My DS 3.5 does not seem to play. He can play, he just doesn't seem interested. I'm not sure if I should be providing more intellectual stimulation or making him learn to play or something.

When he was 1, he played very well with blocks and take apart toys and puzzles and all that. Then, when he was 2, he mostly stopped playing with toys except for several toy clocks. Once he figured out how to read an analog clock to the minute, he lost interest in playing with clocks. He went through a phase where he liked magnatiles and driving cars in and out of the structures he made. But he lost interest in that, and he hasn't really played for any significant time since then.

He does his share of silly kid stuff, but mostly he is just restless. Around the time he turned 3, I started letting him use my ipad. He spent a lot of time doing Bugs and Numbers and some other apps. I had/have misgivings about allowing him so much computer time at such a young age. But it's nice to see him engaged in something. Now he seems to have progressed through most of the game (and all the other apps we have). He can't really figure out how to add fractions or add coins past 27 cents, so I guess he has hit a wall there. Nowadays he just messes about in the ipad settings until it crashes and I have to put it away until DH can fix it.

Without a computer, DS just spends his day pestering the rest of the family. He may briefly play with our toy kitchen. He still likes play with stop watches for a bit. Sometimes I can get him to play with playdoh or do a connect-the-dots or maze or a puzzle. But that will only work for a day, then he becomes uninterested. He likes helping with chores and cooking, but that doesn't take much time or focus. He resists all of my attempts to draw him into imaginative play. So I don't know what to do with him.

He is in a kiddie gym class once a week, which he does fine with. He follows directions well, but mostly keeps to himself. He does seem happy about his experience there, but other structured activities have been a disaster. There aren't any good preschool options around, so I feel like it is up to me to come up with something to occupy him. But what do I do with a kid that doesn't care to play much?

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

I had the same concern, esp. about DD. It didn't seem normal that she wasn't interested in toys and play the way other kids were. If a kid does not do any imaginative play (as in, they don't understand it), that is a sign of autism. But some kids "understand" pretend play, but aren't all that interested. Your DS does seem kind of young to have lost all interest already. DS was into his trains at 2-3 and made up stories about his trains. He liked thomas the train videos. DD seemed to "get" imaginative play but just wasn't that into it. Looking back, I think it was a combination of her personality (being very logic oriented) and the fact that she has ADHD and couldn't stay on task for very long. So she would go from one thing to the next, to the next. Seemed to fiddle with toys and carry them around more than actually play with them. She did do very well with puzzles and would put a good deal of focus into them. And she loved listening to books. Both of my kids were also very into Minecraft in preschool and spent a lot of time building things. It's a computer game, but at least there is some creativity involved. I think we got the game when DS was 3.5 and DD was almost 5. And they are still into it now 3 years later.

How much screen time is he getting? We saw it being addictive, so honestly, if it's more than a few minutes a day I'd cut it way back and see what happens over a month or two.

we worried about this, too, when DD (now nearly 6) was this age. toys held about one second of interest for her, and all she wanted to do was go on walk after walk and get her billions of questions answered.

she plays more now than she did then, but even now, there's always something a bit off about it - the stories she makes up to go with Lego structures are pretty weird and often her drawings are more scientific than creative, etc. she's super-happy, though, these days, so mostly i've stopped wondering what's up!

I both see this and don't see this with DS3. He can totally get immersed in the ipad to the point that we cut down ipad time - usually an hour a day max seems to work well - its hard because some times he is really learning amazing things on it, and others, well, he is watching youtube videos of people making playdoh sandwiches or whatever, lol. We have the same time limit with tv, an hour max a day. (this one isnt really hard, he only watches two shows for the most part - Sid the Science Kid and The Cat in the Hat.)

As for 'playing'...it's complicated, I think. DS also went through a trains phase around 2yo - but generally now, his 'fun' is like 'school'. Math, mostly, but other number stuff, as well. He's not crazy about reading on his own, but likes to be read to, so we do that a lot , he likes playdoh and drawing - we play games...I guess he actually does play a lot - its just...not necessarily playing the stuff other kids his age would play with, you know? He likes chess, card games, bingo, art is always a big hit. Pretend play...not really. he can do it - we make up stories sometimes, we do the play kitchen sometimes, but like blackcat said...he's just not very into it. (though, when I picked him up from school yesterday, I found him and another kid playing with a dollhouse - DS showed me the "princess" he was playing with. It was adorable and very surprising, but in a good way.)

Anyway, suggestions...yes, first thing is limit the ipad time. I really think it helps. It's hard but it helps. Always, if he is restless, it might be that he needs a little more...structured play - offer suggestions - "now its time for [insert genre...reading time, art time, music time]" and then offer some examples - "do you want to dance around to music, play instruments, sing songs or talk about composers?" or game time, etc etc. "do you want to do a puzzle, play a card/board game, or invent your own game?" Sometimes I think it's hard for a kid (esp a gifted one) to know WHAT he wants to do - if he tells you without you giving him options, great. but if not, giving choices both narrows the focus, but allows your kid to still be in charge of what he wants to do. That seems to work for us, anyway. Lazy days don't work very well here - DS gets restless and starts misbehaving more - I think he gets bored, but clearly doesn't have the self-awareness to know he's bored, and so wanders around aimlessly rather than engaging in an activity. So I just try and help him along (same thing with sleep. DS doesn't usually want to sleep even when he's really tired/whiny. So it's up to me to say, 'you are a mess, get your butt in bed.')

Last thing - outside. Does your DS like to play outside? Sometimes, I think kids go stir-crazy and just need to run around. The winter is hard in that way, but maybe he needs to let off some steam, even if its just 30 mins or whatever.

sorry for the long post - hoping things get better for you!

Thanks so much for your responses so far. I do think screen time can easily get out of hand. I haven't given him the ipad lately because he keeps crashing it. But even before that I was going back and forth about whether the computer provides healthy learning opportunities or unhealthy addiction or both.

Marnie, thank you for the suggestions. Your comment that "lazy days don't work very well here", struck home to me. I think I got used to him being very independent as a baby and toddler. Right now he isn't independently engaged in some intense learning pursuit and maybe that's okay. Maybe I just need to keep on preparing ahead to provide more structured activities, even if they don't entirely capture his interest. I guess I just thought all kids liked imaginative play... That's the sort of thing that comes more naturally to me than preparing activities or answering questions.

My DD11 didn't really play either - she was obsessed with books. OBSESSED. She was a tad hyperlexic and VERY language/vocab mastery oriented. Once she learned how to read and her mastery drive was somewhat satiated, she then "evolved" into a kid who played and became very typical in this regard. As a toddler though - forget it. It was books or bust.

My son had a hard time playing too. He is very social and seemed to want someone to interact with him all the time. He had a great deal of difficulty doing anything independently. By the time he was 6, I was fed up and decided I needed to do something different. When I looked at our patterns, here is at I saw. I had "limited" TV to 30 minutes a day, but I wasn't consistent with that. It wasn't the same 39 minutes, and if I were in the middle of something when his show ended, 30 minutes turned into 60. When his dad was in charge, TV time could stretch into 2 hours. When he wasn't watching TV, he was pretty much hanging around telling me he was bored and asking me if he could watch TV. Of course, often the answer was no, but sometimes it was yes. Since intermittent reinforcement is the most effective way to reinforce a behavior, I was essentially teaching him to beg for TV.

When I realized this, I decided I needed to set a firm limit. I locked the TV off, and explained that it didn't work any more. Within days, he began to play by himself. Nowadays, TV is a small part of our lives in a flexible, reasonable kind of way, so we were able to reintroduce it!

I also want to second the suggestion to get outside (though it is beastly cold here now!). Nature stimulates imagination and encourages creativity and free play.

From your description, maybe figuring out how household objects work might be more interesting to him than typical toys. There's a great Usborne flap book for this age group, "See Inside How Things Work". For my DS, I accompanied the book with household objects that can be safely taken apart, explored and put back together (ex: ballpoint pens, flashlights). You can put together a box full of items to "fix" with tools you feel he can handle.

You mentioned chores...perhaps you can give him something around the house he can organize following some basic guidelines, and let him enjoy puzzling out the rest.

These type of activities allow him to work independently, but still require some preparation.

Do you play with the play dough etc with him? Does he play in the main area of the house or is he banished to a playroom or his bedroom? If you are right there (either playing or working next to him) to interact he is morelimely to stay at it.

I'm in the same living area with my kids all day. It doesn't seem to matter if I am enjoying the playdo or if DS1.5 is enjoying the playdo or whomever... DS3.5 has been there and done that. He just doesn't seem to get creative with that kind of activity. I guess he is more of a logic oriented kid, like someone else mentioned about their DD.

EmeraldCity, thanks for the book suggestion! DS does enjoy taking apart pens and soap dispensers and such. I'll check out the book for other suggestions.

Yes, DS2.25 spends most of his time either reading or role playing. He builds up elaborate fantasy scenarios and can sustain them for weeks. I've mentioned before his having adopted a bat persona for about 3 weeks recently. He was so true to the role that he referred to us as Baby Bat and Mummy Bat even in his sleep.

A large contributor to his imagination, I suspect, is the fact that we read widely and do a lot of funky excursions around town. It doesn't hurt that I am an overgrown 4 year old who loves to play. He creates the scenario and tells me what to do, and I do it happily.

A play-doh suggestion: DS3 loves doing numbers with his play-doh (and everything else). We have little alphabet and number stamps that came with some play-doh set He makes number lines, equations, etc. and from there the numbers can become number food, or number people...any way to bring some pretend play to my *very* literal child. Words/sentences are another option there. Maybe something a little more concrete would capture his attention?

I would cut the iPad & TV out completely! When he finally figures out it is really not an option any more, he will find something else to do. This will probably be harder on you then him (unfortunately) but I would be shocked if didn't have a positive impact.

Other thoughts...
How much time does he spend outside every day?
Have you thought about some unstructured, structured activities... like a Steiner playgroup for example.
When will he start (pre-)school? Mine tend to act up when they are under-stimulated.
Sports? (e.g. Swimming lessons)

When my daughter was ages 2-6ish, she was always more interested in setting things up than actually playing. Whether it was blocks or legos or a dollhouse, she mainly just arranged things, as opposed to actually playing, or what I thought of as playing. We didn't allow screen time at all, and she had a lot of Fisher Price sets, legos, blocks, etc, and she either manipulated those things all of the time, setting up elaborate configurations, or she wanted to be read to, until she could read herself. I wondered about her imagination/creativity, etc.

Since she turned 7 though, she's taken to writing very elaborate stories in different notebooks (each notebooks is about a different type of story) so now I know there's nothing wrong there.

That's assuming the child has intact play skills. A child on the autism spectrum, for example, may not play even if other options are taken away, or will "play" in unconventional ways. (This can include memorizing facts, making lists, lining or setting things up, repetitive games like solitaire...)

There are lots of great blogs out there with kids' tactile, outdoor, and art activities. At 3.5, my children also were playing board and card games. There are many good ones now that did not use to exist, even for nonreaders. They were also big into construction toys then. Both of them liked imagination play but it was not their main play mode. What about books on tape? This bought me many hours in the pre-reading years.

If you are home with him all day, and he is not in preschool, it may help to come up with a list of activities and a very loose daily schedule. I had times when I needed to do this and times when I didn't. OTOH, at that age, some kind of structured group activity MAY be a nice break for you and good for him. (I don't feel this is at all necessary for SAH kids before 3 or so, but at 3, I think it's a nice idea if the child might like it, and I think all kids should try it out before school if going to school.)

my older two had a harder time learning to play. dylan is really great at playing - possibly because of the unschooling group we have where the kids aged 3 - 12 all play together. So he hangs with them and does what they do.

When alone with his brothers he joins in their games or reverts to bugging all of us annoyingly when he seems to be seeking something - I can't explain it any more, it's like he is restlessly seeking.

He is much better at working in the garden than the older two even now, and he loves to play outside - much improved ball and sports skills over his brothers. Probably because he spends more time there and has had A LOT less screen time.

I try engage him in everyday activities (chores etc) and he loves these too. We sit and do a bit of maths and reading stuff at least every second day and his little board games etc as well.

So I don't have anything majorly impressive to add, but I can say that he plays more naturally and more easily. Sometimes you need to be creative in finding ways to engage them in play and sometimes you need to allow them enough frustration that they go and find something to do, making their own play things and games.