I find all DD's games boring and can no longer bring myself to play them - feel awful

[oneplusone]

DD is 4.5 and she loves 'role play' games usually where she's the teacher and I'm 'Emily' or 'Amy' etc and usually just involves her talking and ordering me about (like a teacher!) and I until now I have indulged her but I have reached the point of boredom where it turns to insanity and I just can't play that game for a second longer. Nor can i play any of her other games which are all basically role playing; in fact whilst she is a lovely, intelligent, lively and very chatty girl, all the things she wants to do bore me rigid.

I find myself on MN (or trying to MN anyway) at every available opportunity after DD is home from school as I am so bored. Yesterday DD said to me all I did was take her to school and 'work' on my computer ie meaning I never play with her which recently i guess is true . I do try but I just can't do it anymore. I much prefer going out with the DC's to the park etc but after school she's tired and hungry and then it's late/dark/raining so we stay in mostly. I am going to restart some of her after school activities after the easter hols, perhaps this will help.

I feel this is part of a wider problem which is simply that I am bored of being a SAHM in general (i also have DS who is nearly 2). I've been at home nearly 5 years now and really feel I need to either go back to work/do a course, something where I will be in adult company and use my brain (what's left of it anyway).

I do intend to start a course at the local college but that's not til september and I honestly don't know how i'm going to get through the 6 months til then.

I do meet up with other mums etc but find myself feeling jealous of the mums at DD's school who work and have good jobs. From reading other threads on MN about trying to go back to work after having been a SAHM it seems like an impossible task to find a part time job with time off for sickness and school holidays. I read one post which said the only way to get a part time job was to start full time and then try and reduce your hours after a while which i am sure is true. But i couldn't contemplate going back to work full time at the moment.

I feel so bored and frustrated, and it's affecting my DC's which makes me feel so terrible and guilty. But i also don't really feel confident about going back to work anyway so it's not really an option either and i feel faint at the thought of trying to juggle the kids/work/home etc i find it hard enough to manage just the kids and the housework. I think i am pretty much useless all round.

I don't expect anyone to have any answers, but just getting it out feels good.

Open University: mostly you will study at home in your own time. They usually have tutorials once a week/fortnight where you will get out and meet the other students; then it's up to you whether you hook up with someone as a 'study buddy' (!), whether you organise your time so that you go to library to study at set times or whether you take free time at home for it, etc. The main thing, in your case, is it gives you something else, and adult, to think about, keeps your mind ticking over, especially if you're planning on doing a course in September; it'll just keep your hand in.

can you do any kind of voluntary work? if you are trained lawyer you have skills someone will bite your arm off for especially in london - stuff like sitting on board of local NHS trust, school governors, trustee of charity etc. they just want a responsible member of the community but it helps if you have specific skills like accounting or law. try here www.publicappts-vacs.gov.uk
to see what sort of things, some might be paid some not, but they will all help build up your cv if you are going back to work, sort of ease you back into an office environment and keep your mind ticking over. usually commitment would only be a couple of days a month if that for meetings.
also there may be other things you can do to exercise your mind til september - are you in a book group, if you like reading, for example? good luck with it whatever.

Can you find games that you both enjoy to do together - dd has games like Build A beetle, Landlock and Rushhour that I quite enjoy. Even hama beads!

If she wants to do roleplay stuff then she does it with the dolls I'm afraid as I won't be joining in.

I've come to this a bit late

I have a 5 year old and a 2.5 year old and I never play with them in this way

But I DO encourage THEM to play together in this way constantly - they play all sorts of role-playing games all the time (usually with the 2 year old as the stooge - a dog / wicked witch etc) - when they are playing together nicely I praise the elder one constantly ('Oooh aren't you being helpful looking after your sister and playing nicely with her' etc) - the elder one is the key to the whole thing because she will lead the games. They do a lot of 'teaching' games too where the little one has an exercise book and a crayon. I think I would try to encourage them to play together more and praise them with they do. And be more boring yourself.

I don't do imaginative/roleplay games at all. I used to nanny for a 5yo and 2yo, and games I would play on indoor days were things like Uno, simple board games, memory card games, snap, drawing/cutting/sticking, playdoh, simple baking, setting up railway, building things from lego. Pretending to be a fireman/cat/pupil/taxi driver for hours on end IS boring, even if looking after kids is your vocation in life!

hi, the DC's do play together quite a bit, just depends on their mood i guess. Any sort of drawing, sticking, lego always ends in disaster as DS always wants the exact same piece/crayon that DD has and will stop at nothing to get it so it usually ends in tears and I have given up on that sort of thing unless DS is not around.

oneplusone - My dd(5) is alaways wanting to play role playing games. Like you mentioned teachers, or mummy and daddies and many other variants. She doesn't have siblings at the moment(though I am expecting a baby in the summer - her fav. game is now me pretending to be the new baby ), so it falls upon me to be her playmate. I find it really boring. I do work part-time, but I just don't enjoy playing these games constantly. I do feel guilty and go along with it alot of the time, but after a while it just gets to me and I want to escape on mumsnet. I envy people who are so lovely with children and have the patience to play with them. The problem is role-play is dd's favourite type of games, she much rather role-play than do anything else. I think it's probably the age, as they get older(7-8), they will want to do things by themselves like read or play computer games. I will probably then miss her following me around wanting me to be this person or that!