How can a child have so little time to just play?

[Whatsun]

We are always rushing ever since she has joined school. Rushing to school, then after school we rush through dinner and then rush to go to bed. We are always late for this or that.

She does get an hour or two (depending on my work) on most weekend days before dinner but by the time she has wound down a bit (doing nothing) and set up her play it's time for dinner. I feel she regularly needs a block of a few hours to just play whatever she wants. She doesn't get that. Doesn't help that she is quite slow and dreamy in everything so going to the toilet even for a wee can take ten minutes, removing her shoes and washing her hands another ten minutes, etc, dinner (or lunch) takes up to an hour (these days we've brought it down to 45min). I tell myself that when she's day dreaming that is also her kind of play but then I (and her) feel bad that she doesn't actually get to play or craft anything concrete. She spends so long dreaming up ideas for playing or crafting but doesn't get time to implement them or finish them.

The weekends aren't much better. And I'm quite keen that we go out for fresh air and sun on the weekends but that again means she doesn't get time for unstructured unlimited play at home. I keep telling her when it's time for dinner or bed that she can finish it tomorrow but I know that on the next day she won't have much more time either.

I just don't know what to do about it. I could cancel all her clubs but I can't pick her up much earlier from school as I need to work. At the moment we are home usually either by 4 or 5pm. She doesn't seem to do a lot more clubs than other kids either. She only does one club on the weekend.

I know the summer holidays are coming up but I think she needs time to play properly every week and not for weeks together once a year.

Is this normal? Is everyone always so short on time and rushes through everything? This can't be healthy for such young children, can it? What are we doing wrong?

There just literally aren't enough hours in the day to do everything you want to (feel you ought to?) be doing. Unless you want to make radical changes like home ed, in termtime there simply isn't time for hours of unstructured play and formal mealtimes and clubs and childcare and trips to the park and in bed by 7.30. You have to pick what to prioritise.

Especially in the summer. Take a picnic into the garden and there you've got mealtime, fresh air and sun and unstructured play all in one go.

@Whatsun It almost feels like we are trying to fit in being a child into the small pockets of time that are left once she has fulfilled all her obligations. I don't think childhood should be like this. I think there should be a lot more free time that is just yours to do whatever you want.

I think this feeling is the crux of your discontent OP - and, FWIW, I think you're absolutely right. In the UK we do try and squeeze childhood into ever-decreasing pockets of time, between breakfast club, school, after-school club, homework, ballet, computer club... Other countries aren't all like this but it's so normalised here that if you question it your concerns are largely dismissed. But free play is such a valuable learning tool for children - arguably at least as valuable as structured lesson time - and there are countries that recognise that. It's just not the model that's practised here.

I don't know what the answer is - I don't actually think adding another 30 minutes of play in the evenings is going to address your underlying dissatisfaction with the system, but I think you're right to be dissatisfied, or even concerned, and you're not alone in that.

This cartoon came to mind when I read your comment about "squeezing childhood in between obligations". Limiting free play limits so much joyful, willing learning.

Sorry to spam the thread! Didn't realise that image was so low-res. This one's marginally better. I think it pre-dates decent scanning technology!

Kids do ask to join clubs. My 6 year old has asked to do ballet, guitar, forest school and choir from September. The kids are told about these things by the school and by their friends. I'm certainly not going to say 'yes' to them all as I value her free-time hugely but the drive to do the activities is coming from the child.

As for them being 'shitty', playing a musical instrument and joining an orchestra saved my childhood. I was being bullied at home and at school and the positives I got out of my music lessons and then spending a couple of hours on a Thursday after school playing music with others who were nice to me was enough to give me a sense of self-worth.

OP, on the shopping front, I like to involve my DD in choosing meals/snacks too. I throw most of our weekly shop into a basket on Ocado and then ask DD to suggest one meal she particularly fancies and we add the bits for that and then I'll ask her to choose what fruit she fancies, snacks etc. It takes 5–10 minutes and is a lot less draining on time and energy than a supermarket trip (we both hate supermarkets unless we go late in the evening when there's no one there 😂)

I think children’s personalities really differ. I have 4 DC and my youngest two are chalk and cheese. Youngest really thrived on many many activities and was bored without them, number 3 much more shy/introverted when in KS1/early KS2 and really needed quiet play, reading time etc. As he matured he did much more and he is now a very gifted musician. So you just have to be led by them, I think.

So do most kids not wash their hands after coming home? Genuine question. I thought this was normal.

The handwashing itself is not really the issue. It's just one the things that take a long time when she comes home like removing her shoes. I think it's because she's tired and needs to unwind. Often she just flops around on the stairs. Not a problem but it means she then doesn't have enough time to do things that need a good chunk of time.

No she can't swim yet and definitely needs to continue with the lessons.

I really need a space for her to keep her works in progress safe. As I said above at the moment it's just the dining table but we need to clear half of that at least to make a meal. I'm thinking of getting a box that dc2 can't get into but dh hates having more stuff on the floor and you can't store things like Lego or anything fragile in it.

Child washes hands before eating, not on arrival home unless visibly dirty.

oh, and at 7 Ds1 Lego creations are in his bedroom away from Ds2 who will smash them on sight

My DD washes her hands when she gets home. They tend to really need it!

She is also a dreamer and some days it'll take 5 minutes to wash hands and change out of uniform and other days it'll take 30. On the days it takes 30, I assume she's processing stuff in her head that has gone on in that day or is in some sort of imagination trance. Although I used to find it frustrating as it's 'wasting time' I've tried to reframe to think that this is perhaps what she needs - to have the freedom and time to dilly dally her way upstairs. Maybe that's as valuable as actually playing?

No, I genuinely had tons of time. I dont think I used it particularly productively but at least I didn't feel so rushed. And I was the master of my own time from very young age.

Like I said before I grew up in a country where school finished at 1pm (till year ten if j remember right so well into secondary as well). I used to be home by about 1.20. I had one after school club (so finished around 2 or 2.30) in some years but most years the only extracurricular activity I did was piano lessons once or twice a week. So I had the whole afternoon to play, craft, meet friends, etc. And the weekends. My mum did work but probably started when I was older (but still in primary) but in those days or maybe in that country latch key kids were very common. Most of us were.

I could take DD out of all clubs but then how do I work? I can't afford to go part time or reduce my hours. As it is I have to work an hour or two most evenings so that I can pick up DD at 3.30 on at least two days a week. And I'm lucky because my job is so flexible and I can work from home. Also, dh wants her to do at least one structured sport and we picked something she likes (which is what she does on Saturday). The after-school clubs she does are things she loves like arts or colouring or Lego club or something like that. Nothing too challenging. They are free at her school so if there's something running she enjoys I prefer that to the (expensive) wrap around care.

So I know I can't give DD a childhood like mine and the only thing I can really do is to stop the clubs, work more evenings and stop the weekend outings.

As I said I think what I realised above is that days where she finishes at 3.30 (so comes home straight after school) are much more relaxed. That one hour makes a big difference.

I'm just ranting now but today morning she wanted to.make cards for her teachers but today she is in wrap around care and tomorrow she has a (mandatory) school play after school so there won't be time. So maybe I need to be more organised. We should have made time for this earlier.

Funnily enough most of her friends do more clubs than her but they don't seem to mind or don't worry about not getting enough time to play.

Absolutely. My problem is and I think it's probably not solvable is that I want her to have the time to dilly dally, day dream, flop around for a while and I want her to have time to play.
I don't want to rush either. Basically, she just needs more time.

How do you keep ds2 out of ds1's room? I can't do that especially because DD doesn't like to be alone in her room. She wants me and DC2 to be in the same room.

There’s a baby gate on ds1 bedroom door - we found it the only way to ensure ds1 had a private space and ds2 and I can be upstairs’ separately, ds2 didn’t like being closed out at first but he soon got used to it

What are your weekends like? If she has time to day dream and take it slower on the weekends, and a room full of crafty things she can read/do/pick up when she feels like it, I wouldnt worry. As a child I have such fond memories of reading books or doing puzzles or colouring and crafting or playing on our swings outside just in pockets of time between things. My parents were also big on unstructured weekends (good and a bad thing!) - but it gave me so much time to entertain myself and be at peace "doing nothing".

We wash hands when we come in - have done since Covid. It makes sense if you've been to school, work, shops, public transport. But it only takes about two minutes so no massive impact on everything else.

Where were you at school for it to finish at 1pm? And what time did it start? We find the school day nowadays is quite a bit shorter than when I was a child - current primary is half an hour shorter day, previous almost an hour. As a kid we finished school at 15.45 but now school seems to finish at about 3pm! In Reception they were sending them out at 2.45pm!

Sorry if I've missed this, but how old is your DC2?

2

With 4 children I'm not sure why you haven't got play time everyday tbh unless your putting her to bed way to early. She's still very young let her play when she gets home from school

I think at 2, you'll start being able to set some rules so that younger sibling doesn't destruct your DD's projects. At that age I was able to teach my DD that she didn't touch my work stuff (some of which is very appealing-looking because I work with children). Could you label one area as 'DD(7)'s' and start gently guiding DC2 away every time and have a 'you can look but not touch'. You could then mirror this by your 2 year old having a 'project' like a colouring book and specific crayons that your DD(7) doesn't meddle with so that your 2 year old understands it works both ways.

It doesn't take her two minutes. It can take up to twenty minutes. The handwashing is misleading though. It's just that she needs downtime immediately after walking into the door.

My school was from 8 - 13.00h (in Germany). 10-15 minutes walk from home. Dd's is from 8.30 - 15.30h and the commute is 30 minutes. So I had 3h more every day. And we started school only at 6 or 7 years old rather than 4 or 5. It just seems like we were allowed to be kids for much longer. I know it was a different time and maybe things have changed there now as well but my question is wasn't that a better time? Yes, I need to work, etc but that doesn't mean DD is not missing out by having less time for free play, does it?

Huh? I've only got two kids. She doesn't go to bed too early. It's rarely lights out before 8.30 and she's usually asleep by 9. She struggles a lot waking up in the morning so I don't think she's getting enough sleep actually.

Good idea. The 2 year old is very willful and the moment she has even just an inkling that she isn't meant to do something tries to do that very thing as if her life depended on it so it might be difficult. So for now we can only keep things safe by having them out of her reach.

We should try to teach her though slowly.