Is this normal? 3 nearly 4 yr old wont play alone?

[flotsomandjetsom]

My DD is 4 in few months. She will not play be herself for even a few minutes. She constantly follows me round. I admit I have often given into the TV just to get a short break to get some essential jobs done. Today, I made a concerted effort not to do this, I played with her loads and then tried to encourage her to play alone for short bursts while I did some chores. Nothing doing. Is there something wrong with her or is this normal? I see other children much younger playing independently. Will she grow out of it?

Bump - I'm waiting for some tips here. Mine can play alone but 90% of the time refuses to.

DD1 will be 4 in feb.

Only this week has she taken herself up to her room to play. It is a very very strange feeling.

So I think its normal. It will come.

I'm in the same boat! It must be more common than we realise.

My dd hated playing alone. She is now an entirely normal 10 year old with loads of friends She just hated playing alone. She still hates doing anything alone, except reading Jacqueline Wilson.
Her brothers had no problem with playing by themselves.
Could it just be temperament?

It drove me mad at the time, and I think I was guilty of shouting at her, why can't you play by yourself but actually I should have just gone with it, and accepted she liked playmates.

Sounds completely normal to me. You may have to adjust your expectations a little

Ds is 7, has never played alone, ever!

Mine is 5. She always wants me to play with her but she will play upstairs if she has a friend round.

I don't mind, I love playing but it is very irritating when I need 5 or ten minutes to sort dinner out and she won't leave me alone/stop demanding me to sort something out for her/move something/ open something/fetch something

DD2 does play on her own. I think it's usually a PFB thing

Ds1 (4) has always liked playing alone but ds2 (2) prefers playing with his brother! I think a lot of it is down to personality plus ds2 has always had a playmate.
I think if you encourage her to play alone for a few minutes at a time by saying "I'm doing X just now, but with play with you when I'm finished".

It's important for children to play alone to expand their imagination and be able to entertain themselves as you can't constantly be playing with the if you have things to do!

I think it boils down to some people being loners or enjoying their own company at least and others who like company and don't enjoy being alone. I have a 9 yr old who was like that (which is hard when you like your own company) but has got better about it over the years. It helps being able to read. He is quite happy to read for hours alone now but he still likes to be with people if he can.

I don't think it is a PFB thing myself. DS2 is the one who craves company in this house - me, DH and DS1 are all PFB and are quite happy to be alone for hours if we are allowed. I suspect that since DS2 has never had to be alone, being the second born, he doesn't know what to do if he is. Or, as I say, it just depends on temperament more than anything.

I agree that it is an important skill to play alone, amuse yourself.
But it may be that dd picked up on my stress that she wasn't amusing herself and the whole thing became more and more unworkable. Like the clingy child that is driving you mad because you can't put them down, will not let go. They pick up on your tension vair easily!!!

Dunno really what I should have done? Start little activities that dd needed to finish off herself, rather than hovering till completion - ie: playdough, drawing, arranging toy figures. Open ended games? chatting to her whilst she played by herself to give feedback? Not making things so defined..ie: NOT saying now you play by yourself whilst I do this..as that may have been anxiety inducing.

Go with the flow really..

Thanks for all your posts. At least it sounds fairly normal. But I hope to God she grows out of it and can play for short bursts on her own. I loved playing on my own as a child as did my DH so cant really understand it. I love her dearly, but it does get very waring when you cant have a few mins to relax or to do a job without resorting to using the telly. It makes me worry that she'll lack initative or imagination, and I think its a real cop out sticking the telly on.

Anyone care to join me in a little experiment? How bout a 3 days no turning the telly on challenge to see if we can crack it?! Could use telly as a reward at the end of the day?

My dd now 11 never played on her own.She's still demanding now! But she's always got her friends round now and they play in her room.Bliss!

DS1 was like this but fortunately I had DS2 only 18months after so once DS2 was playable with it sorted itself out! I still find DS1 alone very hard and he is now 8. But if I had jobs to do and they wouldn't leave me alone I involved them in the jobs. Sorting washing, chopping veg (OK with a bluntish knife for a four year old), cleaning etc. I found that eventually they got fed up of helping and so moved off to play alone sort of naturally.
But if you just want a cuppa and a 5min sit it is harder. In this situation I think TV is fine. But if you want to try it let us know how you get on!!