Henry is being very testing atm. When we are at home he just cruises about...he is not particularly interested in any of his toys, he certainly will not play with any for a second without me but even when I sit with him (and I do) he plays for a minute and then wanders off. All he seems to want to do is watch TV or look at construction machines on the computer or other stuff generally not allowed i.e. pulling things off shelves. It is really starting to do my head in as I dread the day knowing that unless we go out he is just going to hassle me for the TV or the computer. I am not against him watching something but not all the time.
Becky it sounds like you are describing my DS. Seriously. I do give in a lot to the computer and TV, I have just decided it is a battle I will not fight. If that is what he asks for then I turn it on. I don't try to turn it off without having something else good to go - so I won't say 'I am turning off the TV and setting up your train set' but I will set up his train and start playing with it myself, when he comes to join me I will turn of the TV without mentioning it iyswim. And we do go out, all morning every day. I have to - we stay inside and I am pulling my hair out by 9am. In the winter we were out the door by 9sih, now in the summer he is ready to go by 830, which is the same as last summer. And I soooo dread it! Honestly I want my coffee and my minute to wake up but it is rare! Rainy days are the worst but we do things like play in the kitchen sink with water or I have a big bucket of rice and lentils (dry!) and I put out a bedsheet and bring his sandtoys in and we play sandtoys together. Last year and probably until a few months ago I could let him play on his own in the rice for easily 45 minutes, the past 4-6 months it is about 3 minutes. Just an age/phase I am assuming.
I only started letting DS use the computer in February when I got a new one (old one was too slow for him and frustrating) and so in 2 months he has learned how to open the laptop and turn it on, how to use the touchpad and mouse buttons and how to move the mouse on the screen. He can open it up, find the internet button, click it, and then go to the bookmarks bar and choose his website and pick a game and play it on his own. I never expected that for his age! I paid for a subscription to kneebouncers (I think it was $20 usd so about 12 quid for one year) and have actually found it good as they are adding new games every month and they are for older kids, they use the mouse and are counting and alphabet games. So he is learning a lot from it and we sit and do them together. It is a nice feet-up bit of time for me, and he really loves it and when I see the things he has learned from it I am okay with it all!!
I am unsure if we have enough toys or whether the toys are at the right level for him. The health visitor did his 2 year check and said he was working at the level of a 3 year old so maybe he just needs more...well I know he does need more but it is a bit overwhelming. I can't just keep buying stuff hoping he will play with it as we don't have endless space or money but atm I feel like we are depriving him as he seems so bored and it is SOOOO draining on me.
We don't really have a lot of toys and I find it is not the quantity but the quality of play he gets with them. I am really crap at dreaming up games but my DH is amazing at it. So he has a bucket of plastic food, a small shopping basket and a cash register / till. When it is me and DS playing whatever it is we play lasts about 3 minutes and he is bored and so am I. The other day DH had DS in sitches laughing and played for like 45 minutes at a shopping game - the food was in DS's bedroom and so was the till but DH was in the living room. DS had the shopping basket and was DH's personal shopper. DH had the coins and would tell DS that he wanted carrots. DS would take his coins, go to his room, put the money in the till (and make change!) and bring DH his carrots. Ask him what he wanted next. He went through an entire bucket of fake food - as DH could not remember what was left he would then ask DS to go in, look at the box of food, come back and tell him what was left...so we could hear DS in his room roothing in the bucket and saying 'matoh, mamana, peeze, apple' (tomatoes bananas cheese apples!) and he would come to DH and say 'that shop has matoh, mamana, peeeeeze and....and....and...wait daddy I go one more time....!' He was having a BLAST, DH was sitting in the living room with his feet up reading a book
and DS just ran back and forth between the rooms. ME? Could I EVER have come up with a game like that? No....I just say to DH 'nah, he never plays with his cash register he thinks it's boring....
' So for me I definitely find that it is not quantity of toys but quality of game to play with them, kwim?
I need some ideas - what do your 2.5 year olds play with? He has never been that into playing but this is getting ridiculous and I am starting to resent him which I feel so awful about.
Another big one here is a Brio train set. They are expensive and not long ago I mentally added up all of the pieces we have and the cost of them and nearly choked, as we are tight with money as well. BUT a lot of them have been sent by grandparents and so is not our cash! And the rest are bits and pieces that are added at a time, sort of a fiver here, tenner there. Ebay is a fantastic place to get Brio pieces and there are a lot of different wooden sets that are interchangeable and cheaper. We debated a train table to put it on but DS likes that it is a different train every time he plays with it and he is learning how to set it up, how to design it, what works well and what does not (ie he will remind me no curved pieces at the bottom of a bridge because the trains go too fast and crash...so his little brain is processing physics and design technology).
Another thing that is happening is that he will do something he knows is not good like throw food off the table or spit lots of water out or pull a flower head off a plant. I make sure I always give him warnings i.e. please do not do that, it is not kind, good manners etc. I then do clearly tell him that if he does it again he will not have his pudding or we will go indoors or whatever it is that I feel is reasonable and then he will look right at me, do it and immediately say sorry. I know he understands everything I say as his speech and understanding is extremely good. It does not seem like lack of impulse control to me, it seems like he is just doing it...
Yep. Here too. Again something I have just brushed off as a phase and age of development, combined with a smart kid who likes to challenge and test boundaries. Rather than him being naughty or anything like that. I truly do believe it is just a way of finding out if you mean what you say and if what you say will happen will really happen. I have a child who needs to learn by doing and not from being told. And even worse, mine needs to make sure that it really WILL happen EVERY time it happens. So I have told him to not try to climb out of his highchair as it will hurt if he falls on the floor - he does it anyway, he gets hurt, and then he does it again, just to see if it really will hurt EVERY time he falls out
I find it harder as he is older to be premptive about everything which I was able to do last summer but I do still try my best. He is testing limits, looking for consequences, learning and just coming into an age of discovery....that is what I try to tell myself!
I think it comes down to needing a non-stop stimulating environment. My DS wakes up in the mornings saying 'hi mommy you have good sleep i have good sleep i eat cereal for my breakfast i get my own milk you want milk in your hot coffee mama daddy made hot coffee daddy careful that coffee hot...oH!! i hear a bird,mama you hear a bird i think that is a black bird maybe it an owl HI OWL!! you have nice sleep owl!? mama today i go swimming pool, here my floats you get swim suit on and pack my snack we not miss bus today mama i hear airplane where my cereal mama you finish your coffee now so we go swim pool? where daddy go? daaaadddy daddy where you hiding shhh shhhh mama daddy hide we look daddy, daddy in here no daddy in bed, oh i know daddy in bathroom do big stink poo...hi daddy i find you! i scare you daddy? you have shower daddy, hurry we go swim pool, we go now daddy, we not miss the bus......." Seriously. And I'm standing in front of the coffee pot with my head in my hands because it is 7:04am and the kid has only been awake for 90 seconds.
I guess I always figured the older he got the LESS he would need from me but it is the opposite - the older he gets the more challenges he needs, the more stimulation, the more brain work, the more testing of rules and boundaries, the more everything. I am really sad to be handing him over to the school system in a few months but honestly he NEEDS it. His kindergarten has kids aged 3, 4 and 5 in the same classroom and I think the challenges of being with older kids will he amazing for him and he will really enjoy it. It will give him things that I can not give him - (painting being one of those things, LOL, DH and I were just talking about it yesterday actually and I was saying it is a road I am not going down, he can paint his classroom all he wants but he is not doing it with me!!) - and stimulate his body, his mind, his emotions and everything else.
