To be concerned that my 10 year old is too childlike

Kids grow up way too fast these days. My DD is 10 and still plays with Barbies and Lego and role plays with her friends.. it’s all really normal. And an important part of childhood that many kids grow out of too soon, sadly. I was still playing with my dolls in year 7 and 8, though I didn’t let on to my friends at that point!

I think this sounds normal for year 5. My daughter’s friendship group contains children at this end of spectrum like my daughter and children who wear make up and talk about skin care and fashion. So far it doesn’t seem to cause any problems. My daughter’s imaginative play with friends is now moving into writing songs and stories together and pretending they are in a band.

I remember my nan and mother shaming me for still liking cuddly toys at this age and I think it was cruel of them.

My NDN’s 11/12 year old teenage boy is walked and collected by walking in his first year of secondary school, he’s NT not ND. I mean how bloody embarrassing is that?! Both his parents do this.

She sounds delightful !!

This. Let her alone

Great advice

So true!!

My dd is 11 and a pretty typical. Last time her friends came over for a sleepover they got all her playmobil out and played with it for ages. Let her be young for as long as possible!

She sounds so sweet. Make the most of your lovely little girl. It sounds like she’s great socially so no issues there. She’ll grow up soon enough.

She sounds lovely and it doesn't sound like it's causing any problems with friendships. Is she Y5? That seems to be when girls split apart a bit (in my admittedly limited experience!) with some with smartphones and being more interested in "grown-up" things and some very much like your daughter (my DD is also 9 and is very like yours - although it's mostly Pokemon cuddly toys now, and I do get told off if I speak about them where they can hear or handle them incorrectly!

The girls I knew up until our second year in secondary school were behaving like this a bit! Admittedly it was when Cabbage Patch Dolls and Care Bears and plush Garfield’s were in, and Pierrot dolls but we certainly did this to a degree up until about 14 and then we suddenly stopped. Next thing we were into boys!

At 9, almost 10 she’s still young and there’s nothing wrong with her doing this at all, she likes it and enjoys doing it so leave her be.

I actually recall DM coming to see me and DB watching a childish but fun (and too young for us) tv programme for kids and saying it was too young when I was about 10 and DB about 8 but it was fun and silly and that’s why we liked it.

She’s a child. Once she starts senior school, she will change.😳

Let her be. I was still playing with Barbies when I was nearly 12!!
It's better than being glued to a screen 24/7.
Just enjoy her child like innocence while you can.
It won't last and you will one day wonder where your lovely little girl went .

All sounds like very age appropriate play at the moment OP.

I agree with other posters that some children are pulled out of this childhood phase much too early (largely through smart phones and/or tablets enabling easy access to social media and the Internet, or sometimes though difficulties at home )

I’d say revisit this in a year’s time. If the chasm between here and her friends’ interests has widened by then, you might want to consider possible reasons for it. At this age though, it’s hard to say, particularly as she’s generally social.

My 9 year old is exactly the same. Plays in the exact same way. Believes in the tooth fairy, Father Christmas etc.

It has crossed my mind that she's getting a bit old for this, but realistically, I know she's going to grow out of this soon. I'll miss it so for now, I'm just going to enjoy it as she's my last baby.

Don't worry, OP, just enjoy your lovely child.

I’d encourage her to write stories about them. Channel that imagination!

Mine was like this at age 10. All pink dresses, teddies and imaginative games.

It's sweet and lovely, but it didn't make for a very happy Year 6 when the cachet in the playground became all about who had a phone and a boyfriend.

She had been popular before but suddenly the social circles were all redrawn and she struggled. She realised she had to grow up for secondary school and kind of reinvented herself for it.

And of course this kind of imaginative play is something that many of us keep as full-blown adults. I'm sure that my relationship with my houseplants has something of the same quality (I sometimes talk to them, or even apologise and explain if one is left out when its neighbours are watered). And of course every rime we read a novel etc we are investing intense emotions in beings that don't really exist.

It's extremely bad for their mental health. One of the reasons why teen mental health is in crisis. You sum it up brilliantly.

I agree wrt responsibilities in the family. It would be very good for boys in particular to look after younger siblings a bit more. Perhaps girls too — as I was involved in bringing up a younger sibling, I was surprised at how unfamiliar friends found the responsibilities of motherhood. Also, the UK might be more child-friendly if more adults had experience with looking after children (although it could go quite the other way...!).

Children are often under a lot of pressure at school, though, so I don't think they're free of responsibility — just a different sort.

She sounds lovely. Imaginative play for a 9 year old is wonderful and appropriate.

My 11 year old son has about 10 soft toys in his bed all lined up with special roles and personalities. He plays with them (though not to the extent OP's daughter does) and gets very cross if I accidentally "squash" one. Seems normal to me, but then I have my own soft toys in my bed! 😂

it's really striking how much we've simultaneously started expecting children to grow up really early and to not have any actual responsibility or independence.

This sentence from an earlier poster really made me stop and think. It hadn't really struck me how strange and potentially damaging this double whammy is. Children (especially girls) are pressured to leave 'childlike' behaviours too soon and begin to ape the intensely peer-pressured behaviours and attitudes of later adolescence. But it is also true that we deny children and adolescents their independence to a greater extent than at any time in recent history. And that they tend to lack the responsibilities they may have had in the past (taking over the care of younger siblings for a large part of each day, or even contributing to support family farming/income/whatever).
This goes on for quite a large chunk of time in their later childhood and adolescence. What does it do to people - to deny them the freedoms both of childish imagination and of more mature self-direction for such a chunk of time?