Do you children play without you?

[ThatWouldBeEnough]

I have two DDs - 7 & 10. The 7 yo just will not play on her own. When she comes home from school she’ll want to go on the trampoline but wants a parent to be out there playing some sort of role play at the same time. At weekends she’ll want one or both of us playing Lego (not building, more role play) or dance schools or mermaids or some other nonsense role play. If we go for a walk we have to be detectives on a walk...it goes on!

I feel bad because I always feel like I’m trying to get out of spending time with her - but we do play with her. I’m quite good at putting my phone in another room so I’m not distracted and doing a good hour of play but half an hour after we’ve finished she wants to play again.

DD10 will play with her sometimes but she’s not really into the role play plus they argue and so I can’t get on with mumsnetting housework anyway.

At the moment we’re having to do all our chores once they are asleep and so get no downtime at all.

Any advice?!

Any other concerns?

I loved playing with my son until he got to about 6, at those ages I’d definitely be pushing for more independent play.
Like you though I do feel bad for not playing with my son more, it’s just draining though.

Get friends over? Take the heat off you for a while?
Sometimes I put my 4 year old on Skype playdates with her cousins, gives me half hour or so to myself.

I think you need to leave them to play alone young, now your playing with them is the norm so it will be very hard to break it. You just need to say NO and at their age they are old enough to understand if you explain why you can't dedicated so much time to play. You need down time or you will burn out.

Yes ours do and they've been happy to amuse themselves from a young age.
They had no choice though, my husband works away a lot so I'd get nothing done if I played all the time. We have 5 now so they have eachother too. One of ours expected me to sit 1 on 1 with her all day to do home schooling, I explained to her that she wouldn't get that at school and her siblings needed help too. Eventually she accepted it and got on with it more independently. Some times it feels like you're being a bit mean but needs must.

My eldest is like this and tbh I resorted to screens a lot. What did help was coming up with a list of activities he could do by himself and then making sure that those activities were always readily available and then making sure he didn't forget about them by making lists he could choose from.

Also does she have local friends she could play with? DS1 was much better as soon as he could organise and get himself to his own playdates. If she doesn't know children close enough for you to be happy with her playing out, look at local activities like brownies, sports/dance clubs etc in the hope she will meet some.

You want to get her on a device. Once they get a phone/Switch/tablet, you never hear from them again. I'm joking. Sort of.

We have a similar issue - our kids are 10 (daughter) and 8 (son) and when they're not engaged with YouTube/Roblox/Fortnite etc, they want us to play with them - favourite games are hide and seek (so so dull) or some kind of chasing game in the garden (a different form of misery). I sometimes say to my daughter (jokingly, I might add), "Why do you think we bothered having your brother? Why can't he play with you?!", but honestly, they're not happy unless we are engaged with the play. Likewise, I feel guilty that I don't always enjoy playing with them as I know these days will be gone so quickly.

My husband and I have discussed that we don't really remember our parents playing with us as much. We both just recall either playing with siblings/local kids or on our own. I do wonder whether times have changed to a certain degree.

You have my sympathies regarding the role play. Thankfully, we're well past it now, but my daughter used to LOVE roleplay games ALL THE TIME. So so exhausting...

Just insist a few times. There may be tantrums but clinginess is an addiction that needs to be curbed by that age. Amusing yourself is a skill for life.