Can someone help me help me understand my 3yo's behaviour when playing - NOT SEN

[Return2thebasic]

I'm not sure if this is the residue of the Terrible Two. I found playing with DS2 often turns me away from trying anything with him.

• Can't do anything involving counting with him, as he would make sure deliberately skip numbers, e.g. 1, 2, 7 even though he IS CAPABLE of counting to 10.

• Can't do building blocks with him, as he just watches me building anything ignoring my invitation for him to do it.

• I got a sandbox for him. He seemed really excited the first time seeing it and did play for about half an hour. But since then, he seems to have lost interest quickly. I thought at this age, they'd be happy just dig the sand here and there. But he didn't seem to be bothered with digging sand at all.The second time when I took it out, he barely played for more than 10 minutes.Then never asked for it again.

• Can't play card games with him. It's not he doesn't understand the simple rules of playing (like memory game or snap). He just seems to not wan to follow the rules and rather not play it at all.

• Tried Grapat loose parts. He genuinely seems not knowing what to do with them. He has no interest in colour sorting or parts stacking.

• Puzzle playing is also another challenge. He usually loses interest within 1 minute and requests to pack it away, if I didn't insist helping him to do it.

I don't know if it's a development thing, or confidence thing (hesitant to try by himself???), or anything else. He seems to be on the bright side. He just turned 3, but can speak fluently with barely any grammar mistake like a 4 years old. But he has little interest in learning numbers properly (did display a couple of weeks flash passion for numbers about 2 months ago). He can't recognise letters yet (except A and N) even though he seemed to be willing to know more.

He spends 4 mornings in the nursery. I spend every afternoon with him alone and the entire Fridays. I would love to use the time well and play more together. But I do feel a bit discouraged at the moment. - I took a Melissa & Doug Take-Along Tool Kit out for him this week when he couldn't go to nursery because of tummy bug. I played in front of him for 10 minutes and he only said they have the toolbox in the nursery but not the nuts and bolts. Then he requested me to put it away...

Do these behaviours seem familiar to anyone? Any theory can be suggested to explain this?

At that age my kids favourite games with me were hiding games - hide and seek where I would hide in easy places or 'giggle' when they came near. We had a stretchy piece of fabric they used to hide under, or they would go under their duvet and I would "wonder what the big lump in the bed was" and "hammer" it flat while they shrieked with laughter. We'd play "faces" after the bath where we would cover our faces with the towel and make a funny face, then the other would pull it off. Lots of songs and nursery rhymes. Two of mine loved the train set, one loved setting up the farm animals. They all liked squishing Play-Doh. Any turn taking games or formal games came later.

Yeah if you hang onto them I’m sure they’ll get use. But I’d say it’s a rare 3 year old who would get much play value from them. My 10yo loves to build, loves Lego and cardboard boxes. These toys are heaven for him. The stuff he makes from the pyramid is impressive. So of course I then went on to buy the 1001 nights, Romanesque, elements. You get the picture. I need to remove myself from all the Facebook groups tbh. It’s all designed to make you feel inadequate.

@Return2thebasic My oldest son has adhd and autism too and I totally get you. I was a single parent then and I’m totally overcompensating now too. My 3 yo is in a double bed fgs, at that age my son was sharing a room with his big sister in our tiny flat, with only charity shop toys and clothes. Having the means to buy more for her hasn’t actually been the blessing I thought it would be. It hadn’t made me a better mum and she hasn’t actually benefitted anymore from having expensive toys. She’s learned a bloody lot from too much YouTube though. Nursery were most impressed that she could count and recognise her numbers and letters. It’s all cocomelon 😆

@YouHaveNoAuthorityHereJackie , cocomelon is the rare one he did like. But also bad memory about DS1 watching lots of TV and turned out with attention issue (probably not really to do with TV). So I've been wary to let DS2 watch much - he's also not interested in any of those shows I let him tried.

But might give cocomelon a try again. :)

A therapist told me that he's the way he is and there was nothing I could have helped to make it differently... Don't hold too much guilt yourself. We are just trying to do our best with what we know/have. Out of love, nothing else...

@YouHaveNoAuthorityHereJackie , yes, better stay away from the Facebook group. I was hooked by it probably partly because of my own ADHD impulsiveness and being sucked into this big hole. Many nights of research and many secretive spending online - wouldn't dare to let DH know they cost 5 folds more than what's in his mind...

Sandpits are more fun if you change the kit that goes with them.

Eg Dinosaurs buried in the sand and a spoon and paintbrush for archeology. Animals/trees/flowers/houses/cars to make landscapes/zoos etc.

Plastic bottles with a teaspoon of powdered paint/dry spices to add sand shake and pour coloured/smelly patterns in the sand.
Little rakes, smoothers, printers and gravel or stones fora more zen sand garden experience.

Your son plays beautifully.

"We have kept a thin plywood board which usually serves as the back of a piece of furniture. It's really versatile. When he's really little, he uses it as a slide on top of me (sitting up) and we can use it to make tunnel or bridge. Today he used it to make a big bridge between two chairs and ran his car on top before he requested me to wind up the Halloween pumpkin hopping toy, so he could let it hop around on this big bridge and fall off the edge."

So don't fret.

With my youngest at that age and for the next year....we spent a lot of time walking the streets looking for 'tree down' men. He was a little obsessed with chain saws. If we heard one we would go looking. If we found someone cutting a tree down we would stand and watch. (The council landscapers cutting bushes were just as good).

Then there was a new car wash being build locally so we would take a walk down and watch them building that. At the early stages when there were diggers digging the water tank it was very exciting.

My youngest would also balance bike for miles.

(My daughter loved imaginary play - still does. My boys never really. The youngest did play with my daughter when she instigated it. But never with me.)

Don't worry. You are doing great.

have you got an old piece of plastic house guttering? My DS loved posting cars, stones, anything down there. Hours of fun!

Some kids hate puzzles and card games can become more of an interest later.

Try getting a few of the Orchard Games second hand - the pink one with cupcakes is really easy and fun to learn to take turns (or steal all the cakes and run off , in my ds’s case).

With the sand pit, have you tried getting some toy cars and driving them around in it? Or dampening the sand, getting objects and seeing what imprints they make?

I do a lot of physical and pretend play with my 3 yo ds at home - pretend to be monsters, play hide and seek and chase, throw a soft ball around the living room, have a teddy bear picnic, play with the toy shop and the toy cooker. He also loves playing with cars, building dens, etc.

while the weather is fine we are outside as much as possible! He likes digging for worms and going on his balance bike or walking in the woods. But favourite is going to a playground with a picnic or snack.

sadly he is not keen on books which is very worrying. My dd loved books at this age. It makes me very sad.

You sound lovely! Shame more parents don’t make the effort to play with their children like you do 😊

Good lord, he’s just turned 3. Relax for goodness sake.

This is a normal and important part of development - learning.

Just cheer up, mess about, have some fun.

You're turning play into a stressful thing! Think you need to look at what you're doing really.

Oh 100% this! One of the best things we ever bought.

They need lots of time to just faff about at this age.

I'm a mum to a 3.5 year old and a primary teacher. Those games sounds quite advanced and a lot of 'educational games' aren't actually educational - there was a really interesting radio 4 programme about these. From my experience play works best if it's lead by the child. My son like to use his playmobil, soft toys, Lego and trains to act out things we've read or he loves exploring outside. But all children are different and have their own unique interests. The best toys are open ended and can be used for lots of different things.

Grandson is just three (yesterday). He learned to recognise numbers on our walks to the park he's also grasped that 82 is eighty two and so his logic tells him 22 is twoty two (we will learn about twenty and thirty some other time) He learned letters from the street signs on the way to the park and shops too.
Games he likes and has been playing for a year now are Orchard games he started with shopping list and dinosaur dominoes but has many more now. He also likes pop up pirate and the kids version of Jenga I think it's called wiggling worms.
He likes matching and sorting so he helps sort laundry into colours and pairs socks (he is delighted by a basket of socks).
With grandson I follow his lead tbh but we generally have a plan for the day where a quick game or puzzle comes before and after a meal, snack or trip out.

Look of developmental stages of play. Co-operative play (where they play "together" with someone else) doesn't usually start until 4-6 years old.

@avocadotofu, @hiredandsqueak , I get the point about not age-appropriate expectation now.

But he's not interested in Playmobil, Duplo, soft toys, sorting, stacking (not anymore). Doesn't play shoping list or dominoes, or pretend play. Just those typical things, he's not terribly interested. On the other hand, he does like more physical plays and just faff things about. Started into playing blocks a little bit and build JL marble run track, play water a bit. (He stopped having bath as he claims it's boring! Happily just do showers now.)

And he doesn't do counting with me properly - I kept wondering if I'm doing it wrong. I guess I just have to chill and leave the matter to natural development.

@Lickerz , lost track about how long a child takes to grow up - always felt too fast. 😏

I need to get it out from the shed...after I clean up all the junks inside it...

We do enjoy outings together. But it gets tiring if doing the same thing again every other day. (I try to avoid going to shop everyday too, as the money disappears a lot quicker that way!)

I found in lockdown that I got bored doing the same few local walks in rotation, but my two under fives actually really loved the predictability of it! We'd talk about what was coming up, which way shall we go next, different vehicles on the road (turns out if you wave at people driving bin lorries/cement mixers/tankers, nine times out of ten they wave back!).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you might be overthinking how much variety of activities you need to provide. They love routine and repetition at that age.

He's got 4 mornings in nursery, let them worry about numbers, letters, turn-taking games etc.

He sounds like a typical 3 year old, educational stuff isn’t always fun for them. I would just go with his ideas and his play. My eldest is 4 and she purposely gets answers wrong when she doesn’t want any learning type play, so then I just stop. When I had to homeschool her during lockdown I used lots of the five minute mum ideas (she has a website) as they were great for learning through play.

If he likes more physical play then how about games like musical statues, Simon says, hide and seek? You’re still playing but theres movement involved. Or hitting balloons to stop them touching the floor. My DC (4 and 2) love ‘the floor is lava’, we use cushions as stepping stones across the room and I give them a challenge (walk/run/hop/crawl/jump etc) across and they have to try not to fall in (with the elder DD she has words to learn for school so I have them written out and she has to read one to ‘earn’ a life back in the game). Or songs like I’m a single dangle scarecrow, sleeping bunnies (you can get them on YouTube).

@Namechanger965 , thank you. I'm checking out the " five minute mum" website right now. The first golden rule seems to bang on. I will have look of her ideas. Thank you for recommending this and the other activities.

"My eldest is 4 and she purposely gets answers wrong when she doesn’t want any learning type play, so then I just stop."

I think this is a very good explanation of his behaviour when it comes to counting or anything he doesn't want to do. I just missed his point until you pointed it out!

@SatinHeart , yes, agreed. I need to see things from his angle a bit more! What's boring to me might be well interesting to him!

Maybe read up on “play schema” and try to work out what his is, then you can gear activities towards whatever schema he is practicing. My boys are both on the connecting schema, train tracks mostly but in the past it’s been tinsel, string and even small chains (don’t ask) but most recently it’s stripping off all the sofa cushions and making paths around the house (sigh)

anyway, let him play for a bit and try to notice what he is doing, is he connecting/throwing/piling things in a basket ir transporting things? Then you can research play ideas relating to that, even stuff that seems quite boring to us can keep them entertained for ages!