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.

My eldest never wanted to play with toys but she enjoyed dressing up and playing characters. She likes sensory things too, she can play with slime for ages! And she’s very energetic, loves making up gymnastics routines. There’s nothing wrong with not loving toys. Maybe a den building kit?

It's about engagement, showing an interest, building vocabulary and imagination. What's bizarre about any of that?
You don't throw a book at a child and expect them to know how to read it.

Surely he'd learn that at nursery though

Why does emptying on the floor ruin it? Surely they're all fairly sturdy at that age (toys not kids).
He empties it out, you sit on the floor and ask "oh what shall we do with these? Shall I help you build them? Do you want an ice cream? etc.
Or buy a load of chunky Lego / blocks if he's getting something from the emptying out. Loads of tubs and get him to fill them up and empty them. What's the tallest pile you can make etc

My DS was a bit like that - but he is neurodiverse. He enjoyed things like marble runs, stomp rockets, playdough (with me) - all things that are quite sensory. He never really played with the 'imagination' type toys.

Could it be he has a lot of toy time at pre school and just wants to sort of do what he likes at home?

I think I'm probably quite similar to you in that I hate imaginative play and really have to 'fake it' when my kids want me involved in it and often find I'm busy doing washing instead ;-) (thankfully my husband is really good at it). I am much better at building things so; lego (following the isntructions primarily), k'nex (same principle), train tracks, building dens (we have a couple of indoor den kits the kids were bought for birthdays that aren't necessary but do help), puzzles etc. Therefore generally if I'm getting the kids engaged in playing we'll do these things as I can play with them by myself whilst the kids watch without feeling like a loon until they want to get involved.

Might be worth looking at toys you like/are happy to play with and just modelling them rather than feeling like you have to play with stuff you don't enjoy.

(And put everything else into a massive box somewhere and just have a couple of things out at a time and get rid of them if they're not enjoyed by you or the kids).

If you have an ice cream set with about twenty separate pieces and half end up under various sofas and bookcases it does ruin it. Same with the toy toolbox and some other toys. He had a toy waterpark for Christmas (which really IS plastic tat but he likes it) but I can already tell it’s going to be ruined before January.

So my son was diagnosed at 8. He'd done some roleplay "with others" but it turned out he'd just been copying others then scripting their game - there was nothing coming from him at all.

We got on a lot better when we started trying to see the world in his terms. He liked building train tracks but not really moving the trains, so we just built tracks. Watched what he did and narrated it out loud or copied him, rather than making suggestions. Gave him abstract things like chess boards, Montessori style stacking cubes, a big pile of buttons, or task things like puzzles. With stuff like Hama beads, bead boards or lego, always gave patterns to copy rather than expecting him to design it, or gave him just a handful of blocks and showed him how to build one particular shape with them.

Also just a heads up that preschool or school may not suggest any sort of diagnosis to you. Parents can get very offended by the suggestion so it seems very common o wait until the parent raises it.

I have asked them directly and they’ve said no, not in their opinion @TwinklyStarlight .

I don’t know what your space & options are a home, but my 5 year old has always been a climber like I was. As a baby they loved stackable floor pads in various shapes, plus a little wooden arch climber. That’s been upgraded through the years and this year their big Christmas gift was an expanded climbing structure in our basement play room that attaches to the wall where we added a climbing wall, ceiling monkey bars, a net for climbing, a small trapeze, and some crash mats. Last year they got a new bed that has a little lofted play area above it and they love it up there. A big sibling helped design a little pulley system and zip line big enough for toys (not people) and they will spend hours sending things up and down. Our play room also has a spider swing bolted into the ceiling and there’s usually a child in it with a book or tablet or chattering away with toys - that little bit of movement and fun makes quiet self-entertainment far more appealing. A wooden arch rocker serves the same purpose in the tv room (and it gets flipped over for climbing on top of, which is great).

I know people make fun of Mumsnet for constantly armchair diagnosing things, and if he’s verbal and nursery say he’s fine then he probably is. BUT there are a couple of things you’ve said that sound autistic so might be worth talking to them? I know one autistic child who is incredibly verbal and advanced but struggles in other ways. Meanwhile my sibling never talked really: it’s a huge spectrum.

The other reason I say this is because you said you are a bookish household, that you struggle to know how to play with him, that you don’t like mess or noise… it runs in families, you see.

If he likes tipping things out is there a way you could make your peace with it? Does he like music? Can you whack on the tunes for example and sort of dance-tidy? Sounds silly but makes it more fun.

Ok - he sounds a little bit like my son (now 11) was. Basically he needed help with what I guess is “directioned” play.

So ds liked trains and we had train tracks. (You mentioned he plays with trains at nursery so this might be good for him.)

So the way we would play with trains was firstly we would build a track using all the pieces of the track. (This was a rule - it must use all pieces.) Then we would put all the trains in their siding / house. Then we would decide where each train went. And then we would try and get each train to their correct place. (Much harder than it sounds because they can’t jump over each other so you are constantly having to move them onto sidings etc to get the other one past.)

We did this every time we played trains and after a while ds started happily doing it himself as he understood what he was doing.

(This wasn’t invented because we were brilliant with children - it was invented because Dh likes building stuff so wanted to build the train track and I like logic puzzles so enjoyed trying to solve the “how to get the trains to the right place”. Ds liked both. Just rolling a train around a train track bored all three of us!

Do you ever sit down and build say Lego with him?

How is that stressful for you?
Does mess make you anxious to thenpoint where you prefer not to be in the house?

Do you make an effort to play kitchen / cooking with him? It's very hard to play on your own with a toy that's designed for interactive play, like an ice cream van or a kitchen.

It sounds as if he is expected to play with interactive toys on his own.

Lego is too demanding for preschoolers. It's hard for people whose fine motor skills are just developing to clip the little pieces together securely and create their own vision, and following the instructions to make a given set is very difficult. A frustrating toy all round until kids get older .

Duplo blocks ditto. These have the added disadvantage of clunkyness so even if a child has a vision he or she won't be able to fine tune it.

A nice toy for kids aged three and up is magna tiles that clip together magnetically. The sensory aspect of the magnets can be very appealing, and no fine motor skills are required.

But the parent has to put the effort in to help the child focus and create a bit of buzz about any toy you hope will catch on.

What toys does he gravitate to in his preschool environment?

Does he have access to painting, writing, and drawing materials in the home? Modeling clay?

I think I’ve explained a few times that mess renders toys unusable @mathanxiety . There’s not much point to an ice cream shop with no ice creams because they’ve all been trodden on / kicked under bookcases / lost. But I am repeating myself. I do know children can’t play in a hovel, that just doesn’t work particularly well which is why nurseries are always bright and tidy and airy.

So you fish them out and put them back in the box. If the house has so many places for toys to go under that it's unsustainable to retrieve them, get some foam rolls to block them. Dammit I really do need to do this. And I'm not trying to be horrid, my twins just turned 5, I understand the mess and chaos especially with December birthdays.

Were you allowed to play freely when you were growing up? To make am ess or use toys for their none intended purpose?

This!

None of our “sets” are complete and I’ve given up trying to put them back together as sets because that’s not how the kids want to play: DS likes to tip everything out then put everything into containers, so the playmobil camper van and aquarium together hold all the dominos, Jenga blocks, party bag tat, tool set, etc. Don’t ever put down a car key or a lipstick because he’s off like a shot to stuff it in the oven of the play kitchen, which is fit to burst. DD likes to make a long line that congas around the entire house, out of every.single.thing. Stacking cups then Lego then marble run then trains then books then teddies then tampons then mince pie tins.

That said, sets that work without all the pieces are great: marble run is infinite, as is Lego. What’s shit is stuff like Polly Pocket that just sits there.

You need to spend time at the end of the day putting the toys back together again, finding all the pieces.

Yes, it's a PITA. I had to do it with three children.

Nurseries are tidy because they clear up the toys as they're played with.

You says he has blocks and likes making a mess - what about stacking the blocks up on top of each other to see who can make the tallest tower and then letting him knock them down? Pretend it's a building site and the towers have to be blown up/knocked down.

The other things we used blocks for were to build houses and pens for farm animals/zoo animals/dinosaurs. Building the whole thing is a big part of it and takes a bit of time. You can then use the tractor and trailer to feed the animals, clean them out (make up names for them all) - and then of course one inevitably escapes and causes chaos. You have to use the digger to try and catch it and get it back etc.

You can also use the blocks when you build the train set to make houses for people, shed for the engines to go in. Have the train pick people up and then break down at some point with everyone getting annoyed and upset. Make up back stories for the people on the train and have them talk in silly voices. Be exaggerated and silly in all of it.

Boring as it could be at times I really miss those days!

If you get the ice cream fuck out and he empties it all on the floor, then walks off, how long are you leaving it all there for it to get so trampled and broken and lost? Why are people treading on them? What role does your partner have in playing and helping tidy up?
What does he say when you say ok let's tidy up now? What does he do instead? What is the consequence of him refusing to help tidy up?

None of the nurseries my kids went to were particularly tidy. They had tidy up time but all had messy areas and in the play kitchens, you could tip and stuff and muck about to your heart’s content.

You do sound over anxious about sets being complete in a way that may be rubbing off on him. Of course an ice cream shop is still playable with: imaginative play with invisible ice creams, you start, he’ll follow. Get the colouring pens and paper out and make sundaes with crazy flavours. Stock the ice cream shop with Duplo ice creams or Jenga blocks or random bits from the floor.

I would declutter the toys drastically so there are fewer sets to worry about and less mess, focus on infinite play like Duplo, marble run, train tracks and crafting, and get down on the floor and start playing with what’s left. Stop trying to make him put all the squeaky eggs back so the colour tops match, or whatever; it really doesn’t matter.

Perhaps try buying toys he is interested in? And then you need to play with him a bit and help him learn to play. Some kids just don't play on their own. I am lucky with my youngest, who is 5 and she normally plays loads with her dolls and can occupy herself. But I sometimes play with her as well if she asks and I sometimes play with her to get her started and then go cook or do chores a bit before returning to play with her. At his age, he might like paw patrol, lego, cars etc.

I work in a pre-school. We have a song that is played at tidy up time, everyone is expected to help tidy. It’s obvious to us those that do not tidy up at home. Try and make it fun. We often have to put things into their hands and tell them exactly where to put them.

Magnetic construction tiles/shapes are really popular. All the children like them. Does he like dinosaurs or zoo type animals?

Hiya, mess categorically doesn’t render toys unusable. That is very regimented adult (some adults anyway!) thinking projected onto a child. It would be worth your time doing a bit of research on ‘loose parts play theory’ - it might help you relax a little around this and get out of that stuck mindset that things can only be played with if they’re in perfect sets. Having said that, it sounds like your child is in an enveloping schema of play just now, which is totally normal and great, so don’t worry that emptying things is a sign of something being wrong - my child was in this scheme for a year! However, it shouldn’t be written off as them doing it purely out of boredom - children are nearly always trying to work out the world around them, and they do this through schemas of play - it makes for interesting reading!