Recently, Henry's been asking me to play toys with him all the time. I love pushing his train around and watching him stack a tower of legos, but sometimes I have to get things done. I try not to tell him no when he begs me to play, I know that some day soon he won't want to play toys with his ol' mom anymore. My dilema, however, is that I also want him to be able to play independently. He used to be so good at it! Two year olds don't really understand time, so when I tell him I'll play for "five minutes before I make dinner" he's still crying and yelling for me to come back the minute I go to the kitchen. He doesn't understand why I can't play.
I'm having a really hard time balancing it all. Like, I know that he should be able to play by himself but I also feel like I should be there to play with him when he asks. I'm trying to figure out how much time is appropriate for him to play alone and just how to get to that point. Anybody else feeling this too? Any suggestions?
5 comments:
Liv never plays alone so I'm no help :/
Um, I just had four wonderful comments on this post and somehow they just got deleted? I think I need to figure out how to get rid of Discus, this sucks!
encourage make believe friends.
i just read that now...
i have two kids, one of them is a "independent" player by heart and the other one not so much.
i have a certain "rule":
1/2 hour play time with mommy
1/2 hour chores by mommy and they are free to help me with these chores {e.g.: the little one LOVES to cook, so she's helping me a lot with that}. when they don't want to help, they are supposed to be playing by themselves {or drawing or looking at books}.
i try to stick to that "rule" throughout the day and most times it works really well. for my kids it's just great to be wherever i am. so when i'm cleaning the kitchen they make themselves comfortable in there with books while i am doing my thing.
hoping this helps a little?.
have a great day!
I know of people who divide up their toddler's days into 'Play with Parent Time', 'Play Alone Time', 'Outside Time' etc and use a timer that will go off when that time is up. That way the toddler is only allowed to stop that particular time when they hear the timer. Don't know if that helps?
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