Are there any hobbies I can share with my 5 year old daughter?

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, I have a 5.6 year old daughter and I'm looking for ideas of organised activities or hobbies that we can do together.
She has some SEN's and can be very demanding and hard to have fun with. We both love music although we can't actually play anything. We both like dancing too.
I took her skiing once but it was very hard work as I had to hold her the whole time.
If you have any ideas then please let me know.

what does she like to do? When you say she likes music, how does she show this? SOmetimes it can help to just follow your child's interest. My feeling tends to be that if they are happy, I am happy. Kids (with or without SN - and I have both kinds - can be trying! My son has autism and loves Dr Who, so we watch that!

She likes listening to music, playing it and dancing to it. She sings to it too which can be painful.

she likes Jane and the Dragon but would watch it 24-7 if she had the chance. She wants to play these acted out stories over and over again, exactly the same way each time. It's so tedious playing like this. She gets very stressed and angry if you don't do it right or change a part of it.

We find playing "board" games with our five year old great. There are some which are cleverly developed and are interesting (enough!) for people of any age. One of our favourites is "Animal upon animal" by Haba (dh is German and we live in Germany at present). We have had games with dd (5y), her cousin (9y), my husband, his brother and me with everyone trying their hardest and Uncle Christian getting worked up when the kids kept beating him!
Obviously games like this are not a hobby, but we find the really well designed ones can be a great bonding activity and give you a break from doing other things over and over again!
The downside is they can be expensive, but here we can borrow games from children´s libraries.

We have loads of games but she has a very short attention span and will leave after a few miutes even if she's winning.

The only one she'll persavere with is tummy ache by Orchard toys. She wants it over and over again.

Cards, she makes hers, you make yours. Scrap booking, you can provide materials, she actually does it. Baking, she can help measure, mix, cut cookie shapes, taste of course! Making christmas decorations (paint pine cones, you can make berries from clay and paint them, bread dough decorations painted to hang in tree), etc. She can make a lovely drawing and you can have it made in a jigsaw puzzle for X-mas (I think Boots and Jessops do that).

I'm sorry you are feeling so frustrated. Children on the spectrum with or without learning difficulties can be hard work to interact with in a give and take sort of way. Is it worse if you feel anxious or self-conscious if she is behaving slightly oddly in public? Can you think of times when you were together when you felt happy and relaxed. What about going to a cafe together and eating cake? Would she sit with a child's magazine while you read something else? Does she like the cinema? Would she come into bed and cuddle with you or play a game like 'tunnelling' in the bed (all my kids loved that! Just climbing around under the bed while you read a book! Can you take her out with a friend at the weekend. What about swimming and a hot chocolate afterwards?