Playing With Your Kids

For personal hobbies I do as Tristan does and inclued the kids in what I am doing.  They have thier own spot in the garden to grow what they want.  They love to dig and plant seeds and check the garden every day to see what has grown.  When my kids where tiny I would just plop them in a play pen and garden.  I still have trouble with my 2 yr old picking unripe veggies or ripping out plants, but she is learning.  I just accepted that that would happen until she learned.  When i sew I give the kids scrap fabric and scissors.  They love to cut stuff up!  They love helping in the kitchen when I am cooking.  The 2 yr old just pulls out all the pots and pans and has fun with those.  It’s more mess to pick up later, but again I realized that and accepted it years ago.  She will learn to pick up after herself soon enough.  I can knit when the kids are playing outside and I just sit and read or knit while keeping an ear out for them.  Sometimes my kids will just go choose to play somewhere else rather than do what I am doing.  I just set the timer then so I don’t get carried away and “play” myself for too long. 

My special needs child was also my oldest, but he really responded to diet changes and is now “cured” for lack of a better word.  When he was little I had to sit down and teach him how to play and interact with other kids.  Lots of play at public parks helped him learn how to interact with other kids as well.  I still have to occasionally work with him (he’s nine now) when knew social issues arise from interacting with other children and more attitude and emotinal issues, but it’s not day to day and his nature is to learn something a couple of times and then it is permanatly in his brain. 

I think it depends on the child, but at 3, my kids were not playing on their own.

I have 3 when the first was 4.5 and second was 3 they started to play on their own a lot more. I had just had another baby so they kept eachother company.

My youngest is now 3 and he plays well with his siblings, but still comes to me often to play with him. He likes to do puzzles, dot-to-dot, legos… with me. I enjoy it and he does to.

No, I do not drop everything to pay, but he will be big soon enough. 🙂 Some kids have quality time as their love language and it speaks so much when you can just spend time with them doing what interests them even if I find it “boring”

I have many memories of my parents playing with myself and siblings. Yes, they still did their things and I remember my mom taking usually an hour every day when we were not to bother her, but I also remember her rolling down hills and paying tag. There were 4 of us and we were homeschooled (K-12). My mom did not have hobbies when we were young, but she knew it was only for a season. When I graduated (I was the youngest) she started quilting and other hobbies. She said she never missed doing “things” because she knew the time would pass quickly.

You know what your family needs now, and those needs change year to year, sometimes day to day. 🙂

I like to crochet and it comes in spurts, right now is not that time, but I know time will come around again.

I was playing tag with my boys outside while my daughter was at piano lessons (she takes piano at a church) and an older couple walked by and the women said “it is so nice to see a mom playing with her kids. They will remember this” I think/hope they will 🙂

I think it is all a personal stage and choice and family situation – that is the best point to emphasize. 

I also agree self goes out the door when you have children.  So, in terms of having time for me and my hobbies etc. …. I’m in line after everything else.  And I do struggle with that too.  Very much so in fact.  I haven’t found any magic bullet to finding that balance or time or whatever it is that I’m seeking for myself.  I like some of the suggestions here.  Food for thought.