When your kids ask you to play with them

[Santa01]

I love my children more than anything but a shiver goes down my spine when they ask me to play with them, specially anything Lego/play doh or Sylvanian families related...

Please tell me I'm not the only one or else that I'm the worst parent for not getting excited about little rabbits or square pieces of plastic....

I find with these games that I’m somehow always doing something wrong with ever changing “rules”.

Exactly this!

I’ll be doing as I’m told and then my barbie will do something I want her to do like cook the tea or go for a shower but that’s not right because it’s time for her to lay on the floor and poop out her baby. Again. And again. AND AGAIN.

The scariest thing you can ever hear as a parent

“Daddy, lets play pretend”.

I have finally found my people....

I seriously thought there must be something broken in me, like why cannot I not just play with my DD?? Why do I avoid it soooo much??
So I'm glad to read I am not the only one!

I do try but something tends to go wrong! Today I was making her a robot outfit out of a cardboard box, she got her hair caught in it, threw a wobbly and refused to go near it after that... 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don’t remember anyone’s parents playing pretend with them when we were kids, or is that just me?

Same. I do it because it'd feel like a terrible mum if I didn't but I don't enjoy it. I get the shiver room. I'm a great outdoorsy mum. Love taking them places for outdoor fun. Often at different places doing different things. I enjoy books and puzzles and games. Love playing proper games with them. But detest arts and crafts. Hate it. I'm shit at it and have just accepted it. I do the avoidance thing far too much ya know the 'yeh. Let me just (insert x y z) then I'll be right with you' i hate myself for it really

I’ve just told 3yo DS that I’m not playing hide and seek anymore. I just can’t. He just stands in the middle of the room giggling and I have to pretend I’ve lost him

Also I’m not fond of the chase me, chase you game. I’ve already done a 40 minute HIIT I don’t really want to jog a couple of miles as well!

Ps my mum barely ever 'got on the floor' and played with us. They weren't pressured too like we are. I don't think any worse of her for it to be honest. We knew when we had to entertain ourselves and let her do housework etc.

Mine are 3 and 4 and have learnt quickly that I am crap at playing pretend. They spend the whole time going mummy say this, no mummy not like that, no mummy Anna cant do that, no mummy Elsa doesnt say that say this, now you say this mummy.

God I cant bare it

I'd rather do pretend play than 'arts and crafts' my blood runs cold when I do the dutiful 'getting the paint out' I've bought myself books and looked on YouTube on how to do crafty bits but I'm just shit at it. I'm heavy handed clumsy impatient with detail. I just hate it and wish I was a more 'home made' fancy arty mummy but I'm just not . Am I the only one that'd rather to pretend shit than arts and crafts?

Lego would be great if I was just left alone to create my masterpiece. Instead I'm met with "main objective - defeat bad guy" every. time. Then have to spend the next half an hour waving a Lego man around saying pew pew. Makes my brain die.

Signing up. I have 3 with the youngest being 11 now, so pretty much pastime stage of all pretend/role play on the floor with the Playmobil and what not. God I really struggled with it. I’m imaginative and I like stories so always thought I’d be a top-notch pretend play mum. Turns out it’s the most tedious and inane pastime there is. Like other posters I’ll do an activity, read, exercise, trips out, arts and crafts...fine. My heart used to sink at being handed a plastic figure to bob about with. Such drivel. I’m sorry...but it is.

*past the stage

@anxietrist that's funny

I'm very good at activities but my heart always sinks when DD2 asks me to play kitchens or any type of role play game. You are not alone OP!

Play doh and were lego fine. Wasnt so keen on playing imaginative play with them

Pleeease will someone tell me that hate arts and crafts and are shit at it? I feel so alone

Thankyou for this thread.Ive always felt like I wasnt a "proper" mum coz I just can't let myself go enough to do play.

DS is 7. All he wants to do at the moment is play plants vs zombies. Not the iPad game. Us, reenacting the game live.

But I’m not allowed to do ANYTHING. Whatever I suggest it me “doing it wrong”, when I ask him what the game involves I nod off during his unbelievably long-winded descriptions that still boil down to the fact that I’m not allowed to do ANYTHING.

It makes me want to drown myself in the paddling pool.

@StarShapedWindow
Mummy's dont play ??
Really

Im so happy reading all your replies knowing I'm not the only one who cries silently inside when a mini Anna or Elsa is handed to me, you be Anna and I'll be Elsa... And that I'm never allowed to be Elsa... Ever!! I'm pretty crap at arts and crafts too, and my eldest loves them, id happily colour but that's about the limit of my artistic talent..

Thanks all you have made me feel a lot better, roll on a summer of avoidance

It’s the never ending-ness of the pretend play I can’t bear. Board games, colouring, etc there’s an end point!

I cannot stand pretend play either. I’ve started setting a timer, and telling DD I will do it for 30 minutes only.

That's why I had 2 kids close together!

Oh how I dreaded "play with me mummy!"
DS had a masterplan.
I could not telepathicly interpret the masterplan in order to carry out my part perfectly.
DS inevitably had a meltdown.
I usually stomped off as soon as I could.
It turns out that he has ASD which explains the perfectionism.

I lived in a fantasy Narnia like world in my head. My parents did not play with me in that way.

I'm great at doing things. Board games with agreed rules, fine. Getting out, fantastic. I would even do craft, but I have the wrong children for that. But not telepathically entering the fantasy world of a mini-dictator.

Smilebehappy - yes, really!