And it really annoys me, and I don’t know whether I’m justified.
Posted on here and in SN chat
DD is 8, school Year 4.
Diagnosed with Dyslexia, Developmental Co-ordination (DCD)/Dyspraxia, and has a medical condition that causes pain.
She has an amazing imagination; take her to the park and she’ll pretend she’s on a pirate ship, or we see horses in a field on the way there and she spends the time galloping round being a beautiful horse or unicorn winning races or granting wishes. She loves dressing up for school, since covid, they’ve done King/Queen/Princess for the Coronation and Jubilee, Medevil Banquet, Roman Day etc.
But at home, there’s none of that.
She has plenty of toys, toys she’s chosen or her friends have mentioned or she’s seen an advert for and wanted and that are age appropriate; Lego, Figures like barbie and sylvanian families, dolls, soft toys of all kinds. But she doesn’t play.
She just sits there, saying she’s tired and doesn’t want to play. I play with her for 10/15/20 minutes and when I stop so does she.
My neighbours DD comes round and it’s the same, my DD never wants to play and the neighbours DD (whose 7) makes up these really cool games with DDs toys and DDs just sat there. She’s the same when I take her to neighbours DD. I thought it was an only child issue but I know a few people with only children or very large gaps (7-10 year gaps) whose DC play happily with their toys.
I tried cutting down on tablet and TV time – she now gets 1 hour of TV time twice a week and 2 hours of tablet every weekend but I will cut it further, but all DD does is just sit there moaning she’s bored, it hasn’t inspired her to play. It’s resulting in lots of screaming and crying from her saying she’s bored. We’ve tried tidying the toys together and getting rid of some, and all I got was told she didn’t want t oplay with any of it and wouldn’t be bothered if they all disappeared and then begs for TV and tablet.
She was fine until the lockdowns, was diagnosed with DCD just after lockdown and dyslexia in Year 2 but we’ve known for a long while she has DCD, school have always had her down as co-ordination difficulties and she only learnt to read properly at the start of this year and still has many struggles with it.
Do I just have to give in and let her have unlimited access to TV and tablet? Because both also result in her screaming and crying when its time to come off and she just wants “5 more minutes” every bloody time it’s time to switch off.