He's ONLY 2.25!
(I'm still getting over quarter years, sorry, I'll be there soon, I promise!) And the game we got is a card-mathing old-maid style game. Matching the cards is easy for him, but waiting for an oponent to think, not moving the cards to make it easier to remember, letting me take the points when he *knew* but it wasn't his turn, those bits are the hard bits.
He's fine with taking turns on things like slides, better than average, I'd say, it's really the longer, more drawn out, less physical turns that involve decisions and rule following that I'm thinking of pushing... Which is why I called it hot-housing: I'm considering really PUSHING. I think once he starts to "get it" it will make him able to do a lot of other things he wants to do, but it'll be a real, intense, effort for him at first -- more than would be fun.
He can show a lot of restraint, but this would be substantially more.
If he's really not allowed to play with the game peices outside of playing the game, we will get a lot of quarter-games, followed by crying and frustration when asked to put it away. We'd only let him take it out right after a nap, because that's the time he'd have any chance of getting though a whole game. Like I said, he did manage a full game (with support; me putting things back in the right places and explaining why, etc). He _really_ likes it, and I've made him wait quite a long time to get an actual game, 'cause really, he just _doesn't_ have the restraint yet.
It may also be useful to know that he really does not play by himself at all, so when we've played other games, we've often devolved after a while into just playing with the pieces together, rather than my getting up and stomping off. Which is really not a problem... just that under certain circumstances the rules CANNOT be dispensed with (which is really the main thing he needs to learn in order to successfully pretend stuff/build stuff with much older kids).
Thanks for your help!
-Mich
