Finding how my 5YO son plays strange

[tilly6284]

I'm finding it strange that my 5 year old son, (very nearly 6) doesn't role play with 'human' figures and instead replaces the humans with cars or vehicles. For example we bought him the police car and helicopter playmobil recently and all of the 'people' were on 'holiday' (i.e. in a pile on the floor) and the police car and helicopter were being driven and piloted by cars. He also has the farm set and some of the Roman playmobil and various lego sets and he does this with all of them.

He shoves piles of lego bricks in any other enclosed toys; for example I've just found lego bricks stuffed into the Playmobil dog kennel. I figured previously that he may not necessarily know how to 'role play' with his other sets, so I bought him the police set (at his request) figuring he knows what policemen do.

My concern is he seems incapable of playing with any of the human toys and replaces them with vehicles or that then act like humans. I'm curious to know if anyone else has experienced something similar? Is it a phase or is it perfectly normal? Any shared experiences or insights would be appreciated as it's quite frustrating to watch, I fear that his imagination is quite limited, but I have considered that maybe it's actually mine.

No advice sorry but I'll be interested to see any replies.

My DS will be 4 at the end of the year and while he doesn't do that exactly, he isn't fussed on figures at all. He has an Octopod and Gups (loves Octonauts) as well as figures, and the figures almost never get played with.

He has loads of trains/vehicles, and although his play mainly consists of the sound effects/engine noises, he is starting to narrate more which I find encouraging. I think sometimes the trains might be having little conversations with each other (nothing particularly creative, more like "slow down!" "Ok!" Etc).

He does have a duplo train set though and he will put the figures in there, generally as the figures are "him/me/DH/grandparents" etc. It's the vehicles that get the action though, the figures don't ever seem to do much other than sit in the train!

Do you have any other concerns about your DS? Does he do other standard role play eg kitchen?

Does he like Transformers ? The Pixar movie cars? There's a lot of kids programmes with non-human characters who talk, sleep etc Does he like animal or monster-type figures?

Yes he watches alot of the programmes that have vehicles as 'alive' like Cars, Dinotrucks and Blaze but he also watches things like Fireman Sam and Paw Patrol too. I did think that those programs may be having an effect. He doesn't role play much in general.

It's normal, he's playing, i'll be 99% of the stuff he watches have non-human things acting like humans.

he also watches things like Fireman Sam and Paw Patrol too

Paw Patrol has dogs acting like humans.

I think it's perfectly normal. Vehicles and talking animals are popular themes for kids.

His female friends are probably playing similar games with their My Little Ponies and other animal figures. My daughter used to have animals be the vet rather than a human.

Recreating the sort of stories that they watch on tv is very common. When dd played with her ponies, the one that was "clumsy" in the programme would be the one who would do "clumsy" things in her playing.

My three year old does this but then he likes watching stuff like sgt cooper, sgt Lucas and Tayo the little bus on YouTube.

Oh god, Tayo Violet1988. My DS likes that too, it's awful!

Also we were in the same TTC group with our 3 year olds, I remember you

Your description of his play made me smile! Kids are brilliant.

My son is only 3 so this might not be relevant but he couldn’t be less interested in human toys. Whenever we play I have to be a car or a helicopter toy and we fly around rescuing other cars and helicopters and putting them in jail (at the moment this is because they are thieves who stole the chocolate). Today I listened to him playing with his toy cars in a tub of water and he had them all talking to one another (“do you want to come in my boat” “oh yes please” “you’re welcome, oh no it’s sinking” “help meee” etc) and I was silently pissing myself laughing at his wee crazy self

I have wondered if I should be trying to show him that cars aren’t happy or unhappy, or that they don’t go to hospital in an ambulance or whatever, but previous posters have reassured me a bit by mentioning films like Cars - that makes a lot of sense! All we ever watch is Tayo, Titipo, Robocar Poli and all these other things that have anthropomorphised vehicles.

His nursery teacher says that she hides the toy cars and trucks sometimes because my son and his friend won’t play with anything else otherwise!

This is a few months old but I thought I would bump it to see if anyone else has any experiences of play they find "odd"?

My DS is 4 and shows little interest in playing with any sort of "figures", his big interest is transport and he's recently branched our to transform type vehicles like Rescue Bots, Super Wings etc. Even if he has figures though he doesn't use them, just claims he's "pretending" they're in there (eg he likes Octonauts, he'll fly the Octopod and Gups all around and he might say "so-and-so is driving that one" but if I suggest putting the figure in he won't. The characters themselves don't seem to have much to do in the storylines! He does make his Transformer/Rescue Bots toys talk to each other in his play though.

I don't worry that it displays lack of empathy/others' perspective as such as he will make them pretend to be scared etc, and he'll take on the character of his teddies and make them talk etc.

I've also noticed this sort of pattern in his role play, except he never seems to want to be anyone other than "a little boy". But yet he will still take on different "roles/scenarios" eg he'll have a house, he'll go to work, take work phone calls, take his baby/teddy for a walk to the park, be a poorly patient at the doctors, run from monsters, ghosts etc. But if I say oh are you the mummy (eg when pushing the pram) it's always no, I'm just a little boy. I don't know if it's because he's self conscious when I ask him or something more. He'll pretend to be a monster or a transformer occasionally, eg just now he said I'm pretending to be Optimus Prime and I said oh sorry Optimus, and he said no, I'm just pretending, I'm still a little boy!