Even if you don't plan on ever homeschooling, kids love to learn. My kid has only ever watched limited TV (no other devices), and hasn't asked to watch any TV in over two months. So screen time has been 0 ever since.

What changed? Besides consistently getting 10-20 library books per week, I started homeschooling. My kid loves doing math problems, reading lessons, and crafts. On the plus side, it's probably a big benefit if your kid ends up thinking schoolwork is fun :)

I will do some one-on-one lessons, as well as giving my kid 5-10 pages in the workbook to do on alone while I get things done. Overall, I'd say my kid spends about 2-3 hours a day doing various math and spelling problems in a workbook and with fun math books from the library... both with me and without me.

I hated schoolwork as a kid, and this could be because my early experiences with schoolwork weren't presented as fun activities. Of course, all kids are different but it wouldn't hurt to try.

There has never been a time in history where parents (especially moms) were constantly entertaining their kids. For most of human history, kids would either play with sticks in the mud or do farm chores for their parents all day. Some weird bug has gotten into modern parents' brains that they believe it's their job to constantly entertain their kids, and that should they fail to do so, their kid won't feel loved or something. This is not only incredibly ridiculous, it's harmful to the parents and children. To name just one reason, it teaches them that boredom is a bad or scary thing. Normalize "alone time"; there may be some whining, but strong boundaries and a firm response will decrease this. My child has 1.5 hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon of "alone time" where we're both in our rooms doing our own thing (For young toddlers under 3, alone time can be in the living room in a gated play area with check-ins and kisses every 15-20 min while you're in the kitchen). The point is, you do not need to be playing with them or entertaining them ALL DAY LONG. They can and will entertain themselves.

Duplo, books, arts and crafts, dolls... kids are more than capable of this. From the age of 3+, kids will actually ask to help all the time. They need and love this. Before my kid turned 4, I used to unfortunately have the mindset of "I don't wanna deal with accidents/messes" and "It'll go so much faster if I do it alone" and I realize now those would have been a lot of quality moments. Luckily I became aware of these habits and changed course. I even bought my kid a cleaning kit from Doug + Melissa and my kid will "sweep" and "dust" the entire kitchen while I'm cooking, if not helping me with small tasks. Getting them involved in whatever chores you're doing also helps a ton when it comes to instilling good habits.

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From big cities to small rural counties, libraries have storytime, art classes, take home art kits, and much more. Often times when we go to these events, there are only 2 families there :(

The less people go, the less funding they get for these programs. Sticking to borrowing physical copies of books also helps.

Libraries across the country are struggling due to the demand for ebooks (I know they have their place, but I very much prefer physical books). With ebooks, major corporations such as Amazon license them out to libraries, and require the libraries to continually pay for the right to lend them out; libraries never actually own ebooks while they do own their physical copies. Essentially, Amazon eats up a lot of taxpayer money that should be reserved for physical books and other library programs.