To let her be bored

[Cravingfiveminutespeace]

Dd, is 4, almost 5.
She’s full of fun and energy and loves to play. She’s an only child.
She attends Pre school part time and is home with me twice a week.
When she was little, she’d occupy herself sometimes, now she won’t at all.
We take her out to lots of places, she has play dates, goes to swimming & ballet, goes for dog walks etc
Dh and I were tired yesterday and just wanted one day to stay in, she’d been to a party on Saturday for almost four hours and food shopping and to a cafe with me in the morning.
We played with her lots yesterday, treasure hunt in the garden with map making, I played schools with her, we made scones, Dh did play fighting with her and we danced and watched Tangled. We also took our dog to the nearby forests.
She was asking all day to play, is this normal? Dh said we’re having a relax, you can find something to do. She gets upset and says we don’t play and then I feel guilty.
I don’t remember my mum playing really with us at all, she was a good mum regardless.
I just feel drained by her

Yes it wouldn't hurt for her to be bored and learn to play alone sometimes. It's a good life skill. It sounds exhausting otherwise.

@blahblahblah1654 Completely. I think she’s forgotten how to. I was just telling her how I spent hours playing using my imagination with my dolls or looking for fairies at the bottom of the garden, sitting reading books etc. I can’t remember my mum ever being involved in any of it

My mum didn't play with me either. Just left me on the floor with my toys. She was an excellent mum, BTW.

It is a good skill to learn, to be able to amuse yourself / find ways to occupy yourself when you are at a loose end.

I think this may be why my parents taught me to read at an early age: they could shut me up by giving me a couple of books.

Will she sit and colour or draw?

I found that jumbo chalks are the best thing for both of mine. Send them into the garden (if you have one) and let her chalk on the walls or path. It washes off in no time.

Do your 4/5 year olds play alone? Is it something she’ll find easier when she’s a bit older? I do actually worry that she’s not using her imagination and own resources as I did

I used to get bored as a child, but learned not to let on; admittedly a bit older than your daughter, but if I expressed that sentiment, my DM would find something useful for me to do, usually involving a duster......
If she is old enough for pre-school, perhaps you could have some simple tasks lined up, the sort of tidying up and helping she might be expected to do at the end pf a session at pre-school. (I'm not expecting you to send her up the chimney with a chimney-brush!)
Naturally, she should be praised for being helpful when the task has been completed, but if she knows you and Daddy have a list of useful chores in reserve, it might give her pause for thought, and hint that you are not there solely as her entertainment officers, but that she is part of the team which keeps the show on the road.

@GoodChat She will draw etc for a while sometimes, I just worry a bit that she’s not doing imaginary games with her toys or using her initiative, she always wants us to play

As others have said it is such a valuable skill to be able to entertain yourself. As an only child I played for hours on my own and can honestly never remember being bored. I remember using my imagination a lot and once you can read there's another whole world to explore. Its great to be sociable and have activities too but maybe if you let her be bored she will work out things to amuse herself. And my mum was a great mum too but never played with me.

Definitely a good combination of both playing with them and leaving them to do their own games is best. Let them learn some independence and creativity by making up their own games. So no, not a problem for her to play alone for a while when you need a moment to relax or get something done.

If you always play with her that's what's she's used to! Being able to amuse herself is a good habit to get into, but she'll need you to guide and encourage that.

Teaching children how to be bored, how to exist quietly in their own head with their own thoughts, how to entertain themselves with very little, how to use their imaginations etc is actually doing them a favour. The instant gratification of screens and endless adult input means they don’t learn.

To be fair though she’s an only child - so you do have to be prepared to be the other person playing a board game or whatever. But certainly not all the time.

My 4 Yr old Used to play by herself happily a lot but lately is always asking us to play with her. We do a bit but we have a newborn and to be honest her games are dull and repetitive. She sometimes gets upset if we explain we're busy (making dinner or something so genuinely busy) and says things like 'I can't play on my own'. So she makes us feel terribly guilty.

No advice I'm just in a similar boat. Looking forward to when the baby is big enough to play with her but she might have lost interest by then!

There's a old saying 'boredom is the mother of invention'. She will be fine being bored - she will eventually sort herself out something to do if you leave her. She probably finds it much easier to let you entertain her.

I think you've got her used to this, so she doesn't know any other way. It's normal to let them play alone at times too, and not always be taken here there and everywhere and think that's the norm.

Probably means she will be good socially which is better in the long run than hiding away with imaginary games.

DS is almost 4 and has definitely got worse at playing independently. We've found sending him to 'set up' whatever he wants to play with us (cars, Lego etc) buys a good 20 mins and sometimes he just starts playing alone. Even if we still end up playing with him he's still used his imagination deciding what the game will be.
As the weather improves, we tend to find he plays better in the garden too.

@UnbeIievabIe No, I really don’t think so. She used to play much better before pre school and now if not there, she gets bored without playing with others

@Anotherusernameagainitseems She’s v sociable, whereas I was fairly calm and quiet and liked time out on my own, whereas she seems to crave the social interaction

Parents used to say things like "only boring people are bored". If we persisted they'd probably find a very non-fun task for us to do. We managed to amuse ourselves.

Were you an only child? I don’t remember my mum ever playing with me but I had siblings and we would all play together. I don’t remember ever playing by myself, most ga ex that involve pretending/ imagination are better with someone else surely. If my siblings weren’t home I would always be bored and would maybe watch TV or do some drawing for a bit alone but never really played alone. I would expect that if a four year old doesn’t have siblings they would need their parents to play with them rather than expecting them to self-occupy for more than maybe 15-20 minutes.

Children need time to be bored, entertaining them all day everyday is no good for them. They have to learn to entertain themselves and parents need to learn to give their children downtime.

@MolkosTeenageAngst I have a brother and sister but still played on my own a lot, aswell as with them. This is the part that makes me feel bad and that I should play with her all the time

It's important for her to get bored developmentally as it develops resourcefulness and imagination. She is continuously looking to you for stimuli rather than coming up with her own ideas. It could be that school is very prescribing about what comes next. It sounds like you're very much up for playing games and doing activities. Maybe introduce the idea of free time - discuss what the plans are for tomorrow and have sections of free time in it. Don't give in to the "you don't play with me" ploy. Have clear times when you are doing things and learn to say we just did x or y, now it's free time...