How much do you actually play with your 4yo?

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

DS1 is four next week and I find myself wondering whether I play with him enough. I seem to spend a lot of my time saying 'Now now darling' and 'I can't play now, sweetheart, I'm making the dinner'. He always wants to play a game with me, usually fighting or pirates or trains, and I rarely have the time or the mental energy to sit down and do it properly.

Do you play with your 4yos a lot, or do you go the benign neglect route? Am I a mean old mother?

He goes to nursery four days a week (am about to go back to work) and I got his nursery book to look at over the holidays, and it's full of such amazing and creative games they play, I feel like I'm not measuring up

I do read to him every night (3 stories) and we chat a lot, and sometimes play structured games like snakes and ladders or lotto, I'm just not very good at the whole imaginative play thing, I get bored very quickly. I don't remember my mum playing with me much, but I was the youngest of five children, so had siblings to play with a lot of the time. We also have a DS2, but he's only 1yo, so not much good at being a pirate yet.

Any thoughts? Am I beating myself up needlessly, or not doing well enough?

bump?

does he go to nursery 4 whole days?

when your 1 yr old is a bit older they'll start to play togther more, gie it another 6 months or so

I think you are worrying needlessly

Some women do, some women don't

I never play with mine (they are 4 and 7) and never have

I sort of always PLAN to but basically I never do

We do other things together: have baths together, read stories, we chatter all the time, I suggest games for them to play together (oooh look this box could be a house for your bear) but basically I don't have the constitution for it

mine likes cooking, there is no way of keeping him out of the kitchen especially when he hears the food processor going, so I class that as play. He currently has no interest in pirates but anything that requires role playing I normally respond to with "Now Mummy Train Driver/Astronaut has to make the dinner/clean the bathroom for all the other astronauts" and try to invent something for him to pretend helping me with.

morningpaper I knew you'd be along with a sensible standpoint! Have always pictured your children running naked around the place in happpy feral state since that sun cream thread last summer

compo yes 4 whole days, have to go back to work f/t

EndangeredSpecies I did that yesterday, Mummy Pirate had to make Pirate Sausages for tea I guess I'm just hardwired for guilt, was brought up a Catholic after all

I have a 6 year old and a 4 year old. I practice a lot of benign neglect. I don't enjoy imaginative play that much but do things with them enough I think.

You're fine!

I play with ds a bit, but tbh find it mind-numbingly boring. He goes to pre-school in the morning which to me is his time to do all those creative/imaginative things. In the afternoons we often go a nd visit friends or Granny or we might bake (because I like it and so does he) or in the nicer weather I sit on the bench while he digs in the mud and we chat.

We spend lots of time chattering and just hanging around togethter doing our own things.

Tis fine. I am having another one in a few months to amuse him in the future.

I always imagined I would play all day every day with my DS. But the reality is theres no bloody time!
The trouble is once I play one game and then stop it to go clean the kitchen or something there'll be a huge tantrum wheres if I dont play that one game he'll quite happily play alone. So I feel im just saving us both from the almighty tantrum!
We talk alot though.

lol - actually when it is dry they spend a LOT of time playing in the garden making mud pies etc. I've discovered that they love playing with my old flowers so any old bunches go straight outside in the vase for their next play session. They love scissors, knives (!), chopping things up in the garden, mixing mud and sand - last week a bag of out-of-date flour was used for a whole afternoon "cooking" in the garden

I occasionally go outside and say "Oooh aren't you playing nicely"

And all of this while I am pottering around the house drinking tea and cleaning up and reading the paper - ahhhh

I don't play with mine (3 & 5) very much. I am happy to play board games and build train tracks with them but find imaginative play stupefyingly dull. Before I had kids I thought I'd be really great at playing let's pretend stuff but turns out not to be the case at all.

We go out a lot, basically becasuse the squabbling when we stay in drives me nuts, and when we are out I am generally giving them quite a bit of attention and we are all happy.

Basically I think that as long as they're not watching TV 12 hrs a day and you're not being cruel to them then you're doing fine.

I wish mine would do that mp - you have to practically carry DS1 outside, and then play with him intensely, otherwise he just gravitates inside again to his books and toys. I think he was at the back of the queue when they were handing out the outdoor genes!

I'm really glad others find imaginative play unbelievably boring - especially as DS1 has to be in charge and tell you EXACTLY how to play, what to say, what to do, and then you have to do it OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.....

I think I have been feeling inadequate as well due to meeting my new neighbour, who came over the other day with her DS wearing a new Lord of the Rings helmet they had made together that afternoon, and left later planning their next game on the way home....

This thread is great - very reassuring! Mine are 4 and 1 and I do lots of cuddling/talking/reading but struggle with the imaginative play - my DH does that very well (on account of being a big kid ).

I often feel guilty that I'm not planning loads of activities all day long for them, but we go out most mornings, and the eldest has a couple of days in nursery. So maybe I should be less hard on myself too.

Lately we've been having to act out The Gruffalo repeatedly sigh

mine are the same re the garden/outside world

I think i need to cultivate soem of MP's ideas