Rural Living Entertainment

[rekees4300]

"I'm trying to find a cheap way to provide some entertainment for my younger kids."

Be careful what you wish for because you may get it. My Grandson (now 10) grew up watching Grand Thief Auto and other video game garbage. Needless to say his brain is totally F'd up. He can't distinguish between reality from video games.

 

[Gunny]

Get them interested in reading books. As others have mentioned, when I was young, we only had 3 TV channels to watch and Dad was the highest priority on which channel was on at the time. Rather than watch Lawrence Welk, I'd just sit on the couch and read a book.

Anytime it was too dark, cold or wet to play outside, I'd usually have a book in my hand unless we were playing Scrabble to Monopoly with Mom in the kitchen.

It became a life long habit, I still love reading.

 

[jerrybob]

Like others say......get them outside........sports......gardening.......just ole playin around. Reading inside can be a real pleasure and fun. It is a shame kids today need all those electronic gizmo's to have fun and entertain themselves. Tell them to go build a fort......or a treehouse. Fishing or hunting is a great thing to teach them. More families need to be without the internet and smart phones.

 

[George2615]

I agree with most of the others and this reminded me of this story about seniors and the younger generation.

SENIORS

A very self-important college freshman attending a recent football game took
it upon himself to explain to a senior citizen sitting next to him why it was​ ​
impossible for the older generation to understand his generation.

"You ​grew up in a different world, actually an almost primitive one,'" the​ ​
student said, loud enough for many of those nearby to hear. "The young​ ​people
of today are much more advanced than people your age. We grew up with​ ​
television, jet planes, space travel, man walking on the moon and the Internet.​ ​
We have cell phones, nuclear energy, electric and hydrogen cars, computers,​ ​
automated manufacturing, amazing technologies,..." and he paused to take​ ​
another drink of beer.

The​ ​senior took advantage of the break in the student's litany and said,​ ​
"You're right, son. We didn't have those things when we were young ... so​ ​we
invented them. Now, you arrogant little s***, what are YOU doing for​ the next
generation?"

The applause was resounding.

I love senior citizens (Maybe it's because I are one!)

Most kids today have no imagination or willpower to do something useful with their time.

 

[bigtiller]

I remember spending my summers playing in the crick. It was half a mile walk through the corn field to get there but I had the whole world to to save when I got there.

Bicycle riding used up a lot of time also.

 

[Alien]

Some great Karaoke sets available. They are quite popular with kids (and adults)

 

[MossRoad]

I currently live in very rural area of Texas, with very little access to internet at dial-up speeds. I'm trying to find a cheap way to provide some entertainment for my younger kids. If anyone one has ideas I would love any suggestions.

Thanks

Books. Outdoors. Animals. Libraries have all kinds of A/V stuff on DVD, too.

But I'll tell ya, they are going to need electronic communications skills as they get older. Its essential to learn keyboarding, internet usage, how to look things up, how to deal with things you see that you shouldn't see (some adults need that training, too). I can't think of a local school here that doesn't do something with online learning, parent's access to school records/functions/calendar, etc.... just a fact of the times. We have friend's whose kids didn't have good internet access AND were attending crappy local schools... double whammy. The kids are really, really struggling in college now.

Small game systems with time limits and educational games VS shoot 'em ups.

We had a really fun typing tutor in game format on the PC that both our kids learned to type on. They learned so well, that we got some free after-school care because our kids would go do keyboard work for the school office after school.... we're talking about 6th graders typing faster than the adults. :laughing:

 

[hslogger]

Get em some baby chicks. build a chicken house. get a puppy. Get a pair of rabbits. start gardening in pots or large old containers

 

[roadhunter]

I always get a kick out of these. You live in a really rural part of Houston TX? LOL. Hard to be in a very rural area with millions of folks nearby IMO.

As to your problem simply turn on your smart phone's wifi when the kids are up so they can use their devices or get some other sort of cell tower internet. I also live in a very rural area (less than 100k people within 2 hours) and use cell tower internet for streaming.

 

[stuckmotor]

Net Flix still ships DVDs through the mail.