8 year old outgrown toys :(

[NoMoreToys]

As title says really.

8 year old DD refuses to play with toys at all, they have age appropriate things and things they’ve asked for like Lego, barbie dolls/lol dolls etc. But she just will not play.

I’ve taken away the tablet, switch and TV but she just sits. She won’t even do any badges for Brownies because “I’m just not into it anymore” I think she’ll like give it up in September when she goes back even though she loves the actual meetings – she does enjoy the craft when I make her do them but then it’s me nagging her to do it and just feels like it’s not worth the effort for me, she rushes through it in a few seconds and then gets annoyed when they tell her she needs to put more effort it.

This holiday has been the worst in terms of entertaining her, she hates holiday club all of a sudden, so moans about that, and when at home I get told she’s bored approximately every 9 seconds, when I tell her she’s got toys to play with she says they’re boring. I took her to Smyths toy store to choose something new to see if that helped and we came out empty handed, she said everything was too babyish.

She happily does chores but it’s just the two of us at home, so once it’s hoovered, the beds are made and the washing ups done there’s still 6-8 hours a day to fill.

She just seems so little to have outgrown toys, I’m sure I still played with toys (without telling my friends) until I was 12 or 13.

She wants me to take her out all the time, but the park is boring. She wants to do the cinema or zoo or similar everyday which are all a drive away and I also have to work.

She’s an only child so that probably adds to it as there isn’t anyone else to play with. She’s also not into makeup or doing nails or bathbombs or similar really (seems a bit young for those yet anyway).

So what can I do? Is it just tablets or consoles now until she’s a bit older?

I just want an hour of quiet everyday she’s home to catch up on emails or finish off a few bits of admin for work which she has been more than capable of since she was about 6.

Even lockdowns where easier than this as she’d play to get out of doing schoolwork.

So, she'll literally just sit there doing nothing all day unless she has a tablet?

Does she not have a bike? Scooter? Puzzles? Art stuff? Camera to make movies with? Does she not go swimming/splash park? Friends to see?

Does she not like music? Skateboard/roller skates? Tennis? Anything???

Sounds like she needs to get bored, and is old enough to be made to think of something to do herself.

"I'm bored" she should be met with "then find something to do, you have x, y ,z." Or similar.

Is she willing to get rid of the toys? There were many things that I thought my DD didn’t play with, but she wouldn’t part with. Every now and again I find her knee deep in dolls and teddies, but she can go for weeks at a time without playing with toys.

What activities does she like to do at home?

My DD is 8 , nearly 9, and is very similar . If she doesn't have a screen she enjoys her colouring, drawing etc though . She loves pens and stationary . She's into chibi and kawaii style colouring books ..so not 'babyish' colouring books. Loads of craft / toy things we bought her for Xmas have been left untouched 😩.
She loves playing out on her trampoline and listening to music too .

@00100001 No garden so although she has a bike and scooter she needs me to physically take her somewhere to use them - then when we get there she'll moan it's boring.

She will literally sit and do nothing and constantly tell me she's bored if I don't take her somewhere or put the TV on or give her her tablet/consoles. If I tell her to find something to do she says she has nothing to do and the cycle repeats. If I ask for quiet while I send an email/catch up on a report I need to write/fill out this form for work, she sits next to me and wants to watch but then constantly says "I'm bored" or "what you doing?"

@Pixiedust878 She has said we can get rid of all her toys if we want to so we can then use the money to go out somewhere fun. She used to love doing her badges for Rainbows/Brownies, playing with her dolls house - not necessarily families she's pretend they were all a group of friends doing an activity or going to the zoo or similar - she also has a playmobil bus they'd all get on, now they sit untouched in her dolls house.

Well, I'd ask her to do "boring" things then whenever she's bored. Ask her to tidy her room, make the beds, empty the bins, do the washing up, put the laundry on etc.
And if she's says "no" then push it back to her to find something to do!

She's 8years old, not 8 months, she's more than capable of occupying herself

Does she not like doing things like dancing? Practice a routine and record it etc?

@00100001 she happily does housework, so I'll tell her to tidy up and she does it, but as there's only 2 of us it actually doesn't take that long and she keeps her room really tidy anyway.

@00100001 she's not really into dancing or anything, she literally wants entertaining every second of the day, unless she has TV/Consoles/Tablet which I don't want her on permenantly

Well, offer boring tasks then...let her get bored, make it clear you don't want to hear from her about being bored!

what about making cakes.
cleaning toys to get rid of them, brushing hair
would she do a painting by numbers?
sewing?

Give her busy work then. Ask her to do things like refold the towels...or reorganise her books by author/colour etc

Any school friends she could play with nearby? Cousins?

Does she like reading?

Can you get a friend round?
Otherwise ignore her while you get on with your jobs

DD is an only and never really played with toys. She's 12 now and I'm trying not to entertain her every minute of the day. I also limited screens to only after normal school hours.

So far this holiday she's been in the shed and dug out her old barbie dolls, removed their makeup using nail varnish remover, painted them using acrylic and given them funky new hairstyles and used her sewing machine to make them new clothes out of things shes out grown. This is the most she has EVER played with dolls or got the paints out without my suggestion.

She also dug out her ukelele and used tutorials on YouTube to learn a song.

How about baking? Even if it's following the instructions on a box mix and you do the hot tasks, DD used to enjoy being given the independence to do that at your DDs age.

I don’t remember ever playing with toys beyond toddler age. Spent a lot of time outside.

At 8-10 years, indoor things I would have done was stuff like:
-painting nails, trying new hair styles - often using parents/grandparents as ‘models’.
-baking muffins/biscuits/ sausage rolls.
-Lots of drawing, painting onto proper canvases with watercolours or acrylic paint, had a little table top easel.
— puzzles, with quite a lot of pieces, - reading a lot.

Does she play with toys with friends or cousins or anyone, there is a big difference with playing eith others and playing alone.
If she is not an imaginative child would she do 'tasks' for you while you do other things like build a marble run from her bedroom to the kitchen and they you will run things down it with her
Or build a really good den in the living room and then you will come and watch a film in it with her
If she is a sensible 8 could she pick out a recipe, go buy ingredients if a shop is close, and make it.

Is she lonely? If she doesn't want to draw or paint or build lego alone cpuld you play her some audiobooks or childrens podcasts so she has something with her

Then let her be bored!

She has a house full of toys yes but of course ‘doing things’ is more fun. I’ve found this with my two they don’t know how to be bored anymore.

They tell me they’re bored and I jump to fix that - let’s bake, let’s go to the park, let’s xyz.

Instead we came up with a bored jar and there’s activities THEY can do themselves. Beyond that I’ve parroted ‘go and find something to do then’ about 100000 times over the holidays and slowly it’s working.

DD built Lego this weekend after not having done that in over a year. DS is den building. Often kids don’t know how to play independently like we used to, it’s something they’ve simply got to learn with trial and error.

Could you set her a project? Sort of like non-compulsory school work on a topic she finds interesting?

Maybe she could spend some time cleaning up, photographing and listing the toys on eBay or similar.

It might be that she is lonely rather than bored. Has she got a way to see / contact friends over the summer?

Is there anything that uses the tv / consoles etc but incorporates other activities - such as watching instructions to pick up a new hobby (playing an instrument, sewing, sketching, cake decorating etc).

What little bits of new independence might she be ready for? Would you be happy with her going to the park on her own, or popping to the corner shop for you?

If it’s literally just an hour or two a day for you to get some work done though I wouldn’t feel too awful about her watching tv etc. It’s ok for her to have some down time and for lots of people these days that does include some sort of technology.

@Pixiedust878 She will walk to the park alone as I can see it from my kitchen window (Upstairs flat) but she never wants to go, she says it's boring.

Shop is over 2 miles walk away so I don't want her going alone, maybe in a year or so when she gets a phone.

If she bakes she asks me every 2 minutes for help. If I tell her to do it herself she says she can't.

She's seen her dad and is seeing him again in a week she has cousins there who're a bit older (9, 10 and 12 I think they are) but she apparently said she was bored and refused to talk to them, they tried a lot apparently (knowing them they probably did) but she just said she was bored and wanted to play her tablet (which ExH gave her of course 🙄)

She has friends at holiday club, from school and Brownies, but she doesn't want to play with them or even talk to them, she refuses to take part in the activities as they're "boring" apparently, the staff say she's not rude or anything she just sits on the sidelines watching, I've offered her another holiday club of her choosing but she says they're all boring and she just wants to go out.

I don't mind using technology occasionally, but I don't want to have to entertain her for 2, 3, 4 hours a day like I did when she was 3 but I seem to have no choice. She will literally sit moaning she's bored, even if I tell her to go play or find somehting to do.

She's not really into colouring. She will do jigsaws but only if they're really easy anything bigger than say 20 pieces she gets bored and won't try.

At her age if she says she is bored, the answer is entertain yourself or tough 🤷🏼‍♀️ she can sit and stare at the walls if she wants to. Why are you working with her at home? Can she not go into holiday clubs?
At that age i used to play the playstation quite a lot , as an only child there was that or my playmobile type things that i could do pretend play with.

She sounds lonely rather than bored I'd say. I'm not sure what you can really do about that.

If she will do reading/sewing, paint by numbers that's better than technology all the time.

Would she do a project like make a mirror for her room or something?

It's a shame she won't bake on her own.

What about modelling with clay?

Shes on holiday, shes bored and your solution is to take away the only things she enjoys and keeps her occupied? Poor kid.

Your job is to offer, her job is to decide what to take. It is OK for kids to be bored. Boredom is an important part of human life, it precedes invention/inspiration and parents are often too quick to interrupt the cycle.

Offer her (by which I mean make available in the home):
-variety of books including fiction and non-fiction
-art materials
-crafting things (knitting or similar, mine liked weaving)
-cooking ingredients (your supervision may be required to actually do)
-something musical (a recorder is fine)
-toys

Each day take her out somewhere e.g.:
-library
-museum
-park
-shops
-local attraction (I just mean free ones e.g. river or wood)
-any errands
-visit to relative/friend

What do you do with your time - what are you modelling? I would be quite worried, she sounds low.

Also I would be sympathetic about the boredom, tell her most humans have this at some point, but with practice you get better at working out what to do. It is just about trial and error, there is no harm in trying something for a bit and then changing your mind. Don't make her feel it is too big a deal.

I’m wouldn’t buy into it to be honest. She’s not bored by all those things, they just aren’t her preference. She wants the tablet back.
Stop pandering to her, trying to find all these different things to keep her entertained just for her to say ‘no, boring.’ She’s perfectly aware of what options she has to pass the time.
She’s waiting for you to give in and hand her back the devices.
Ignore her and let her be ‘bored.’ If she sits there all day doing nothing, so what? Tell her if she doesn’t stop complaining then you will sell them.