Interacting with your children

[EllieRay]

I'm just wondering how much time you spend a day and what type of things you do to play/interact with your kids.

When they were younger I found it a lot easier to play with them but having 3 kids all at different stages I find a lot of the day I spend doing jobs/ keeping myself busy instead of actually sitting and interacting. We do get out and about every day for a walk/bike ride/activity.

I want to be more pro active with them at home but I also can't stand playing imaginary games for too long! Am I just being a very boring mum?x

I’d really love an answer to this. I’ve 3 children at different stages and although I talk to them constantly throughout the day (proper conversations/taking an interest in what they’re doing etc), I don’t actually play with them or do anything with them. Youngest is 3, only wants to play driving toy cars around in circles. Middle is 8, constantly asks questions but doesn’t come to me to play games etc, eldest is 10 and follows me about helping/chatting etc. I always feel like I’m not interacting with them enough though but I really don’t have a clue what else to do. Grew up with an abusive family so I don’t have my own childhood to base parent interactions on

Oh, we do movie nights and the older two help with cooking too. But I definitely don’t play with the older two, more just char

My DS is coming up 3 yrs old and I do spend quite a lot of time playing with him - but he’s an only child so we have the luxury of time on our side. Number II is on his way, so I expect it’ll be a bit of a shock for DS when he doesn’t have mummy’s undivided attention.

I’ll sit down with him and do things like Play Doh, puzzles, stickers, pretend play (mostly eating wooden ice cream cones over and over again.....). And books, we read soooooo many books (which can quickly tip from lovely into tedious after half an hour).

He’s starting to get better at playing by himself with his wooden trains etc and will often leaf through books by himself, so I’m starting to get some chores done around him. However he still struggles to entertain himself for too long and trying to get chores done around him is often impossible so I tend to do those while he’s asleep.

We do go out a lot together, to child friendly days out, but I enjoy that as much as he does so that’s partly my motivation.

It must be a lot harder juggling three children at differing ages. I suspect No II is going to be a shock to the system for us all! Don’t give yourself a hard time, but if you think it’s a problem, could you fit a little bit of 1:1 time or family time in somewhere in the week? Even just 10-15 mins of quality 1:1 time would be well received by the kids, I’m sure.

Imaginary play is beyond tedious. I grit my teeth and so it but it’s so repetitive, it makes me want to bang my head off a brick wall sometimes! So no, definitely don’t think you’re a boring mummy for disliking that!