Hello dear mums.
I feel very confused. My life feelis like a constant battleš«£
I have 2 children 2 and 7 years old.
My 2 years old is fine doing things with me, or playing on his own when sister is not at home. When 7 yo daughter comes home from school or it is school holidays (like now) things get too hectic. She is like a little hurricane. She'll be quiet if she's watching tv or ipad, but I limit this time. And then she would struggle to find herself something to do and will start bothering her brother and they'll be arguing. So basically, she won't just find herself something to do or read. She'll be encouraging him to run around the house, or will keep doing cart wheels for ages or will be climbing walls. Unless I invite her to do some activity like puzzles or craft or board game in this case she'll concentrate and happily play with me for a long time. But I can't really afford to spend hours playing with her and it is challenging to do craft having 2 y o around. She will only read if i ask her to and only 1 or 2 small books. If I ask to read a bigger book, she'll want to read with me taking turns. I feel tired. I want quiet evenings, when everyone is doing their stuff and we may do activities together but not all the time. Did anyone have similar situation? Have you found a solution on how to encourage a child playing independently at this age? Or maybe you can see some obvious thing I'm missing ?