Do you make your DC play together if one of them doesn't want to?

[BlueBananas]

We have 2 DC - DS (5) & DD (4)
DS struggles to play by himself and is always asking DD to play with him, DD is an independent soul and prefers to play by herself. If DS comes and tries to join in she will literally scoop up everything she's playing with and go and play somewhere else away from him
I think we should encourage DD to play and share with her brother more, DP thinks we should respect he privacy and encourage DS to play on his own more
I can see both sides and have no idea who's right! How do other people handle this? What should we do?

No, definitely not. My ds (6) and dd (9) play together a lot, but I would never force one to play if they wanted some alone time. I would have thought that saying 'You have to play with your brother/ sister' was a sure-fire way of turning it into a chore and something they would then want to do even less often!

Can't you do both? I don't think it's fair to make DD play with DS if she doesn't want to, but it might be an idea to try and find some activities that they do enjoy together.

I haven't read it in an age but perhaps the book Siblings Without Rivalry has some useful advice about this situation?

I don't think you can force anyone to play, let alone play with someone else.

I'd look into seeing if there are any games/toys that work best if they play together (ball games, noughts and crosses, snakes and ladders etc.). Then they might choose to play together.