Am I being negelctful??!

[peacelily]

dd 17m is happily playing with her books and her teaset beside me, haven't really intervened or played "with" her, have just left her to it, she's singing and chattering away to herself etc. Whilst I'm on here!

Should I get on the floor with her and be a more active participant?

And how long do you spend "engaged" with your dcs when at home all day with them? 1 hour? More? All day? (!)

And what about tv? How much?

No. Learning to play on their own is a valuabe lesson and will lead to a fab imagination imo.

*valuable

I think children need to be left alone, I really do. It encourages resourcefulness and imagination.

If she wants you she'll ask.

We interfere far too much nowadays, I reckon.

Thing is agree, but at the we when there's all3 of us, dh gives her his 100% non stop attention and as a result she screams for him whenever he leaves the room. MiL does this too. me and my Mum kind of leave her to it a bit as well as taking some time out to read storeis and stuff.

Have had big arguments with dh over this, get accused of being "uninterested" if I pick up a book or a magazine (or go on here)

I agree with the others - you're there, right next to her, she's not neglected, she's playing on her own. This is good.

Presumably, when she wants to play WITH you, she'll let you know.

It might be an idea to tell her how good she's being though, people (generally) don't praise their children enough for being quiet, so they learn that they will get attention when they run around screaming and throwing things off shelves. So that's what they do instead of that nice, relaxing, sitting together thing you've got going on at the mo.

Yes squonk you're right must make a conscious effort to give positive attention for positive play!

just evidenced by dd making her way to the wine rack (no wine in it by the way!) and wobbling it perilously whilst eye-balling me. Distraction time!!

No.
Very important that children learn to entertain themselves for short periods of time at this age (also completely unrealistic to expect an adult to give them 100% attention).

I bet your dh works does he?
Easy enough to be 100% full on when you're not with the child all dayt every day.

I'm a speech and language therapist if it makes you feel any better.

Good grief if she is happy to play on her own - let her. At this age ds would follow me everywhere and nothing kept his attention for more than 3 secs unless he was playing with or 'helping' me or ds.

Over time I've trained him to entertain himself a bit or to wait for my attention but he still doesn't like it and he's 3 years old now.

I mean - me or dh duh!

leave her to it - put a face mask on have a cuppa

we both work but I only do 4 days would love to do less . On my day off with dd I usually try to got out somewhere park/cafe or do an activity like stickers or drawing/cornflour. But I do like to try to get on with washing cleaning etc too! And I not the sort who can be massively "wahey!" when it comes to kids.

I'm quite a quiet mum although we do enjoy our singing/action rhymes