Toddlers and activities

[megsymooox]

Am I being unrealistic? DS is 2year3months old

only really started to get into crafts and drawing/painting around 2! attention span has only just increased a bit more, just before his 2nd birthday he was a whirlwind. It’s not long long but we’ve noticed he’ll do short activities now

However, it’s very much his interests only. He loves his cars will play with them a lot and the ramp. He’ll line them up, stack them too etc. he does enjoy some puzzles also!

I tried to do an Easter bonnet, he didn’t want to kept saying no and pushed it away. I tried to paint his hand and he flipped as he wanted the paint brush and to paint not do the hand print

is it just normal that some acitivites are a hit some are a miss ?

Yes, completely normal for it to be entirely on their terms at this point, and some carefully planned activities to be completely rejected. (My solution was to stick to things that required minimal planning.)

If you want some Easter craft things that allow more toddler freedom, we cut egg shapes out of empty cereal boxes, painted them, and put them on a bit of ribbon as bunting – just random splodges from my two year old (my four year old did patterns). We also did bunting with coloured triangles of paper and card and suitable stickers – again, no attempt to control how the little one put her stickers and she liked threading the triangles on the ribbon as well (for a bit). Sticking bits of tissue paper to eggs cut out of greaseproof paper also works well – they look nice stuck up in the window no matter how random the toddler's sticking.

Totally normal. Letting him lead and create what he wants(even if it is just a brown swirl of paint because he mixed all the colours together ) is much for valuable to his development than any adult let activity.

So normal. I don't do things that are a hassle/stressful for either of us. Son is 2 and a half and I just engage him in his world. That's balance bikes, scooters, cars, ramps, feeding ducks, building bricks, sand, and story books. We bond over those things.

For now, he joins in crafty things at nursery, things he'd never be interested in at home. It will come in time. I look forward to more arts and crafts, baking and the like when he's older but I don't worry about it now. He gets to experience all the messy play and things as well a few days a week at nursery. With me he's happy playing, going to the park, and going on fun trips.

Yes very normal!

Okay thank you! Haha I am
Silly and look at social media and see mums post kids his age with Easter bonnets but he hates gay so I think the sight of the bonnet put him off aha!

thanks for the ideas :)

yeah he currently like all sorts of transport! Even being in the car and just shouting what he sees. He loves going to the park but not a fan of swings and only the slide sometimes :) he just prefers to walk run around explore

i feel the need to try and do these planned structured learning activities but he’s at nursey 3 days a week I should just accept he’ll do some things there and maybe at home just want to play with his interests which is his cars, puzzles and his gym mat ! Haha he likes walking around on it

@megsymooox

If he's at nursery, all the more reason to just enjoy doing what he wants to do. Mine is at nursery 3 days as well and does all sorts of things with his little friends that he'd never do with me. It would be pointless, messy and stressful all round. I hate it. I think they often like certain activities when they are doing them with other little people.

I'm all for just going with the flow of what they want to do. You can expand on things in other ways if you want to. My son loves matchbox cars and ramps. He has a toy garage but we also empty out the recycling bin and tape things together to make junk garages and ramps from all the plastic and cardboard. He plays with his cars on those for a week and then it gets flung and we'll build another. Things like that.

My 2 year old DS is like this - anything with wheels, he can play with it all day long but sitting doing crafts is not for him.
He engages more with crafts at nursery, where he wants to copy his friends. We have crayons & paper at home and he enjoys drawing but I don't put any time into organising complex arts or crafts activities because he gets bored in 2 mins.
When he's a bit older I'm sure he'll have more patience for doing a 20 min craft activity but right now I stick with what he likes and try to expand on that.

It’s definitely normal for children of that age to refuse some activities (even if they will happily do them at nursery!). As a pp mentioned, painting something himself with a brush is far more valuable for his development than being forced to do a handprint in an adult led activity. You could also bring his interests into other activities, eg painting with the cars and making patterns from the tracks, setting up a car wash or parking toy cars into matching coloured / numbered parking spaces.

Hi. It is normal for a child of this age to already be able to choose what they want to do. Some things he likes and some things he doesn't. If you don't like skiing, you don't go to the ski center, do you? Give your child a choice! My daughter was fidgety until she was 4 years old.
Now my daughter is 5 years old and she really like to draw. This is not the first time I have used these worksheets
They develop the child's imagination, instill a love of drawing and neatness. Repeatedly used these worksheets.
With animals, articles of clothing, professions. With their help, the child learns new words with pleasure and can spend time playing and drawing with parents together.