My child doesn’t know how to play.

[TennerTuesday]

I never expected to have this challenge in parenting. I thought that at the very least, kids will play. My son is 9, (autistic, low support needs) and can’t/won’t play. I have never ever known him to pick up a toy and play with it. To use any imagination. It’s like he has no thoughts inside his mind. If left, he simply lays on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and singing tunelessly. He requires and expects ‘being entertained’ either by parents or his little brother. Even if we wait and wait, hoping he will get bored and creativity will kick in (like it does with kids usually) it just doesn’t. Inevitably he ends up angry with us for not giving in to his demands for external stimulation.

If he has someone alongside him then of course he’ll play- we did a lot of train track building etc when he was younger. There was never anything imaginative- all very functional. And he’s keen on board games, card games etc now. But absolutely nothing on his own. I see other families with kids who will sit with a box of Lego for ages or whatever and just think how amazing that must be. He builds Lego sets from instructions once and then never again.

Just a rant really. It’s extremely challenging. We can’t really spend time at home as it’s pretty unbearable having him just rattling around, laying on the floor or following other family members around and disrupting his brothers play. We’re trying to strike the balance between involving him in things, but also teaching independence. I just feel like we’re failing at both.

I don’t think I want advice but would be comforting to know if other families have this challenge too?

those mind numbing roblox games which as a parent just make me utterly cringe and instinctively want to discourage

I don't have direct experience of roblox but a quick Google comes up with many real positive attributes including promoting creativity. My suggestion would be to start from where his interests lie and lean into those rather than trying to introduce new things.

Ideally, play roblox with him. Talk to him about what he's doing and understand what it is that excites and motivates him. You may find that once you understand more about what grabs his imagination in the virtual world you may be able to tap into that interest in other ways, even just having conversations. You may also feel less negatively about his on screen time which would help you.

We have a model of parenting thats often about leadership and direction etc. Sometimes we miss the need to put that aside, and lean in to where the child is at. You can't plan a route forward unless you know where you are starting from.

We have Alexas in each room that are linked to my audible account. You can add Amazon kids profile to them which allows you to share only certain books (so they can't access my murder thrillers). You can also time limit them and limit the volume.

Both my DC get in from school and then immediately the audiobooks go on in both their rooms. They come down stairs for a snack and they ask it to resume in the kitchen. DH hates it but their vocab and verbal reasoning is amazing and I think it's solely down to the audiobooks.

Just wanted to add to the roblox chat that my daughter really enjoys games and coding. Roblox is a great platform as they can create games themselves for others to play. She has done quite a few good ones and she has been rewarded with roblox coins from the company.

My eldest is like that. Just the way he is! Real life means he can’t be supervised all the time (2 younger siblings) so he entertains himself by gaming. He’s always playing games - sports, board games, computer games - but has never played with toys or imagination.

Is interested in animlals at all? Is he mature enough to manage a small pet?

Rats can make excellent pets, can be trained to do small tricks and are quite interactive without needing a lot of exercise www.facebook.com/shadowtherat/

Would he like computer games or a console? Minecraft and Roblox were invented for a reason!

what about art - my dd would spends hours learning to draw following YouTube videos?

or something like snap circuits - our kit has about 150 variations you can try following the instructions.

theres also a little game where you set up a puzzle with 3d shapes, and you have to fit the test in - like a real-life Tetris type of thing

Kanoodle. That’s the puzzle I mean.

Seems to me he just needs to know what to do

It's crossed my mind of course. He's definitely got his quirks!

But in the absence of any unusual difficulty dealing with the world-at-large, clear dysregulation or concerns from school, probably not.

Another suggestion for D&D for the OP - "imagination with set rules" works for us too! He probably started with some of the basic guide books around 9/10. It's been hard for us to find a group that'll take youngsters though.

its those mind numbing roblox games which as a parent just make me utterly cringe and instinctively want to discourage.

And here's your problem. It's not enough that he self-entertains with a videogame, he has to do so in a way that you would want to engage with yourself. In other words, he has to self-entertain in a neurotypical-looking way.

Stop trying to force your square peg autistic son into a neurotypical round hole.

What's "mind numbing" to you might be engaging to him, so unless there's a safeguarding or safety issue with the "mind numbing" thing he's engrossed by, let him crack on.

@Checknotmymate this sounds wonderful! I'd like a set up like this. Ideally I'd like some kind of device he can manage himself as he likes to skip forwards/backwards, listen to different chapters etc, and I dont want him to feel he has to ask for my phone. It feels like theres a gap in the market for this sort of thing (bring back ipods!)

Exactly. And I do try and think of things for him, but by 4pm on a sunday (or week 59 of school holidays) I'm exhausted by all the thinking and I would so love for him to think of something himself occasionally.

I have just signed up for Brick Borrow as I think that will be a big hit. Thank you to the poster who suggested that, it looks brilliant! I LOVE building lego sets with him so can't wait to do this on a weekend :)

@Checknotmymate What's the issue with a yoto? If you have cards your DS can use it independently without needing the phone. There are quite a lot of stories and information cards for older children that he might like. If focus is an issue, having the book to follow along with the card audio might engage 2 senses on the same activity and keep him going for longer?

There is also the yoto daily podcast, which is a 30 minute thing for children that is new every day. It encourages children to join in with activities like guessing a sound or drawing/ doodling along with the host. The presenter is very lively amd engaging - which your DS might find helpful (or totally cringey).

@SayDoWhatNow I think I had been put off by the cost of buying stories/cards, though I must say I haven't looked into it recently and how it all works

My 10 year old DS is exactly the same. Currently on waiting list for assessment.

he has never played with toys and has always been unable to do things independently. He loves jigsaws, puzzles, Lego, marble tracks but simply won’t do them unless an adult is involved.

He is a gamer and is regulated on a screen but when he has screen free time, he just drives the entire house mental because he’s bored with nothing to do. He starts annoying his sisters, taking their things, just generally making a racket.

I don’t have the answer but feel like we’re failing too!

Fair enough - the device is quite pricey!

If you want to test interest, you can listen to Yoto daily on eg Spotify without the player:
https://uk.yotoplay.com/yoto-daily

I think you can also download the yoto app, make an account, and then buy cards and listen using the app without buying the player. That way you only lose the price of one card if it's not a success.

Both of those things would still need to be facilitated by you. But if it was a success you could buy the yoto player for him to use himself without taking the risk on the cost!

@SayDoWhatNow thank you. I dont mind investing in the device itself, its just the £10-15 per card seemed steep? Though like I say its been a while since I've looked into it

@AnonSugar yes, yes and yes - exactly the same with us. Its comforting to know we're not alone.

This thread has given me a bit of a kick up the bum to try and embrace and accept the situation more, I think that's all I can do really. Control my own reactions.

Has he discovered Minecraft yet?
My AuDHD children have multiple inputs going at once. DD will bake or do crafts but will be listening to music or an episode of a show she likes at the same time. DS1 often has three screens at once, he will be playing a game on his Nintendo Switch, watching a podcast about the game on the TV and using his phone to look up information about the game. DS 2 will be playing a game on his PC and be video calling several friends on the other screen, some of whom are playing the game at the same time. He’ll also have music playing.
I do think nine is quite a difficult age. Not a toddler who needs to be played with, but not a teen with the capacity to follow their own interests.

What about Gravitrax? Like train track building and marbles combined.

I'd say at 9 a yoto won't have much longevity. No secondary school child is walking around brandishing a yoto to their friends. The cards are also expensive or a faff to sort out. If you stream audible on Alexa then it means you can have a huge number of books, access to hundreds of podcasts, access to music etc but still have it under parental control.

Alternatively you can give them a very old phone that doesn't have any apps or browser access but does have Libby or audible on it and allow them to connect to a Bluetooth speaker with it.

I haven’t read the whole thread but just came on to say my son has autism and he just loved to be left to his own thoughts actually doing very little, particularly after a day at school, which he found incredibly stressful. It was the only time that wasn’t structured for him and he needed it to deal with the difficulties of the day. He is in his 30s now, Oxford doctorate, and hasn’t really changed. I suspect that in those quiet times he worked out some calculations, or honed a speech on the History of Labour Politics or something else completely out of my comprehension!

We got our DD an innioasis MP3 player from Amazon. It’s got the Spotify kids app on and we have a family account so DD can listen to music etc on Spotify kids. It looks a bit like a phone but you can delete the apps you don’t want and it doesn’t have an App Store so you can’t add new apps. The sound quality isn’t amazing but we struggled to find something that was just a music player but had Spotify.

It never occurred to me that multiple things on the go could be ND. My son will play Roblox/Fortnite and be watching YouTube and FaceTiming a friend at the same time 🤣