Independent play

[Helpwith5yo]

Hi all. Just wanted some advice regarding my 5 year old DS. He is a lovely boy, very curious, extremely active and a lot of fun. My problem is that he just seems completely unable to play independently! I really thought by now he would be able to for at least short periods of time. He’s constantly attached to me when not at school, in my face, touching me or demanding something or just a constant stream of chatter. I’m so overly stimulated by him I just really need a break from it! My 18 month old can play independently for long periods at a time quite
happily so I guess I am comparing them, but they do have different temperaments and personalities which I know is a huge part of it. The 5 year old has struggled with sharing my attention with his younger sibling so I’m sure this contributed to it too. So I’ve been making a conscious effort to have just us 1 on 1 time often. I’ve also set timers for independent play for 10 minutes at a time but he massively resists it. Any advice on what I could do?

My 5 year old son is the exact same, he genuinely doesn’t even play alone for a couple of minutes. It’s so hard, no advice but solidarity

I think some children are just really different. One of mine could do this happily at five, one just liked company.

That sounds really hard OP and genuinely a literal nightmare for me! I’m very introverted and like time to myself and physical space so my skin would be crawling and I would absolutely not be at my best as a mum dealing with that.

My 4 year old plays by himself for hours and I always put it down to him having no other choice. I like to get on with my day doing what I want to do and he has to just get on with playing alone. We do lots of fun things together (cycling, going on fun trips, baking, reading books, playing board games) but most of our time spent at home is him playing by himself (Lego, trains, imaginary games, playing in the garden) while I do what I want/need to do.

I would persevere with the timer. He can’t be glued to you constantly, it’s not good for him just as much as you.

Thanks for the responses! @Somehowgirlmy younger one sounds like yours to be fair, I can get things done when it’s just the two of us. When the 5 year old is home though he just needs so much input from me. I’ve also tried to have a timer for ‘quiet time’ where we don’t need to be talking constantly and he totally hates that also 😂 I guess I just need to persevere with that but I agree with pp that it’s largely just his nature. He’s been erm a bit high maintenance since birth really 😅

If he’s a chatterbox he’ll always fail at quiet time, but could you frame it as quiet time for mummy and he needs to play in his room for a while? Is he better at occupying himself outdoors? Flinging mine in the garden always gives me the longest periods of quiet. On a sunny day I barely see him.

There might need to be some kind of consequence for not sticking to the rule of mummy’s quiet time. Maybe others would see it differently but by 4 and 5 I think it’s time for children to understand you’re a person and you have your own needs. If he were hounding another child at school and upsetting them when they said they wanted space, he would be spoken to and it wouldn’t be allowed to continue.