13 yo DS still plays make believe with teddies and toys - babyish?

[Britney23]

He is 13 and in year 8. He still plays with all his action figures and teddy bears. Last night his friend, 12, came round to play and they were playing make believe schools with his teddies. There’s nothing wrong with it but is it a bit babyish now he’s become a teen or still normal? He turned 13 in February.

Now I come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I still liked to play with Barbies when I was 13. I preferred the kid Barbies - Shelly and Stacy I think they were called - to the adult Barbies, so it wasn't even a fashion thing.

And I slept with cuddly toys until I left home, and again in the holidays and when visiting my parents, literally up until I stopped ever visiting my parents without my husband.

He has an imagination, thats a wonderful thing.

I remember my friend and I still playing with our dolls in year 7. We swore each other to secrecy as we were sure we'd have been teased mercilessly for it. I think it's nice and it won't last forever. Or maybe it will: you still get middle aged blokes at Games Workshop playing with action figures.

It’s fine. Personally I would find early teen coolness much more worrying.

My 15 nearly 16 year old when younger would spend hours playing with action figures, Lego figures and created storylines, made some great films, he was still doing this in year 8 and even now he places his favourite ones around the room in positions of action so Spiderman is hanging off a book shelf with Yoda looking down over the top of the shelf as if in pursuit. He was collecting the Lego Muppets mini figures and he has placed the two old men on a deep set picture frame, towards each other, holding copy cups and doing the action of a 'cheers', this is made funnier by the picture being of a print of a bridge in Amsterdam that we bought him when we visited last year, i.e it appears the Muppet old men are standing on the bridge enjoying a drink. He has Star Wars action figures having fights with light sabers and other figures looking on dotted around his record collection and on his speakers. He mixes it up every week or so and it really amuses me as like the Muppet men he has really imaginative ideas. He also had friends over last night, was playing hip hop, jazz music on his record player and watched a football match so yes, in my mind it is fine that a year 8 your son still plays in that way. Boys change quite a bit at 14 IMO so I doubt he'll be playing in such a thorough way but if he is he may have the passion for story making that feeds in to his future path in some way. I was like this as a child and enjoy writing stories/ideas for films.

My youngest wants the Sylvanian's stored now, she is nearly 12 but she still has some teddies, she loves drawing though and fashion/ jewellery, playing the piano and writing songs so she feels she is too old for the figures and is more aware of what her peers think.

Coffe cups not 'copy'

No! This is lovely & so creative. I played with my barbies until I was at least 13. So much better than screens. If Prince Harry is to believed King Charles still sleeps with his Teddy bear & he's 74😉

My 15 yo still plays with thier 10 and 12 yo sibs. A game that involves teddies and has been going on for over 10 years. Theres ongoing storylines and character development etc. Theres different factions among the teds, theres mutiverses and god knows what else. Everything is discussed in great detail before being added to the story. I can't keep up. The teddies usually come out (all 70 of them) half an hour before the younger twos bedtime. It's so lovely to see them playing but definitely not the norm.

I still play with Lego. I'm a fully fledged adult with almost grown up DCs. Nothing wrong with play. It is relaxing and good for your mental health. More of us should do it.

I was still playing a bit with my Sindy dolls in the early years of secondary school - I would rather have died than admitted it to my school friends! I'm sure there were some others the same. It's not like a switch goes off when you reach 12 and you put away childish things. It's nice to have an outlet, I'm sure he'll stop soon enough, let him have fun while it lasts...

My 14yr old DS still occasionally plays with cycling and football top trump cards, pretending they are players and using the cycling ones on the carpet in a circuit pretending that they are raving and will draw up team sheets and time trials etc. With the football cards he plays matches pretending they are players and using a Lego head as a ball! So sweet!

Racing not raving!

My DS did this WELL into his teens (alone in private). Now 21 he still won't get rid of a single one.

There are about 50 of the things.

Aw this is lovely. Long may it continue. Far preferable to joining the high school race to the bottom, creating drama on WhatsApp and stressing about their sexualities. I wish more teens were this way

Aw this is sweet. My DS is 7 and has never really been an imaginative player like that. He is very cuddly though so I suspect will have his cuddly toys until adulthood!

My DS is the same, he's 11 and still plays with his small mountain of soft toys. Sleeps with them all in his bed, you can hardly see him!

I think it's sweet

It's nice, but I do think mn is an alternative universe sometimes.
My daughter is 12 (almost 13) and hasn't played with toys for years, none of her friends have/play with toys either.
My son is older (16) and hasn't played with toys for donkeys years, again neither have his friends (no toys in the home/their rooms!)
I wouldn't worry about him doing it but I would worry about kids at school finding out, maybe keep a close eye on which friends he shows them to. Kids can be cruel and I do think his peers will find it odd at his age.

If Prince Harry is to believed

Oh come on now.
That’s stretching our credibility too far.

I've just discussed with my DD(18) who is moving out to go to Uni in September about getting rid of her dolls house.
She is keeping some of the contents but is now ready to give up the house.
Long may it continue.
They grow up so fast.
Let him enjoy himself.

I think the teenage world of play is a lot more common than people let on. My DCs are the youngest of a lot of cousins, and their teenage/ early adult cousins loved the excuse of little children to be able to dig out the surviving toys and be able to play. That doesn't mean that they played often, but it is an urge that often appreciates an excuse to be released.

DS 12 (admittedly autistic) still enjoys engineering play with his Lego and wooden trainset. He's also moved on to the "grown-up" play of War Hammer.
DS 9 still loves his cuddly toys and action figures.

I was about 13-14 when I stopped playing with toys like dolls. It was pre-internet and around the time that Sunday Trading started when Sunday afternoons were still very long and tedious.

A lot of pre-teens are encouraged out of play to "grow up" and to make space by clearing "clutter". Play isn't cool and a lot of pre- and early teens continue to play in secret for fear of ridicule. Play is however a good way to make sense of the world, to reach a state of relaxing mental flow and making use of physical skills. It's often easier for adults to find outlets to release forms of play (sports, craft, reading for pleasure, dramatic arts), than it is for teenagers.

My almost twelve year old boy still loves playing schools, offices, house etc with his teddies etc. I think it's lovely still

This petered out at about 13 for DS (an only child), but we used to play social stories with his soft toys, they had individual characters and would interact in the stories in accordance with that.

It worked well for us as I could demonstrate what Pooh Bear could do as a response to the bullying antics of Bob The Naughty Fox*, and what Rix (The Nice Fox) could say to Penny the cat when she wanted to copy his answers "and you mustn't tell teacher, Rix, or I'll be angry with you". It solved his need to play and gave him potential responses for any situations he wouldn't know how to respond to if they occurred.

It's nice while it lasts OP, and it's lovely he's got a similarly minded mate to play with.

*There were two naughty foxes, but one reformed his character and became nicer all round. Alas, Bob remains in perpetuity a not-very-nice toy...