Help. I don't want to play with Barbie or Paw Patrol

IvyGeranium, I’ve been there and sorry to have to tell you that my eight year old GD still wants to be played with, usually schools where she is the bossy teacher
( gives an interesting insight into what goes on during her school days)! Poor DH always has to be the naughty boy or the one who needs extra help! When she comes for the day during the holidays she comes armed with several board games, sigh! However we treasure these times as I know that shortly it will be all about boy bands and make up and she’ll probably find us boring.
When she was younger and we had the tantrums if we said no, I’m afraid I would sometimes use bribery, ‘play by yourself for a little while and you can have a biscuit or something’. I’m sure I’ll get some negative comments about that! Or. When she did play nicely I would heap praise and say I’ll tell mummy what a grown up girl she’s been. Seemed to work.

Of course there are loads of board games for 3 and 4 year olds! ... 😍

Happy Days TerriBull, they don’t last long do they?

Sadgrandma, I suspect that anyone who says they have never used a snack as a bribe, is probably being untruthful

So true Sarah.

Tbh I believe in balance, even for three year olds. Learning to enjoy play on their own helps them to use their imagination and develops creativity. There's 14 years between my two children so effectively I had only children. I'd help them get started on some activity and then expect them to spend some time playing whilst I got on with some job. Sometimes they'd help me or mirror what I was doing. However I didn't play with them on demand or if they had tantrums. Tbh tantrums were totally ignored until they stopped and they soon stopped.
My older daughter is part time mum to her partners child and is finding it really difficult because the child is used to being played with or sat in front of a device of some kind and entertained. DD doesn't believe in that way of parenting and neither do I but it's very difficult to change expectations on a part time basis. However when I've had GKs to stay its always been grannie's house, grannie's rules.

It’s obviously got to be different if you have your grandchildren every day, but my three local ones, I generally have just had on my day off, they’re quite spaced out, so apart from school holidays, I would only have one at a time
So that one day, I give completely to the child, we go out, we play, we rarely watch much television, it’s definitely trickier with three though!

There was a columnist in one of the Sunday papers talking about being with children and admiting, a bit shame facedly that she gets ever so bored constantly playing Paw Patrol, so you are nt the only one with this problem Ivygeranium!

RosieandherMaw

Lathyrus3

I guess I was fortunate that my play duties pretty much aligned with my own inclinations- board games, construction, bash a car, and, well, just generally organising things into order and pattern😬🙄

I’ve only had to play “pretend” with great-nieces and assorted GC of friends, so I guess I didn’t have the grandmotherly devotion needed to alleviate the tedium😳

“Bash a car” ??
Sounds suspiciously like what I did in n MK station multi storey car park a couple of years ago when I was taking GS 1 to Sadlers Wells. He thought it hilarious and my car insurance premium has nearly doubled.
Desperate measures

Obviously your version would have been much more fun, but you have to draw the line somewhere 😬

Chipped skirting board was as far as I was prepared to go🤣

‘Grandma will you play with me?’ At the moment it’s dollies, doctors, monsters, Sylvanians and police. Yes, I do sometimes get very bored and put on Peppa Pig and get some sweets for a break (horror of horrors!) But then I look at my older grandchildren who are starting to find their own way and no longer even want a game of UNO, and I’m back to dollies. It’s only a short window when their grandma seems like the best and most fun person in the world, so I’ll take it. When my daughter asked my little granddaughter what she wanted to be when she grew up, she replied ‘Grandma’ That won’t last long!

LadyGaGa
She wants to be Grandma.
What a compliment!

Some children will play on their own happily, others prefer to have company.

I found my DD and my DGD liked playing alone, although in fact they were not really on their own as they had their dolls, Fisher Price people etc. and used to be chatting to them and making up stories. I was not allowed to join in with these games 😁 - they were "playing with their people"

Could you find some other, less boisterous, activities that might keep her occupied?
Remembering what I did with my DGC at about that age, going for a walk, collecting autumn leaves then making 'pictures' with them, Playdoh, making cakes and smoothies.

As for tantrums, the Thunderous Threes can be awesome but having a tantrum should not mean they get her own way.
And minding their Ps and Qs is important too.

Tis the season of conkers! many a bright Autumn day was spent loading up buckets with the glossy but totally useless brown fruits of the Horse Chestnut Tree, only to be chucked away surreptitiously disposed of in their absence They expect them to be kept forever. I was often indignantly asked "where are my conkers?" a monumental sin of not taking care of small person's valuables, almost comparable to offloading gold bars as stored by the BoE bad mother/grandmother!

TerriBull, one of my granddaughters had a thing about gravel, her little pockets and the tray of the pushchair were always full of the stuff, also pine cones, which she collected by the bag full.

Strange little habits they develop My brother, emptied a load of conkers on to a fire we had in the dining room once, only the once! whilst my mother had ten pink fits as the pinged and exploded around the room Conkers in the house were banned after that.

TerriBull

I did enjoy the dinosaur phase both with children and grandchildren.

We have a good collection of dinosaurs and some of my minded children over the years have been very knowledgeable about them.

One boy had carefully arranged all the dinosaurs in the gravel pit and called me to have a look.
"Oh that's nice," I said, "You've grouped all the red ones together and all the green ones together."
"Well that's because these are all the carnivores and these are all the herbivores," he explained.

TerriBull

Tis the season of conkers! many a bright Autumn day was spent loading up buckets with the glossy but totally useless brown fruits of the Horse Chestnut Tree, only to be chucked away surreptitiously disposed of in their absence They expect them to be kept forever. I was often indignantly asked "where are my conkers?" a monumental sin of not taking care of small person's valuables, almost comparable to offloading gold bars as stored by the BoE bad mother/grandmother!

They're supposed to deter spiders so I collected them and put a couple of bowls full in the conservatory.

Not our spiders!

V3ra

TerriBull

I did enjoy the dinosaur phase both with children and grandchildren.

We have a good collection of dinosaurs and some of my minded children over the years have been very knowledgeable about them.

One boy had carefully arranged all the dinosaurs in the gravel pit and called me to have a look.
"Oh that's nice," I said, "You've grouped all the red ones together and all the green ones together."
"Well that's because these are all the carnivores and these are all the herbivores," he explained.

Oh, thank you, I never knew!

Oh, thank you, I never knew!

Glad it's not just me then 😂

We kept the dinosaurs, one son obsessed with them for a few years, and requested frequent trips to the Natural History Museum where as a 7 year old thoroughly imbued me on the different species and their varied traits, with me at intervals saying "please can we have a sitting down break now"

Kids love dinosaurs, my granddaughter always asked when she arrived "I want to play with the dragons" Worth every penny of what they cost considering the mileage we got out of them.

V3ra

TerriBull

I did enjoy the dinosaur phase both with children and grandchildren.

We have a good collection of dinosaurs and some of my minded children over the years have been very knowledgeable about them.

One boy had carefully arranged all the dinosaurs in the gravel pit and called me to have a look.
"Oh that's nice," I said, "You've grouped all the red ones together and all the green ones together."
"Well that's because these are all the carnivores and these are all the herbivores," he explained.

How lovely! Sounds just like my son when he was about 4. He had every plastic dinosaur going. He got so obsessed with them that if we were going out he had to line them all up and he and I had to name them correctly before we left. They were such happy days!

I certainly wouldn't enjoy these either, but sets of things like zoo or wild animals are more fun and you can get these in large Tescos or toyshops everywhere.
All my grandchildren have enjoyed the Orchard Toys games, both before and after the recommended age ranges. "Shopping List" was always a favourite, as are "Farmyard heads and tails" and "Little bus lotto" though the age they can do them will obviously vary from child to child. My oldest grandchild is a teenager now but happy to join in, particularly with matching games such as Jungle Jumble or the "Pizza Pizza" game. We've often found that young children are just as good at matching as older children or adults.
You can buy these games online from the manufacturer or from Amazon, and John Lewis stock quite a few.

Carry on doing what you described here. Thw child threw a tantrum when you said you were going to do something other than play her games, but simmered down, joined in, and enjoy whatever it was you were doing that she could do too.

Her parents are barking up the wrong tree and making a fine rod for their own back by giving in to the dear daughter's demands.

She is three, this is a phase all children go through. By saying, as you do, that you will play with her and her toys for a little while, but then you have other things to do, you are teaching her that both her and your wishes are important.

Unless she grows out of this phase very quickly, her parents are on the right road to letting her become a spoilt, bossy little madam and at some point the poor child will be taught in a hurtful way that the world does not spin around her and her desires.

V3ra

^Oh, thank you, I never knew!^

Glad it's not just me then 😂

Well, if you see him again, tell him you told someone that and she said that, in her experience from Real Life, they were not just red or green, they were multi-coloured 😂

I am 69. I don’t ever remember being played ‘with’. I’d watch my mother baking, doing the washing etc but I amused myself with toys.