I've found out what hell is is and it's your kid wanting to play pretend ALL the time

[cabb]

Dd is 2yr5m, is very outgoing and sociable and has never been able to entertain herself but I've kind of accepted this now, but her latest thing is playing pretend and it's ALL she wants to do.
Shall we play bricks? No, be the mermaid!
Shall we do some drawing? No mummy be the mermaid!
How about some puzzles? BE THE MERMAID

Oh god, I mean I actually don't mind doing a bit of role play but it's definitely the most draining and pre 9am and after being up in the night with her little brother it's really hard to throw myself into the acting required to BE THE MERMAID.

AIBU?

Ds has autism and has never really done this, he just re-enacts things he's seen mainly Star Wars word for word. But we used to have to read the same books over and over and over. I am very glad that he can now read to himself. I was ready to murder the gruffalo at one point!

Sorry but you won't look back and weep for this phase! Mine are now 12 and 15 and I am enjoying parenting immeasurably more than when they were young. For me, the older they got, the more enjoyable, interesting and fun being a parent became.

Sorry!

Hippy my son has autism too. Bed time reading for us for many months was a book called "Parking Mad - Car Parks From Heaven (or Hell)" 😱

DD is suddenly Daniel Day Bloody Lewis in this situation

😂😂😂

You've got a while to go yet. DS is 10 and asked if we could role play being orcs for most of last week...

I am forever grateful that DD had two imaginary friends & they were much more acceptable playmate than I was...possibly to do with the imaginary friends always doing as they were told, never getting distracted or just sloping off & hoping not to be noticed. The imaginary friends disappeared around the time DS turned 15mths & became more interactive.
Poor DS doesn't actually know what to do if DD isn't there to feed him scenes, lines etc.

Words that make me run for the hills...."let's play dinner ladies" 😩😧

I love how my 4 year old tells me who I have to be and then insists on feeding me every line and action as otherwise I do it wrong

Oh god, I hated role play! DS always wanted to be the cafe owner but never had anything in,
Me - cup of tea please
Ds - I don’t sell tea
Me - pizza please
Ds - I don’t sell pizza
Me - chocolate cake please
Ds - I don’t sell chocolate cake
ad infinitum until I could weep 😩🔫

"Mummies, daddies and babies". Nothing else. Endlessly. It's been about three months now. And the same two books every night at bedtime, always in the same order. I'm on the edge, I tell you

I'm gutted, this is her last few months before school starts and I feel like we should be enjoying it a lot more, but she just won't play anything else. We got twenty minutes of Lego out of her last weekend and thought we'd cracked it, but no, we're back to it non stop again now. Aaargghh.

EnglishGirl, my dd runs her cafe in exactly the same way

My dd also likes to give me long instructions setting up the "imaginary" scenario which basically goes along the lines of:

"Mummy, pretend that you're a mummy and pretend that I'm your little girl, and pretend that (baby) ds is your baby, and pretend that you have a cat (pointing at our actual cat) and pretend they you're married to daddy..." etc etc. So it's not really imaginative play because I'm just playing myself and everyone is just playing themselves and yet I still get shouted at because I'm not playing the game properly ie. based on situations and conversations that dd hasn't told me about and make absolutely no sense to the game. Stress.

I just don't do pretend play. I don't see why I would be expected to tbf. I'm am adult. Obviously if child tells me about pretend play I will feign interest but I am hardly going to join in. What an absurd notion. (OK maybe I'm not quite as victorian as I sound but really, where did this expectation that adults join in pretend okay come from?!)

Love this thread, I'm past the countless hours sat on a log in the wood down our road pretending to be a passenger on a fire engine / airplane / bus / dragon / pirate ship.

No phone signal either 🤦🏻‍♀️

This is hilarious and so true

My best time was when I was cast as a rock. That’s even better than being a gravely ill patient.

When we play imaginary picnic I always draw the short straw.

"I shall eat this homemade chocolate cake. Nam nam nam. You can have lettuce. I shall have tasty sausage. You have this anchovy. It is old and needs using up."

bumbles Its the worst cafe in the world

Thanks so much for all your replies, I've been laughing a lot and I feel less guilty about that sinking feeling I get when she walks up to me and says "oh hello mummy dog!" and I know I'm suddenly in a game I don't remember joining.

I think "let's play top gear" was a highlight though

Oh it's so funny isn't it @Shodan , dd has a lovely train set I'm always trying to convince her to play with and she has NO interest, grass is always greener!

I thought I'd cracked it when DD used to ask to play hairdressers and I was the client . I thought I'd be able to sit and be pampered. Turns out being whacked over the head numerous times with a hairbrush wasn't much fun. There were times when it would have been a blessing to be knocked unconscious !

This thread is gold

Love this thread! My Dc are big almost adults now but I absolutely remember the dread and exhaustion of 'let's play shops/doctors etc', the scramble to get a part that involved sitting or lying and the awful narrative leaps.

Definately not BU. This is my dd! She's been like that from a very young age. She directs rather than plays most of the time. Try a pre 9am "You be the wood and I'll be the saw and we'll make a house" 🤔 I would rather be a mermaid.

I spent 3 years pretending to be Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.