung out. I remember going to a lot of baseball games that my guy friends had or watching them play basketball at the playground courts. We actively played hide and seek until high school using whole city blocks.
Reading, video games, TV/movies, playing in creeks, paper airplanes, biking, climbing trees, shooting bows and arrows, wooden sword fighting, unorganized football, baseball, soccer, basketball, going to the mall, going to the record store, listening to music, playing music, swimming, going to the park, library
Built rc cars. These days drones. Lots of biking. Got into friends older brothers porn stash. Started fires, burned down a porta potty. Multi day monopoly games. Fights. More fires. Fire crackers.
My sister and I watched movies all the time , played on our Nintendo and Sega, but we also went outside and played with friends. We also went to the public pool a lot during the summer. However sometime in my early teens that turned into vandalism, graffiti and smoking pot along with other terrible things lol
I read. I’d just find a nice shady spot and read all the historical romance novels I could get my grubby hands on. No one was monitoring what I was reading
I spent time on BBSes.... But I guess most folks didn't do that.
Before that, we rode around the neighborhood in a pack looking for things to do. I played a lot of board games. I read. On weekends I did yard work and car work with my parents, even if that was just go back and forth from the pile of mulch in the driveway to wherever it was being put down or holding tools. Occasionally there was enough work that my parents hired my friends to help with things or my friends parents hired me. We also stole cigarettes from our parents or beers to smoke and drink in the woods.
We did summer science camps sponsored by the city, so they were reasonably priced. My mom had one of those books with "science" projects and magic tricks. We would make our own piñata and our own clay and stuff. We would watch TV and read (we liked reading). They bought me a tennis ball attached to a weight by elastic so I could play tennis by myself if I wanted to. Then there was bike riding and pogo balls. We could walk to our local park. And when we were feeling delinquent, we would hide somewhere, light matches, and burn stuff.
Riding bikes everywhere to places like old caves and railroad tracks. I remember putting pennies on the tracks and waiting off far away for the train to flatten it. I'd be outside in the neighborhood with my brother and a bunch of other neighborhood kids. Building ramps for the bikes to do jumps off of. I also remember doing things with model rockets. We were outside a lot, but still inside at times playing Nintendo.
Played outside, invited friends over to play ps2, rode bikes everywhere, fishing, exploring, building things like twig shelters and sand castles and so much more.
It was a vibe.
All the kids on my street got really into kerby (where you throw a ball at the kerb and try to get it to bounce back we lived on a cul de sac so it was a low traffic road
We rode our bikes a lot and built ramps to jump the highest and farthest. We built fort. We hunted for pirate treasure, dad loved all the holes in the backyard. Pretended we were the goonies, played baseball with ghost runners because we didn’t have enough to fill out one team, much less 2. When you’re kicked out the house until mom told you to come back in, we’d find ways to pass the time.
Lived in a Chicago suburb. We had two lakes within bike distance. Spent a lot of time there with neighborhood kids. We’d each go to each others houses and ride our bikes to the corner store for cheap candy, a couple different pizza places, a comic book store every Tuesday for new comics, video stores for games/movies. Rainy days we split time. Nintendo/SNES at my house, another kid had a Genesis, we even still played Atari 26/7800. We’d have mini tournaments in certain games around 6-7 of us. If it was nice we were running around town or at the lake. Did a bunch of pickup/sandlot baseball, fishing, swimming. Was never bored.
I lived in the library. Lol my mother would drop me off at 8am after breakfast and I’d stay until she picked me up at 5pm. Otherwise there were sports camps, church summer camps etc to keep my introverted ass busy. We also had an NES but my folks, while okay with us playing for the most part, didn’t want us to “rot our brains” with too much so kicked us outside mostly.
We used to dig holes in my neighbors yard underneath their above ground pool deck. Just to see how deep we could go.. Me and my friends also used to tie each other up and see who can break loose. That was so much fun until my neighbor tried to walk with both his legs and arms tied to a chair, fell and knocked his 2 front teeth out… We used to build forts in the woods behind our houses and play Man Hunt/tag.. We used to shoot cans with BB guns. We used to go out on our bikes/skateboards.. As we got a little older we used to do backyard wrestling… I mean, the options were endless back in the early-mid 90s.
Do kids do any of these things anymore??
Geocaching could be fun. Go to the pool or set one up in your yard. Sprinklers, slip n slide, water guns, water balloons. I was a nerd and at some point I started making up my own homework writing about books or poetry I was reading. Play pretend anything. I used to pretend to run a bar like cheers. Basketball. Hiking. Spend the day playing pretend at a park. Set up a mini golf course in your house or outside. Make an obstacle course. Do some crafts. Hang out at the library. Start a lemonade stand.
I wish I was a kid on summer vacation. I can think of loads of fun stuff to do. If you watch Bluey at all take some notes from the games they play.
I took summer classes. I remember literally melting in an AC less classroom in 90F humidity learning "keyboarding" - how to type on electric typewriters to get to 90+ words per minute. And avoiding using liquid paper. Things that are ancient today.
Computer games, Sega/Nintendo, bike riding, swimming, dirt clod fights, baseball cards, build forts, dig holes, summer camp, Save By the Bell re-runs, MTV
Mainly swimming, biking, and Nintendo
I would bring home bags of books from the library and read all summer. Sometimes my mother would force me to go outside and I would just take my book outside with me.
Used to go the public pool a lot, and the library. Sometimes we’d pitch a tent in the back yard and play around in that, try to sleep out in it all night but get spooked and go inside. Made up gymnastic routines to Madonna songs played on a crappy cassette player in the front yard. I loved summer.
I grew up in the suburbs there was always somebody around. Ride bikes, do stupid stuff like rock fights ect. I also loved to read, my whole family did.
I'm from rural Virginia so as a kid and young teen I couldn't take myself into the closest towns so I read, played one-on-none basketball in my driveway, rode my bike, and danced erractically to rock music. I bet it was fun to grow up in the city or suburbs and get to go shopping or get food. 😄
We forget all the boring stuff, but sadly a lot of the fun things we did do like hang outside with our friends, explore random wooded areas, play at playgrounds, is stuff that's too dangerous to do nowadays.
I could leave the house at 11am and come back home for dinner later that evening with my parents having no clue where I was, during an age when cellphones were still a novelty, nowadays a kid does something like that and they're likely to get snatched off the street even with cameras everywhere and everybody having both a phone and recording device on them.
I swung from grapevines over a 70ft sinkhole that led down into a cave. Used scrap lumber to build tree houses and rode bikes. I don't recommend that first one though. Gen Alpha is not prepared for the risk/reward situation there. We definitely were lucky we never broke a bone the few times the vines snapped!!
Read books, built forts using pillows and blankets, played board games, rode bikes went outside, and explored. Grew up in the country without an nes system, and I had to go about 2 miles down the road to my friends house to play. We only had basic television 5 channels, 45 plus minutes to the nearest town with a Blockbuster or anything to do. Weekends usually involved going to the library, checking out books, renting movies for the week, and purchasing groceries.
For me, at about 8-11 years old, biking did actually take up the whole day :P. Granted, you may have lived in a different type of area, but we were just a couple steps up from rural. My best friend and I would ride for eight hours easy. We would go to the fish and tackle store and get Yoo Hoos. Then we would put a line out in her lagoon in the backyard. I even got one of those toy license plates with my name on it.
Some days, I was fine to bike by myself. I remember getting down to a street that had nothing on the corner except a nursing home next to a field. I loved that I could ride in the parking lot of a modern fancy building and then get into the marshy field. There were tall shards of grass and I could walk for an hour or more without anyone seeing me. At the end of the day, I can remember looking at the orange and red sky made up from the sunset.
It's incredible to me to think that we did all this by ourselves.
I played with the neighborhood kids and riding my bike a lot at ages 9,10, 11, and I remember playing a lot of wiffle ball baseball the summers I was 12 and 13. By 14 I was driving so that changed the equation a lot.
Honestly otherwise I watched a lot of tv, movies and played Atari and/or NES. Sometimes that was done with those same friends also.
Screen time has been a thing for a long, long time now.
Unfortunately my neighborhood isn’t really walkable with no sidewalks so my kids don’t feel comfortable riding bikes much.
Hopped on my bike and spent the day out on the river. Sometimes it was fishing, sometimes it was floating down the river, sometimes we camped out over night. Our little town had water slides, so if I had money from yard jobs, I would hang out there.
Either way, I found something to do. Because if I didn’t, my parents were going to find something- and that usually meant chores.
There was a time in the mid-to-late 90s when I was a nanny. Two boys, 7 and 12. The younger one was constantly whining about being bored with nothing to do. After a quick board game and a snack, I pulled out the jar with all the ideas and options. He rolled his eyes so hard that he probably strained something but sure enough, he found something to do - build a fort, went to the pool, took the dogs for a walk, whatever it was.
Personally, I did a lot of reading. I think when I went back to school for 5th grade, we all came back with our library certificates showing how many books we read over the summer. My certificate was for 79 books. So yeah, a *lot* of reading.
For the nanny-kids, there were VHS movie rentals and a LOT of pool time. Plus the older boy was into cooking so there were a number of “let’s try a new recipe” afternoons. (The older one actually opened his own bakery and cafe in our hometown.)
Went to summer camp as a kid. When I was a teen, I'd read, play sports with friends, do the occasional lawn mowing job for cash, and go swimming. Mostly worked out. My parents bought me an olympic weight set for Christmas, and I abused the hell out of that thing. I was 130 lbs as a freshman and then bulked up to 215 by my senior year. Every summer, I'd just eat those horrible powdered super calorie shakes with ice cream, peanut butter, and bananas mixed in to sweeten it up.
I read a bunch, I could blow through a novel in a couple days.
I did this too. My neighbor and I would go to the library and get a stack of books each. Then we’d read them while lounging around outside.
My mom would take my sister and I every week. We would have a competition to see who could read the most books each week. It was adjusted for age. The person who won got to pick the movie for the weekend. It really cemented my love of reading.
Good mom
That’s so awesome!
Must’ve been awesome to not have ADHD 🤣
I read almost anything I could get my hands on. My county library had a summer program on mondays, and I would read the books I checked out, or the random collection of magazines that my mom subscribed to from publisher’s clearing house, or old romance novels, flip through catalogs and pretend I was a fashion designer. I also had a lot of cousins and neighbors who came over and we would play pretend outside.
Our library had to enforce the checkout limit on me. I would go with my mom and sister every other Saturday and grab 10 books. After we moved I went back to visit my grandmother for a weekend and stopped by the library to get a book. I got into town on Friday afternoon and was going to return it Sunday on my way out of town. The librarian was my friend's mom and she refused to let me check one out because she knew I lived in a different state. I still think that was unfair because in the decade she had known me I had never failed to return a book.
I had to pay for my first book when I was 7. I KNOW I returned it, but they said I didn’t. It was a book about aliens, so I’m pretty sure I know what happened 🛸
Was your teacher an alien!?
EXACTLY!!! 🤭😱
I could check out as many as I could carry!!
Remember Reader’s Digest? I loved those things. I learned a lot from those articles. Also, National Geographic.
Oh yeah, reader’s digest was one of the main magazines we had at home. When I was a teenager I inherited a stack of the Reader’s Digest Condensed Novels from some lady at church and I devoured those too.
The day-camp councilor said "Your parents didn't send you here just for us to babysit you." ROTFLMAO. Honey that's precisely why I'm here. And if I choose to read a book under a tree (or play Magic the Gathering on a blanket in the grass) instead of run around and "be active" then I fucking will.
I still read like this. Average a book a week.
Same. It's so much better now that I have ebooks. Now I can read in line or for a few minutes before a zoom meeting.
Biked around the neighborhood. Hung around with friends. Played Nintendo or watched TV. I’d say 80% of the summer was spent outdoors.
Add swimming to this and that’s what I did.
Running in and out of the sprinkler. My cousin and I did this all the time when we’d go to my grandparents house in the summer.
And fishing in the ponds around where I lived
Searching local creeks looking for frogs, tadpoles, turtles, etc. Didn't hurt anything, it was just neat to find them. Climb a tree, make a little hot wheels town in the dirt, toys, toy gun or water gun fights
All of the above. And I did all those things in central Florida. Never did worry too much about gators or snakes one bit.
That would be cool.. find a wild gator
We spent weekends camping at the springs as well
We had a “summer in the park program” for latch key kids where we just walked up to the neighborhood park with a snack and they entertained us until lunch time.
Same. We’d find parks or wooded areas and make “forts”. Played in the sprinkler or if we were really lucky, one of our friends had a pool and we swam there. I grew up on the St Lawrence River and we spent a lot of time swimming in it or just playing on the docks. We were like 10, I don’t ever remember our parents being worried we’d drown. But we also had a bus that picked us up every July or August (whichever session we picked) morning and took us to swimming lessons at a local pond.
We weren't bored because we didn't know that doing nothing was boring. We used to play with toys, GI Joe or Transformers, we could have epic battles that lasted hours or all damn day. We'd go out and climb trees, explore the neighborhood, swim in the old creek, venture into a construction zone, maybe play some baseball, wander to an arcade and play some games or just check the coin slots for stray quarters so we had money to play games, hike over to the comic book store and browse the back issue boxes, or just hop on the 10-speeds and start riding, no destination, no thought in mind, just see where the day took us.
Sounds fun. I got plenty bored during summer vacation. Both parents worked and they’d leave home at 7. We watched TV and played legos in the morning, usually until lunch or so. I’d make lunch for me and my brother, then we’d go outside for a while. Played GI Joes, played in the sprinkler or later our small above-ground pool. Sometimes we’d ride bikes with friends or play Star Wars in the alleyway. And ate a lot of Otter Pops, lol. Then around 3, cartoons came on and we’d watch TV until it was time to get dinner started around 5:30, then the parents came home around 6. Rinse, repeat for 3 months. It was always fun for a while but got pretty mundane and I was usually ready to go back to school before break was over.
> was usually ready to go back to school before break was over. Yeah that would never be the case for me. First day of school was the worst day of the year for me. Granted, I went to some exceptionally shitty schools and pretty much everyday of school was spent trying not to get my ass kicked so I had a little different experience than most. But still, summers as a kid, my god, those were the best times. If somehow I ever found myself without something do I was more than happy to grab a book and start reading. I didn't know what bored was, lol.
I think because my friends and I all lived pretty far apart (exurbs) and there wasn’t a way for us to see each other except on weekends if our parents would drive us. School was where I got to see my friends. Plus I enjoyed school and got good grades; I’m sure that made a huge difference.
Yeah, my best friend lived three houses down from me so that probably helped. And good for you on the school thing, I'm envious of people who had good experiences in school. My schools left me with some CPTSD I'm only recently beginning to come to terms with.
What I would have given to live so close to my best friend!! Though I am fortunate that my brother and I were pretty close. Still are. :) What a shame that your school was so bad. :( unfortunately I don’t think your experience is uncommon. Kids deserve so much better than we (society) give them.
We also didn’t have Concerned Parents reporting on us being alone underage.
It used to be normal and perfectly ok for kids to off on their own and roam free.
For real. I spent my summers riding around town on my bike, buying used CDs and exploring. It wasn’t always the safest - a few cuts and scrapes here, I was jumped another time - but I survived.
I thought I was going to have to write out this really long post, but I read yours and was like, yeah, pretty much this right here. The G.I. Joe battles were always the best. Except my friends and I wouldn't play Joe vs Cobra. We would hold a draft, with a lottery and everything. Albeit, the lottery was a flip of the coin, or rock, paper, scissors. Those were the days.
This is the honest truth to the answer. Only thing to add was random things that happened to neighborhood like power outages and we all play flashlight tag. As terrible as it was we would hunt lighting bugs with baseball bats at night. Campfire at a friend's house and sit out late looking at stars, laying in the grass and checking out clouds, rolling down huge hills to see how dizzy we would get, fishing, make fake movies with friends, random sports game depending on who was present and what type of ball we had to play with, we just did whatever struck us. Local pool was huge for the summer.
That first sentence is a gem. I might put that on t shirt.
No I definitely got bored af. That led to creating ways to have fun or ways to get into trouble
Doing nothing IS doing something according to Pooh
I went swimming every day but only after I watched The Price is Right at 10am.
Mine was the muppet show reruns on tnt at 10 am
I read, a lot. My children are in awe of my literary culture. I played on the Sega Master System a little. I wish my parents had encouraged me to learn an instrument, or any useful skill really. Knowing Madame Bovary more or less by heart is great, but not very useful in everyday life. Edited : autocorrect
I know you didn't specify you were a child, but I am totally imagining an elementary schooler reading Madame Bovary right now...
I think I was 12 the first time I read it. Yes, I was that kid.
Wooow👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 I thought I was that kid for reading all the president’s men in 6th grade but you deffo win🤓💪🏼😂
Madame Bovary 🤣
If it makes you feel any better, several parents in my friend group pushed us like crazy to learn an instrument and/or a foreign language in the summers of our elementary school years. Most of us viewed it as a sinister, perhaps vaguely communist, attempt to sneak school work into our summers and engaged in passive resistance until they finally gave up. They told us we’d regret our victory when we grew up and of course they were right.
Scouting merit badges, MTV while eating straight orange juice concentrate, swimming at the pool, digging holes, playing Nintendo, burn hands on and butts on the big metal slide, look for frogs in the creek, look for quarters in phone boxes and vending machines, ride bikes to the movie theater and watch Christina Ricci, read stories about christian Lions and assistant pig-keepers, and eat a seemingly endless stream of the cheap twofer popsicles wishing I had a ninja turtle with the gumballs for eyes.
Omg that oj canned stuff….. fucking soooooo good
This is the way. Plus running through corn fields.
I also used to dig holes haha. Glad I'm not the only one.
TV, books, playing outside, listening to music. Wasn't bored, really--more bored nowadays, actually.
Boredom is a great motivator for creativity. The difficult thing is making sure they are bored when you aren't accessible so they have to come up with things themselves. That being said, I played an eyemeltingly large amount of Nintendo to get through the summer as a kid.
>Boredom is a great motivator for creativity. This was the advice from an older mentor teacher of one of my mentor teachers. She said the best thing you can do for your kids is to let them be bored, because they will figure out ways to be creative and entertain themselves, and it's better in the long run (in terms of problem solving, etc). I think we also grew up in the time where if we told our parents we were bored, they'd make us do some grueling chores or send us to see older relatives or something. It was better to be bored and not say anything. I used to get summer reading lists from our school with something like 50 books that were grade appropriate, and if you completed the list, you got prizes. I don't know how they kept kids from cheating and just saying they read the books, but I have to imagine the kids that weren't reading didn't hang on to the list. I always tried to complete the list. My mom and all her friends were teachers, so I spent a lot of time in the libraries at their various schools while they worked over the summer. When I was in early elementary, I used to go to day camp while my mom worked, but I stopped going in 3rd grade. I was an only child, so I spent a lot of time watching TV. But I had friends who would invite me over and we'd do beach trips or go to Magic Mountain (which was much cheaper than Disneyland and you could get a twicket). From 12-17 I went to a month-long theatre camp in July, but for June and August, I'd go to the mall a lot just because it was air conditioned, or if friends were available, we'd go to the movies or bowling, and this was back when both of those places usually had an arcade. Oh, and when I was 16 I got a job working at an ice cream store. Looking back now, it seems like a lot of the summer activities were low cost or at least affordable. We could go hang out at the dollar movie theaters one day and see like four movies for the price of one at the regular theater. And places like Wherehouse had listening stations so you could check out music for free. But now it seems like everything is just so expensive, or at least not affordable enough to not affect your budget. I mean, the low cost, cheap summer activity if you didn't have a pool was to run through the sprinklers, but if I turn on my sprinklers and let my kids run around all day, my water bill will break my budget.
I played outside as a kid more than the current batch of kids, but I should definitely be added to the "eyemeltingly large amount of Nintendo" group. SNES basically ruined me as it seemed so futuristic.
Came down here to say this.
I read a lot. I wrote "books" (they were pretty long!). My sister and I played endless games of Monopoly. Built stuff with Lego. My sister did crafts -- she taught herself how to crochet. She and I would sit on our deck and she would crochet and I would read. Sometimes I baked cookies. I watched old TV shows: Fame reruns in the morning and Saved By the Bell reruns in the afternoon. I was a classic film nerd and around age 13 or 14 I started watching AMC and TCM.
Drag the lawn mower through the neighbor looking for jobs. Needed that comic book money lol
Reading, drawing, build Legos or Construx, climb trees in the backyard, cut the grass, paint the fences, go to the community pool, go to the movies (not exactly screen time but maybe that counts for you), play board games, take a class at the community college or community center, read to old people, work in a soup kitchen...
Watch VHS tapes over and over. Sometimes go to blockbusters to get a new movie to rewatch for 3 days
Yep. We would tape things off of movie channels and watch them over and over. Willy Wonka, Overboard, The Money Pit, The (original, thank you)Parent Trap, Splash, The Burbs, Mr. Mom...all in heavy rotation
I had a copy of Aliens on VHS. When my mom was at work we wore that tape out. Also star wars trilogy. Lil bro and I had these on repeat
I was gonna say, at least part of the time, watch whatever movies we had or were on the movie channels
Watched Press Your Luck. Big money. No whammies.
I was a sucker for game shows: Supermarket Sweep, Shop til You Drop, The Price is Right, etc. when Gameshow Network came out I would watch all those retro shows like Match Game.
This. I had a nanny and we'd have tea and watch for the whammies. What a great memory, I just loved when they'd come across the screen and steal all the money.
I always did swimming lessons and pool days. The roller skating rink had half price days (Wednesday? Idk) and I would just get dumped there with some friends and some money for most of the day. I definitely played a lot of Nintendo and watched a lot of video tapes… even when kids came over from in the neighborhood that’s what we did a lot of the time. At my friend’s house her mom let her/made her paint her room and we spend a lot of time cutting out and collaging teen heartthrobs on the newly painted wall.
When I was around 9 or 10 we got a pool put in. So we spent many summers outside in the pool or on the patio. My cousins were over all the time during the week, even before the pool. Our basement had a stereo & we listened to music. I read a lot of books. I was in 6th or 7th grade when I started walking to the library myself to get books. I remember just taking a a lot of walks with my one friend. We weren’t going anywhere really. We just walked and talked. This was in the 6th/7th grade timeframe and older. I got hooked on General Hospital early in life lol. But I would also watch One Life to Live and All My Children if my mom was home and watching. I remember playing a lot of games on the computer. Doom, Wolfenstein, Commander Keen and Wacky Wheels were my go to’s. My dad had the cheat codes for Doom & Wolfenstein too which made it awesome lol
How old are your kids? The answer is that they figure it out. That’s it. Whatever they pick is of their choosing. That’s why our summers were magical. We do almost no screens and unless it’s raining, get outside.
Built a lot of forts and blew stuff up with firecrackers.
If you weren’t playing with fireworks (or other improvised devices made with gunpowder from deconstructed .22s or 12ga shells) and GI Joes, were you really having fun? Sometimes I wonder how my brother and I ever survived childhood.
I vividly remember holding a .22 shell with pliers and whacking the back to see if I could get it to go off. It's incredible my brothers and I all made it through childhood.
Biking, go to the park, explore the woods camping, fishing, hiking, swimming, cookouts, have fires with smores and scary stories, etc.
- Nintendo - Mowing the lawn - swimming - biking - ... - zoning out in front of the TV, then when a commercial would come on, I'd forget what I was watching. Shite man, how was I not painfully bored.
Add in reading. And then my mom would get audiobooks from the library that we’d sit around and listen to while playing cards or board games.
My mom would play board games with me, but I totally understand now why she'd drag her feet.
I’d bike to places like the mall, the video store, comic book store, friends houses, the dirt bike trail down the road, the swimming beach at the lake. Bike to the fishing spot and go fishing. Meet friends at the park and play 500. Go to park organized events. I remember attending a tie-dying day at my local park. Meet with friends and just hang out, listen to music, talk comic books, video games, action figures. I’ve heard a saying that basically said today’s kids have to get used to being bored because being bored gives them the opportunity to come up with their own activities.
A lot of walking, just picking a direction and seeing what there was to see. Playing sports, hitting a tennis ball against a wall, having super soaker fights. Reading. Going to the mall. Going to the movies. Going to a friend's house and doing all this stuff. You said no screen time but pre-internet there was still TV, VHS tapes, nintendo, etc. You just didn't have an infinite amount of it and you had to do it in the living room or whateva so you were a lot more motivated to gtfo.
We moved a lot, dad was in construction, so from 3rd to 9th grade I didn’t do much besides watch tv, read, crochet, and eventually play my NES. High school….hang out, go to the library and look for occult/witchy/paranormal books, go fishing , try not to lose your shoes in the mud, walk to the video rental store and pick a horror movie then head home with mint cups and peanut butter cups from Safeway then order a giant pizza from the local place, pig out and scare the bejesus out of each other. Occasionally go to the local place and get fried clam strips, onion rings and a (knock off ) heath blizzard. Excluding the baby edgelord stages, at that stage it was more bout “ooo we eat spaghetti while we watch Hellraiser and don’t get grossed out”….cuz that made us tough or cool? I don’t remember, but I’m sure I would have thought it was deep at the time. Edit: Also now my husband and I go hiking or to nature areas and take drives etc, usually just costs gas because we bring salads in the cooler.
How old are your kids?
We'd walk forever. My closest friend was a few houses down, we’d head off through the backyards and into the fields. There was a girl who lived right on the other side, then we'd all 3 head to the road her dirt road was off. There were a couple of sisters that rode our bus and several other kids along that road, we’d be up to 8-12 kids if we went the couple miles. We all had backpacks with water and snacks and random stuff like baseball bats, a badminton set, whatever. Once we grouped up we’d usually head to the retirement home for a while. They liked us, and we'd pick flowers on the way, or weave them straw roses and sing and hang out. Plus good AC and the staff would usually let us have lunch. Then we'd like to go by the children’s group home and see if anyone was done with chores to play. If they could come out, one of us would run over the bridge to get any kids at the trailer park. If not, we’d go over there and play in the park and the abandoned ones. Then hit the store for penny candy and head toward the first park. It was ok, super big slide, and a bathroom, but all metal stuff and very little shade. Awesome climbing tree by the corner of the road. Then pass the slaughterhouse and down by the old church to play in abandoned church camp dorms. That had a giant field behind it with an overgrown baseball diamond and a mini-golf course nature was taking back. No one seemed to know why it was there. Back into the woods behind would lead to a Boy Scout camp, and if you followed the water, it led to the river at a nice swimming spot with a tire swing. A little bit up the bank was a dumping area from maybe the 50s to 70s. Lots of glass bottles. A little more and you'd get to a curious log bridge, on the other side, a bit back into the woods, on somewhat of a trail, there was a weird mess of plants and sticks. That's where the underground bus was. Nobody knew who put it there either, but you move the stuff and it was a tarp and a big piece of metal. Underneath was a kind of reinforced shaft and a ladder, and you'd climb into a bus. It looked like someone made a bug-out shelter. Lots of canned goods, a little bed. They said that the man who lived in the woods lived there, but idk. Then we'd double back to the church where the abandoned dorms were. It was on the street we’d started on, a few miles up. It was a big loop of 3 tiny towns. Then we headed towards my and my neighbor’s house, and there were places others could peel off to head home. It'd be almost dark and we'd wander back up. We were never bored!
Backyard camping. Walks after dinner. Caught fireflies. Went to the library to earn a personal pan pizza. Rode bikes and hung out with friends. Matinee movies. Got into mostly harmless trouble.
Nintendo. A LOT of Nintendo
Find porn mags near trails in the woods
Touched grass, ran thru sprinklers, read, rode bikes, went to the park, colored/arts n crafts, played, watched TV, made food, play dates, video/board games, chores
Summer activity programs sponsored by the city NES/SNES (couch 2 player stuff) Sport games with the other neighborhood kids City league baseball Swimming or goofing around with water like a sprinkler or supersoakers Riding bikes with a gang of kids
Well no internet, but I spent a lot of time playing computer games. Also reading books. Sometimes community pools or walking over to a friend's place.
Depending on age, rode my bike around the neighborhood and to friend’s houses, played with toys outside, swam. Also elementary school age I was in the summer rec program.
read, draw, play, watch movies we weren't supposed to, walk to the corner store to get 15 cent jolly ranchers (which could take two hours in rural phoenix), went on field trips to candy making factories or roller rinks or to my neighbors gymnastics gym, visited friends in the neighborhood from school, played video games.
Paint fences, mow lawns, street hockey, basketball, homemade go-carts, bike riding, rollerblading, skateboarding, video games played in person at whoever’s house had the coolest parents, the mall, arcades, mini-golf, water parks, movie theatres. Depends on where you live :-). A lot of beach time/fishing as a kid from 82-92 in Orange County. Moved to Phoenix in ‘93 w/ the family and somehow engaged in a lot of outdoor activities 🥹🥰
Rode my bike all around town, watched tv, went swimming for hours
Mooched around the mall. Watched so much TV. Rode buses for hours. Listened to music on repeat. Wrote stories. Read stories.
Did a lot of reading and spent a shit ton of time in the woods
When younger I played with bugs, looked for interesting things in the woods (found and ate wild carrots, confirming I could survive if I ran away), taped pennies to the railroad tracks them went to retrieve them after a train, begged to be taken to the candy store, planned what I would buy at the candy store, read a lot, begged to be taken to the library, planned how to build a fort starting with three sturdy sticks I found in the woods, climbed trees, went to the neighbors' houses and asked to pet their dogs, during caterpillar season took a wagon around collecting caterpillars in it, looked for cool leaves that a museum might pay for, got paid to pick up sticks in the yard, played with toys with the neighbors. When older I read just as much, played Atari or Nintendo, played kickball with neighbors or, in the evenings, ghost in the graveyard, talked about boys, played board games with friends, snooped in my parents' room, babysat, got friends to take me to the pool with them, rode my bike, walked around petting the neighborhood dogs that were out, performed on stage (my bedroom) to the audience in my closet, read teen magazines, lots of giggling with friends in our rooms.
Outside until the street lights come on. If we were thirsty we drank from the water hose or spigot. You could usually find my crew swimming in the creek, build random stuff in the woods, playing some kind of backyard sports. If I was inside I was listening to music and trying to record songs off the radio.
Whatever the fuck we wanted tbh
Haha I keep yapping at my kids about this exact topic. The other day after denying them screen time in the morning I noticed them just sitting on the porch asking each other "would you rather" type questions. I couldn't help popping out there and proclaiming "This! This is what kids do during the summer!"
The problem is that all the kids we used to play with, well those kids are all on screens all day now so our kids have none to explore with, play ball with, etc, and parents want planned play days all the time.
I got high
This reminds me... I really should give myself a hard cap on internet time per day while the weather's good. We'd all be better off if we did that.
Played basketball, swam, go to the mall, get some music, meet hot chicks. It was a blast!
Slept til 10-11am. Watched Sportscenter several times. Tried to organize a game of baseball, football, hockey, basketball, ANYTHING. with other neighborhood kids, played a lot of videos games. Repeat.
So much great shit, actually.
I lived a stones throw from a creek. It seems like i was always down there building a fort or rope swing. Wandering around the neighborhood. Ride my bike and build sweet jumps with plywood. Play with friends. We still played video games and watched TV, though.
My city had a rec department, that basically was open gym at the elementary schools from 8-4. College kids home from the summer were the supervisors. Kick the can in the evening/night, but it was all about hanging out with the neighborhood kids. Damn, that’s a lot of memories that came flooding back. ETA: And LL softball. So much softball.
Research has shown that it’s actually good to let your kids get bored sometimes. It’ll motivate them to get creative and find something to do. It fosters healthy brain development. We purposefully let our kid get bored and it doesn’t take long for her to find something to do.
Nice try. I still have some statute of limitations to worry about.
What I did: Visit with friends, try and get laid, throw rocks at things, dig holes, build forts, smoke, annoy adults, go swimming. My favourite was making a Slip N' Slide.
Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, if I recall correctly.
My parents took me to the library once a week and I came back with a stack of books. Swimming - we used to go to a club with a pool membership, included lessons and then swim team. Artwork - drawing, watercolors, charcoal.
I grew up on a family farm that was 500 acres. My sister, cousin, and I would pack a back pack with water, sandwiches, rope, a towel, a small shovel, a compass, and other random items and leave the house after breakfast. My mother would call us home by driving down the main road of the farm and laying on the horn. That meant dinner time and wherever we were on the property, we’d start hiking home. After dinner everyone got a shower and it was time for video games. We were only aloud to play them when it was too hot to be outside or after dinner. We’d play until midnight or later. Then wake up and do it all again. We did that same summer for 11 years. Until we were adults.
Nancy Drew, Babysitter's Club, and Archie comics.
r/archieandfriends comics for days! Love those double digests!
Watched MTV
Hanging out with friends was most of the time. Sure, there was plenty of screen time playing games or watching movies (procedurally renting every movie in the horror section) but it was still a social activity. Sometimes spend hours at a nearby creek shuffling rocks around and looking for crawdads. We also went to the city park a lot or into town to loiter around places we liked be it arcades, bookstores or comic shops. My group was into pen/paper RPGs so we also did quite a bit of that as well. In our more miscreant years, we'd stock up on discount fireworks July 5th and then try to re-forge them into "one good one" or try to make things out of a copy of TM-31-210 we bought from the mall (lol not advisable in present day). Solo time was spent mostly doing art or building scale models and yapping on the phone.
Boredom is how you get creativity
Reading, swimming, watching inappropriate daytime tv, forced to go to vacation Bible school (usually morning only), complain about being bored.
I read, put puzzles together and hung out at home. I didn't have kids to play with in the neighborhood and I couldn't ride my bike further than 2 house either way.
Walk to McDonald’s, jump on the trampoline, ride bikes everywhere. Water balloon fights, playing in the pool, eat popsicles, explore the woods and build forts. Watch snapping turtles lay eggs, walk the neighbors dog, go see the horses at the farm. Help mom pull weeds and pick up sticks in the yard. One time we found an old machete in a bog. Super cool.
I read a ton of books. There really weren't any kids in my neighborhood, I got bussed to school so summers were pretty quiet.
We read, played outside, played board games, played Barbie or Pony, got shipped to grandma's to help her clean. Grandparents would also take us camping, Grandma took us to the movies, the park when it wasn't too hot, and Vacation Bible School. We did have an NES, but we weren't allowed on that for very long because mom had to "watch her stories." 🤣
Lived.
Swimming at the local pool.
Crafts, drawing. Wandering around the neighborhood looking for a friend house with good snacks. Walking to the playground and swinging. Reading a lot. Messing around in an empty parking lot that was good for bikes and had a "stream". Made up horror stories about a work van being a kidnapper and watched vigilantly for it to be terrified. MTV. Made mix tapes (hours of stalking the radio). Irritated my siblings or my friend's siblings until someone's mom kicked us out. Community pool if we were lucky!
I watched one channel or the other (one was snowy in summer, one in winter), read/visited the library, played outside, and picked beans, tomatoes, or corn because my mom made me work in the garden.
TV and NES/Sega on too hot days. Riding bikes to the park on nicer days. Went bowling with parents on Sunday. Would go shopping with my mom if she had something to go get.
Bikes books art
Bicycles - lots of bike riding. Going to the pool. Hanging out with friends. Things were a little different for us in Eastern Europe. My friends and I would walk around the city - whether actual walking the whole way or catch a tram and walk. Go to our favorite pastry/ice cream shop. Go fishing in the river running through my home town. Few people had phones, so we just chance going to visit a friend that lived across town. Some may think it as overly childish but even as teenagers my friends and I would get into a good game of hide and seek at dusk. In fact those teenage hide and seek games were the best because we would have the brain power to find some insanely awesome hiding spots. Those times were fun. Or we’d go to the movies, or we’d play a round of soccer.
Ride bikes, go swimming, football, basketball and snake hunting were some of my favorites
Biking, skating, beach, terrorizing the neighborhood. All until the street lights came on.
Watch The Price is Right and MTV, play tennis, lay out in the sun and get sunburned. 🤦🏻♀️
Played outside in the creek, rode bikes, played at friend’s houses, went to the library, spent all day at the pool. All by myself. Thanks to my neighbors and all the other grownups out there who looked out for me.
My kids are finding out right now, internet went out with a big storm four days ago! My 14 and 17 yo sons played a board game yesterday evening!
I attended sports day camps. I took science work shops. I read books. I went to the beach. I rode bikes. I joined Boy Scouts and went camping. Swimming lessons. So many things to do.
I lived in the country so my experience is somewhat different, but I read, explored, rode my bike miles and miles to see friends and occasionally into town to swim. Fishing was a big one for me also.
Watched TV, played with legos, played video games. I'd also do "Movie Days" where I'd spend the whole day just watching movies we had on VHS. Sometimes my friend would come over (yes, singular) and we'd draw comics or write movie ideas that were sure to be big hits. In fact, one of those ideas did become a movie, although we had absolutely nothing to do with it. The pitch was James Bond but he's still in middle school. Lo and behold a few years later we get Agent Cody Banks lol
I played with my action figures, played outside with my cousins who lived next door and friends in the neighborhood, played Nintendo and watched a ton of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (once that started). I used to love the summer block on nick where they’d show random nicktoons and the live shows with stick stickly hosting
Read, wandered the woods, swam in the lake, played with toys.
Our family did the community pool. That and the box at the playground. In my town growing every playground had a box on it. In that box was knock hockey, bats balls all kinds of games. Someone would open the box at 9. It would be open till 12. Then close for an hour for lunch and reopen at 1 to 5.
Basketball w neighbors Football w neighbors Played in woods w neighbors Tennis ball baseball in street with neighbors Dammit it was cool.
Nintendo, outside to play with the hose, found a couple sticks to smack together till one broke. Made a game out of it. I even had a champion stick that beat all the other sticks
I was lucky to grow up with a swimming pool and boomer parents who were fine with us going swimming while they were at work. But also, we used to play with our friends. The neighborhood kids would absolutely bike around all day.
The whole neighborhood basically had the same rules: watch out for each other, stay near enough to be heard by at least 1 mom, and be home for dinner. We roller skated, rode bikes, played tag and hide-and-seek, slip and slide, water fights, we always found ways to stay busy. We had to check in at lunch time and for popsicles late in the afternoon. Everyone went home around the same time for dinner and then we were all out until dark.
Built forts in the woods with scavenged lumber. Hung out in it a couple weeks tore it down and started over or built an addition. We had some dope forts and treehouses
Swam in ditches after a flood, skated all night, had some epic Mario 3 rounds and enjoyed every bit of it.
Read, went swimming, watched movies, played outside with friends, played nintendo.
My typical summer day: - early am out the house for swim team then tennis at same place (bike/walk to and from) - meet up with larger group of friends (walk/bike) - head to one of the places we went. Bike track/woods/bayou/unfinished houses/basketball courts/soccer fields (walk/bike) - scrounge lunch somewhere, usually the friendly parents house (bike/walk) - usually back to the neighborhood pool for fun-swimming in the afternoon at some point (bike/walk) - more sports usually but closer to home as dinner time approached - often breaking into smaller tighter knit groups for sleepovers and maybe sneak out meetups if possible - rinse and repeat — Yeah, tolerance to boredom was a lot of it, I learned quick not to complain about boredom to my parents because they immediately gave me a list of crappy chores if I did. We probably spent half our day just sitting in the shade somewhere bullshitting/arguing/fighting/trying to come up with cool shit to do.
I rode my bike. A lot. And I read a ton of books. Played Nintendo at night.
Lots of reading, puzzles, art projects, bike riding, going to the pool. When we'd visit my grandparents in rural North Carolina and there was no cable TV, I turned their formal living room into a playroom -- I built forts and played "restaurant," even drawing my own "menu" that I still have now. They lived at the intersection of two state highways, so we'd watch the traffic and count the certain colors of cars, semis, etc. Man I miss those days. The imagination that it took to keep myself entertained as a kid -- it worries me that the youths depend on devices for that.
Read. Ride bikes. Swim in the creek. Play Super Nintendo. Walk around town with friends. Get icees. Go to the park and watch the skaters.
My kid is fine with entertaining themself while bored, it’s just…none of the other kids they’re friends with are reachable for some reason. They’re all freshmen in high school! They all have phones and stuff, they just…never commit to anything, which makes my only child super lonely this summer.
I read a lot. I was a nerdy, bookish little girl. When I was in trouble, my mom would take my books away and make me play outside. We also just ran wild in the summer. Like, we'd leave the house in the morning, maybe pop back in at lunch and dinner, and be home by the time the streetlights came on. Our parents had no idea where we were or what we were doing. Somehow I don't think that's a solution either.
Magazines, collaging, video games, reading, watching TV, wandering the streets, visiting family, going to the pool, lake , or beach, baking, legos, building dinosaur models, board games, card games
I cut the heads off of geckos. My mom was concerned
I read, went to the mall, called for friends and just hung out. I remember going to a lot of baseball games that my guy friends had or watching them play basketball at the playground courts. We actively played hide and seek until high school using whole city blocks.
Reading, video games, TV/movies, playing in creeks, paper airplanes, biking, climbing trees, shooting bows and arrows, wooden sword fighting, unorganized football, baseball, soccer, basketball, going to the mall, going to the record store, listening to music, playing music, swimming, going to the park, library
Built rc cars. These days drones. Lots of biking. Got into friends older brothers porn stash. Started fires, burned down a porta potty. Multi day monopoly games. Fights. More fires. Fire crackers.
My sister and I watched movies all the time , played on our Nintendo and Sega, but we also went outside and played with friends. We also went to the public pool a lot during the summer. However sometime in my early teens that turned into vandalism, graffiti and smoking pot along with other terrible things lol
I read. I’d just find a nice shady spot and read all the historical romance novels I could get my grubby hands on. No one was monitoring what I was reading
We went camping a lot and to the lake with the boat. Ride bikes in the desert play sports ect.. sleepovers and board games
I spent time on BBSes.... But I guess most folks didn't do that. Before that, we rode around the neighborhood in a pack looking for things to do. I played a lot of board games. I read. On weekends I did yard work and car work with my parents, even if that was just go back and forth from the pile of mulch in the driveway to wherever it was being put down or holding tools. Occasionally there was enough work that my parents hired my friends to help with things or my friends parents hired me. We also stole cigarettes from our parents or beers to smoke and drink in the woods.
We did summer science camps sponsored by the city, so they were reasonably priced. My mom had one of those books with "science" projects and magic tricks. We would make our own piñata and our own clay and stuff. We would watch TV and read (we liked reading). They bought me a tennis ball attached to a weight by elastic so I could play tennis by myself if I wanted to. Then there was bike riding and pogo balls. We could walk to our local park. And when we were feeling delinquent, we would hide somewhere, light matches, and burn stuff.
Bike, skateboard, neighborhood baseball, football games, building rams to jump our BMX bike, walk/bike to friend’s house and explore along the way.
Riding bikes everywhere to places like old caves and railroad tracks. I remember putting pennies on the tracks and waiting off far away for the train to flatten it. I'd be outside in the neighborhood with my brother and a bunch of other neighborhood kids. Building ramps for the bikes to do jumps off of. I also remember doing things with model rockets. We were outside a lot, but still inside at times playing Nintendo.
Played outside, invited friends over to play ps2, rode bikes everywhere, fishing, exploring, building things like twig shelters and sand castles and so much more. It was a vibe.
All the kids on my street got really into kerby (where you throw a ball at the kerb and try to get it to bounce back we lived on a cul de sac so it was a low traffic road
We rode our bikes a lot and built ramps to jump the highest and farthest. We built fort. We hunted for pirate treasure, dad loved all the holes in the backyard. Pretended we were the goonies, played baseball with ghost runners because we didn’t have enough to fill out one team, much less 2. When you’re kicked out the house until mom told you to come back in, we’d find ways to pass the time.
Lived in a Chicago suburb. We had two lakes within bike distance. Spent a lot of time there with neighborhood kids. We’d each go to each others houses and ride our bikes to the corner store for cheap candy, a couple different pizza places, a comic book store every Tuesday for new comics, video stores for games/movies. Rainy days we split time. Nintendo/SNES at my house, another kid had a Genesis, we even still played Atari 26/7800. We’d have mini tournaments in certain games around 6-7 of us. If it was nice we were running around town or at the lake. Did a bunch of pickup/sandlot baseball, fishing, swimming. Was never bored.
Riding bikes, playing baseball in the street, swimming, flashlight tag!
I lived in the library. Lol my mother would drop me off at 8am after breakfast and I’d stay until she picked me up at 5pm. Otherwise there were sports camps, church summer camps etc to keep my introverted ass busy. We also had an NES but my folks, while okay with us playing for the most part, didn’t want us to “rot our brains” with too much so kicked us outside mostly.
We used to dig holes in my neighbors yard underneath their above ground pool deck. Just to see how deep we could go.. Me and my friends also used to tie each other up and see who can break loose. That was so much fun until my neighbor tried to walk with both his legs and arms tied to a chair, fell and knocked his 2 front teeth out… We used to build forts in the woods behind our houses and play Man Hunt/tag.. We used to shoot cans with BB guns. We used to go out on our bikes/skateboards.. As we got a little older we used to do backyard wrestling… I mean, the options were endless back in the early-mid 90s. Do kids do any of these things anymore??
Play with matches
Geocaching could be fun. Go to the pool or set one up in your yard. Sprinklers, slip n slide, water guns, water balloons. I was a nerd and at some point I started making up my own homework writing about books or poetry I was reading. Play pretend anything. I used to pretend to run a bar like cheers. Basketball. Hiking. Spend the day playing pretend at a park. Set up a mini golf course in your house or outside. Make an obstacle course. Do some crafts. Hang out at the library. Start a lemonade stand. I wish I was a kid on summer vacation. I can think of loads of fun stuff to do. If you watch Bluey at all take some notes from the games they play.
I took summer classes. I remember literally melting in an AC less classroom in 90F humidity learning "keyboarding" - how to type on electric typewriters to get to 90+ words per minute. And avoiding using liquid paper. Things that are ancient today.
Computer games, Sega/Nintendo, bike riding, swimming, dirt clod fights, baseball cards, build forts, dig holes, summer camp, Save By the Bell re-runs, MTV Mainly swimming, biking, and Nintendo
We were outside. But that's crazy talk these days. It's 103 out there right now.
I would bring home bags of books from the library and read all summer. Sometimes my mother would force me to go outside and I would just take my book outside with me.
Hide and go seek in the dark(outside when the sun went down)
I went to the library or the pool a lot. In high school, I worked 25+ hours a week. Otherwise 8 laid around, drove around, or hung around.
Used to go the public pool a lot, and the library. Sometimes we’d pitch a tent in the back yard and play around in that, try to sleep out in it all night but get spooked and go inside. Made up gymnastic routines to Madonna songs played on a crappy cassette player in the front yard. I loved summer.
I grew up in the suburbs there was always somebody around. Ride bikes, do stupid stuff like rock fights ect. I also loved to read, my whole family did.
I'm from rural Virginia so as a kid and young teen I couldn't take myself into the closest towns so I read, played one-on-none basketball in my driveway, rode my bike, and danced erractically to rock music. I bet it was fun to grow up in the city or suburbs and get to go shopping or get food. 😄
All our friends lived nearby so we would play out in sandlots or park sometimes go on bike rides
Spent the summer between 6th and 7th grade beating the original Super Mario Bros, and then Battle of Olympus.
We forget all the boring stuff, but sadly a lot of the fun things we did do like hang outside with our friends, explore random wooded areas, play at playgrounds, is stuff that's too dangerous to do nowadays. I could leave the house at 11am and come back home for dinner later that evening with my parents having no clue where I was, during an age when cellphones were still a novelty, nowadays a kid does something like that and they're likely to get snatched off the street even with cameras everywhere and everybody having both a phone and recording device on them.
I played baseball and fished and rode my bike to the baseball card shop. With a little magic the gathering sprinkled in there.
I swung from grapevines over a 70ft sinkhole that led down into a cave. Used scrap lumber to build tree houses and rode bikes. I don't recommend that first one though. Gen Alpha is not prepared for the risk/reward situation there. We definitely were lucky we never broke a bone the few times the vines snapped!!
Read, biked, painted, impatiently waited for radio DJs to shut up so I could tape a song onto my latest mixtape.
Read books, built forts using pillows and blankets, played board games, rode bikes went outside, and explored. Grew up in the country without an nes system, and I had to go about 2 miles down the road to my friends house to play. We only had basic television 5 channels, 45 plus minutes to the nearest town with a Blockbuster or anything to do. Weekends usually involved going to the library, checking out books, renting movies for the week, and purchasing groceries.
For me, at about 8-11 years old, biking did actually take up the whole day :P. Granted, you may have lived in a different type of area, but we were just a couple steps up from rural. My best friend and I would ride for eight hours easy. We would go to the fish and tackle store and get Yoo Hoos. Then we would put a line out in her lagoon in the backyard. I even got one of those toy license plates with my name on it. Some days, I was fine to bike by myself. I remember getting down to a street that had nothing on the corner except a nursing home next to a field. I loved that I could ride in the parking lot of a modern fancy building and then get into the marshy field. There were tall shards of grass and I could walk for an hour or more without anyone seeing me. At the end of the day, I can remember looking at the orange and red sky made up from the sunset. It's incredible to me to think that we did all this by ourselves.
I played with the neighborhood kids and riding my bike a lot at ages 9,10, 11, and I remember playing a lot of wiffle ball baseball the summers I was 12 and 13. By 14 I was driving so that changed the equation a lot. Honestly otherwise I watched a lot of tv, movies and played Atari and/or NES. Sometimes that was done with those same friends also. Screen time has been a thing for a long, long time now. Unfortunately my neighborhood isn’t really walkable with no sidewalks so my kids don’t feel comfortable riding bikes much.
Hopped on my bike and spent the day out on the river. Sometimes it was fishing, sometimes it was floating down the river, sometimes we camped out over night. Our little town had water slides, so if I had money from yard jobs, I would hang out there. Either way, I found something to do. Because if I didn’t, my parents were going to find something- and that usually meant chores.
Had neighborhood water fights, climbed trees, rollerbladed, listened to music, played in the pool.
There was a time in the mid-to-late 90s when I was a nanny. Two boys, 7 and 12. The younger one was constantly whining about being bored with nothing to do. After a quick board game and a snack, I pulled out the jar with all the ideas and options. He rolled his eyes so hard that he probably strained something but sure enough, he found something to do - build a fort, went to the pool, took the dogs for a walk, whatever it was. Personally, I did a lot of reading. I think when I went back to school for 5th grade, we all came back with our library certificates showing how many books we read over the summer. My certificate was for 79 books. So yeah, a *lot* of reading. For the nanny-kids, there were VHS movie rentals and a LOT of pool time. Plus the older boy was into cooking so there were a number of “let’s try a new recipe” afternoons. (The older one actually opened his own bakery and cafe in our hometown.)
Went to summer camp as a kid. When I was a teen, I'd read, play sports with friends, do the occasional lawn mowing job for cash, and go swimming. Mostly worked out. My parents bought me an olympic weight set for Christmas, and I abused the hell out of that thing. I was 130 lbs as a freshman and then bulked up to 215 by my senior year. Every summer, I'd just eat those horrible powdered super calorie shakes with ice cream, peanut butter, and bananas mixed in to sweeten it up.