Does anyone else's child just not play!?

[cactusdog]

My three year old has always been like this. He just won't play and it is driving my to insanity.
Ever since he was a baby he has needed constant interaction. Now he just hangs around, if I'm not playing with him and even when I am he gets bored really quickly.
He concentrates fine in nursery and plays with other kids. He entertains himself in nursery.
He has so many toys and doesn't care about any that much. Although if you say you'll take them away/give them away he gets upset. It is driving my insane. Will he ever entertain himself? Has anyone else got any experience of this?

His younger brother is still a baby and completely different. He already plays by himself and entertains himself for ages.

My three year old doesn’t play with anything for long, I wish she would focus on a toy for more than 5/10mins but it won’t happen. I remember being shocked when my neighbours 3yr old would sit and play with trains by himself for hrs.
Only thing she’s a little better with is crafting, paint/ stickers/ colouring etc-
She’s very active, extremely social (talks to everyone) and is far happier being out of the house.

A mix here. Soon to be 3 loves playing with siblings who are a fair bit older.

Loves going out and really loves nursery.

But will play a bit - painting, trains, dolls house, tea set. Not hours though

Leave your ds for an hour. Let him get bored and ignore any moaning. Make sure there are crayons and paper, maybe some duploand picture books around that he can play with if he wants to but don't prompt him.

Get on with whatever you are doing. Eventually he will use his imagination and settle to doing something if you aren't constantly stimulating him.

Yes mine! It's exhausting, although he does have significant SN which I think is the reason. We don't limit screen time too much, as if left to his own devices he just causes chaos and trouble, so a screen is the lesser of two evils (though we do restrict it to educational screen time). We concentrate on engaging him when we're free to (eg going out to the park, playing a game) and try to relax about screens the rest of the time. Though this didn't come until after about 4 years of trying to get him to entertain himself proved fruitless, so I wouldn't necessarily rush to up his screen time with him being so young.
One thing my DC loves is responsibility. He will often join me in cooking, cleaning, running errands etc and prefers that to play, so I try and involve him in that as much as possible.

DSS (4) cannot play on his own. If he’s told to go and play in his room, he’ll just go and lie in his bed. Or he’ll sit on the sofa doing absolutely nothing and make no attempt to play.

My 3yo has only just started occupying herself and playing by herself when I'm around. Before now she would need me to play with her. I suspect it'll change for your 3yo sooner or later. Hang in there.

I found this too.
I think I was too invested in keeping them busy all the time. Playdates, visitors, outings, baking, activities at home. It took until lockdown to discover that boredom is fine and that's when mine really learnt how to just play, with toys, making towns or schools. I did have to instruct mine to leave mummy for a bit and go and play something. I will not go back to trying to fill the time with constant activities or plans.

I like having a bit of space too. It's much better now without DC being constantly hovering around me, waiting for the next 'thing'.

Yes my DS who is almost 5! Although I think he's gotten worse with age and was better at 2-3. He will play for a bit but not long - if he does 20 minutes, that's a great success as it's unusual.

Yes !
Almost 5 year old and she has been like this for a couple of years now
I don't feel guilty about her being bored sometimes but she will never go off and play she'll just hang around doing nothing unless she can have TV or someone's full attention

Mine never did. All that leaving them stuff never worked. She’d just get up and follow me.

She’s a people person and needs interaction. She just wanted lots of people to play with when she was little. However she’s 14 now and wants no parental interaction😭but is happy to scream on her phone to her friends.

Mine has unfortunately got worse as she gets older to .
😬
Her teacher says she has a fab creative mind at school but she leaves it there 🤣.

We have Xmas toys from last year untouched