To just … not have toys?

[giveupontoys]

Obviously we’ll have to have some, but my DS(4) just doesn’t seem to play with them.

Christmas presents included a toy ice cream van and he just gets everything out and then it ends up discarded and thrown everywhere, so bits get lost and it’s unusable. This is the same as everything we get.

He has a few toy trucks / cars type things but doesn’t really seem to play with them.

I know people will say not to let him or to discipline him but he just ignores us … doesn’t solve anything.

I don’t know what to do really. It kind of seems pointless having toys if they end up unusable but on the other hand he has to have some things.

Oh what utter crap. Isn’t it the child who plays with the toy who decides if it’s counted as a decent toy in their eyes or not?

Wooden railway (Lidl and IKEA do it cheap).

It starts off quite simple and they can add more and more junctions, double ended pieces etc to build more complex layouts.

Fun in building it, fun in setting up the scenes, fun in pushing trains round and then you throw it at the box any old way as it's basically indestructible.

Or Duplo. We've got very good as castle turrets! There's a reason this stuff has stood the test of time.

My son was excellent at playing but an ice cream set would have held little appeal. He likes building and doing but was never into role play.

My daughter on the other hand loved a wooden kitchen (from Aldi). It had the advantage of little cupboards so all the stuff could be chucked back inside it. I hate things with bits.

I don't like to over diagnose but I wondered if the OP was neurodiverse too. Because of the "absolutely no idea" comment about sitting and playing. I think the vast majority of NT people know how to do that instinctively - they might not enjoy it but it wouldn't baffle them

So you can sit in the floor , make up stories as you push cars, trucks around.
Build a street scene with wooden toy houses. Or make some from boxes, talking about who might live here , would they have a dog, etc..
Same sort of scenario with a farm set, hospital set — playmobil type sets or Lego sets.
build castles, villages, cities out of blocks or boxes.
plastic tray or shallow lined box, bag of sand, plastic trees or real plants and some plastic dinosaurs makes you Jurassic Park.
If he’s quite physically adept practice hammering nails into large blocks of wood. He can progress onto using a screwdriver ( you’ll have to drill holes) Try making a bird house, bird feeder, bug house.
Drawing, painting, play dough, clay together.
Collage. Pavement chalks outside.
Tape a roll of lining paper to a door, top to bottom and decorate it. With paints, crayons, stickers, whatever you like really.
Cook together —- biscuits, cakes,
make bird cake.
If it’s safe ( possibly not a good idea in a high rise) paint the windows together. It’ll all wash off.
Grow stuff. Carrot ends, orange and lemon seeds, buy seeds in a garden centre.

Just some of the things I remember doing with my two from about 18 months to when they started school. There were no nurseries where we lived so I was mum/ nursery nurse and teacher rolled into one.

He has a wooden railway … thank you. Doesn’t seem interested. And the blocks … he just empties the box on the floor and doesn’t do anything with them. I’m constantly finding them under the TV, sofas, everywhere.

It sounds more like the issue is you don't like to play with toys.

Just ask what type of ice cream he wants and then make it for him. Do you want spinkles, what colour sauce. Oooh yum. Shall we make one for daddy? Etc. Then ask him to make one for him.

If you've never played with him and only engage once he's tipped it all out that's what he'll do he just wants your attention. Play is really important for his development. The more you play with him the more he'll be able to play on his own.

There’s probably some truth in that but I have tried those sorts of things, it engages him for sixty seconds then he dumps everything everywhere leaving me to sort it. (And yes I know he should tidy it but he doesn’t.)

What do you do with them together? The more I read, the more I think the issue is that you expect ‘toys’ to magically occupy your child without any effort or inout from you.

Hi. I had an active outdoors climber. Given he likes to destructivate and you are struggling with the “how to play” with him, have you tried junk modelling? We used to build castles, huge towers etc with the aim of destroying them as the end goal- this was my stroke of genius as he wanted to keep all the cardboard crap we made forever. Just needs your recycling and cellotape. We made cardboard and serving spoon catapults to launch potatoes at stuff and all sorts. My son speaks very fondly of it now and we often filled a whole room with cardboard castling. It was so easy to do and engage with and the mess and clearing up the recycling was always part of the fun. Not sure if this helps x

We picked up a 99p charity shop shopping trolly - lasted all 3 kids and was passed on. DS loved it most though they all did - put things in move to next place take them out. Would let them take it outside as well - and he'd often have favourite teddy in there.

I wonder if you need better storage - so you can swap round toys easier - made a difference to us when our were young.

Really? it sounds fun and could be used for all sorts of imaginative play, get all the toys to queue up for ice cream, lots of language play about the flavours of ice cream, and number skills used thinking about the costs of different ice creams. It does not seem like a shit toy to me and anyway as far as shit toys are concerned I think there is a place for them in a child's life as well as all the educational stuff. Nothing wrong with a bit of fun for fun's sake, adults do it so why not kids?

There’s probably some truth in that but only some.

I don’t expect him to entertain himself solo for hours or anything but I probably would think at four he’d play for a bit and engage with toys? It’s hard to know. I think I did at his age but again I don’t know for certain.

Are you depressed OP? It doesn't sound like you enjoy playing with him.

Have you tried open ended toys like blocks, play silks.

Can you fit something he can climb in your house? Like a Swedish walk ladder.

Nursery teacher here, and it’s a great toy for exactly those reasons you mentioned.

I suspect that, if you watch from his perspective, he is playing; just not in a way that you expect or would choose yourself. It sounds like he's interacting with things, starting to explore components, sets and taking things apart. What about, rather than rushing to put things back how you think they should go, sitting down next to him and exploring grouping/sorting with him?

My DC's currently very into grouping things and then doing other play activities with the grouped items, which don't necessarily have a connection with what the items are or are intended for. As an example, DC spent ages organising a set of foam letters by colour rather than by actual letter order, then put them on a toy bus to go on a bus trip to a hospital. What had started out as dumping letters on the floor, evolved through various sorting processes into some fairly complex imaginative play and processing of experiences. We also currently have 3 jigsaws mixed up together in a doll's pushchair, but we'll deal with that later...

Maybe you could start by thinking yourself about the possible relationships between items he's emptied out. Colour? Texture? Shape? Not just parts of the same designated set, but other things they might have in common. Start organising them yourself and see what he does - does he have his own ideas about how things should go together?

Sounds like DP cooking dinner.

What will he do if you give him a large cardboard box, some pens and stickers to decorate it?

Most children that age love a cardboard box!

But do you build it with him? At four he would need help.

Or race the engines. Which one can go the furthest etc?

If he likes destructive, do it in a more controlled form and let him crash the engines to see which comes off first etc.

I will post more later when I have time, but my experience of play is that it always ends up with everything covering the floor. If the floor isn’t covered with stuff and you aren’t permanently searching for various small parts, have children even played there? I often say we could advertise a full time job vacancy as small parts supervisor.

Does he have anything like this that you can get down and play with him on. Surely you know how to build houses etc out of blocks and run vehicles around while making up stories. Who lives in this house, where are the cars going etc?

This is a lovely explainer I hope you find it useful, OP :)

I do think having less "Stuff" available to him at any one time will be helpful for you. Do you have a shed or a garage that you can put lidded boxes in that he can't go in, and an adult brings one or two boxes into the house at a time, maybe? RE the clutter and making a mess If I may be so bold, I recognise parts of me in you, and I'm recently diagnosed ADHD (classic nobody noticed because girls and women present differently). There is often a family link with neurodiversity.

For any of the vehicles I'd sit on the floor and start pushing one around on the floor, making "Brrrm brrm!" or "choo choo!" noises. If he shows any interest you can offer him one and show him you pushing yours along the floor, see if he copies that. Keep expectations right down near a 0 so that you're not pressuring him. Likewise with a piece of paper and some crayons, just sit on the floor and do some stick figures, colouring or drawing shapes. He may just want to hold a crayon to begin with. Then he may make a mark or two with it. Progress is progress.

In my experience, ‘playing for a bit and engaging with toys’ needed initial input from me (either ‘initial ’ as in ‘when we first got the toy’ or ‘when we got it out this time’) and that was then repaid many times in the ensuing independent play. An instruction or expectation to ‘go and play’ wouldn’t work.

I wonder if you’ve got expectations around what play is & how they should play? Mine generally do play beautifully & unlike others I can’t say I’ve ‘taught’ them so I can’t comment specifically on that, but we’ve definitely had short periods of just tipping/seemingly destructive play & lining/ordering/sorting etc…. I have learnt that I have to let them do their own thing & not interfere too much though - so have accepted that things just do get lost/mixed up. Stuff goes all over the house & gets hidden/put away in funny little places & that’s part of the play!
The things I find they love the most are just two drawers of absolute random tat we have ranging from random figures, sticks/stones/pinecones, party bag/magazine tat etc, that they just love & get totally creative with.They do love our play kitchen &, that Melissa & Doug ice cream set whenever we’ve gone to friends who have it, but equally they’re free to use it they want with no expectation to keep it in order & now I think about it, the things they’ve seemed to like the least are the things where there’s been some sort of expectation on how they ought to play.

I am a little confused because he is 4 so how have you being playing with him up until now?

I have two boys ,when they were young I played with the baby toys, peek a boo etc, as they became toddlers we started to use the baby toys differently. So for example the stacking cups became a challenge to do with our eyes closed.

We built towering blocks and tried to knock them down. We did jigsaws, raced cars , Duplo into animals, drew on large A3, at the end of the day I put on a tidy up song and we would race to put things away.

I am just not seeing how there is an issue as in surely you were playing together up to now?

When my DDs were small I divided their toys into three groups, then I rotated them, changing each week. Too many toys out at the same time overwhelm the child’s brain. When I changed the group they could see their toys with new eyes.