A friend of mine was telling me that on the occasional times she left her kids home alone they would complain about being bored. She limited their video watching and I believe cut their television out. (that is a good thing). Another friend commented that when she complained of being bored as a child, her mother would say all the different chores you could do. At that moment, I thought about my childhood and what my brother and I would do when we were bored.
Actually, I don't remember being that bored because my brother was extremely creative. J and I had our own big box that our dad flipped over and cut holes in so we could put our head and arms through. It made us kind of look like robots. We would also pretend that the box was our motorhome and run around the house and yard in it. Yet another use of the box was our "General Store." We would sit inside the box and would have stamps, stickers, etc. for sale on the top of the box. We would take turns shopping at each other's store. It seems like we basically swapped pennies from our piggy bank.
Another great pastime was riding our bicycles behind my dad when he was mowing. We never got close enough to him to be dangerous. Our family had a huge square yard out in the country so there was plenty of room for us to do that. We lived in a white farm house out in the middle of nowhere. (from K-6th grade for me)
All of this happened before Nintendo, Playstation, and X-box. It was also before we had a VCR in the home. The television we would watch in the summer was "The Andy Griffith" show at noon. I realize now how much television and movies dominate my life. My goal for the summer is to be creative and have projects to do instead of sitting in front of the tube. I will begin after my season finales are over. : )
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
We didn't have a TV growing up, but I don't remember being bored either! In fact, we always hoped that Mom would be gone longer than she said, so we would get more reading time.
I remember we had gotten the large flat boxes from Costco that cans/juice would come in...and we made open-top "houses" for our little Strawberry Shortcake dolls! LOL! We used checkers to be plates in the kitchen...and Silly Putty to make food for them! My favorite to make was a cherry pie...and yes, I rolled tiny cherries and made the criss-cross lattice topping too!
The most ironic of this play is that I was always the "office worker" or "cashier" while my sister was the "mom" with kids and "babysat" my child while I worked!! =D Today, I am the business major and office administrator, while she became a preschool teacher and stays home now and watches kids!
I like to find things other than the TV to fill some of my evenings. Dar prefers to watch TV AND do other things. I don't always feel like having constant media input, but it is work to find other ways to spend your time. Good luck finding other things you enjoy!
Boxes. I read this blog and mentioned it to my daughter. We apparently had miscommunication, she didn't know she could play with boxes! They are getting ready to go build homes as we speak and excited about it!
Post a Comment