A constant game of pretend

[Backroads]

Here is a monent of how I feel like the world's worst mom. For about the past two months my 3-year-old has more or less mostly been in a game of pretend. Everyone says it's a phase and no, I am not worried abour this lasting until college or anything.

The problem is that when she's not playing with friends she involves me. At first it was cute. I didn't mind participating and went along with it, but the last couple of weeks has been very hard. I'm at this point where I dread being around her. The near-constant stream of games is grating on me. I really don't remember the last time we were Mommy and Daughter for more than a few minutes. Basically, if I'm with her, we are playing pretend.

Sunday and tonight I told her I wasn't playing, just for a short time, just so I could have a break. This lead to bawling  and tantrums and, five minutes later. "Mommy, you be such-n-such."

I know, I'm supposed to be treasuring this precious and brief time wirh her. But I'm not and I don't know how much more of it I can take.

[Sunday21]

@Backroads. I hear you! Was there ever a mom who did not feel this way? You are not a 3 year old! Take child to mcdonalds with a big playroom. The library may have some activities. Take child for a few walks and count cars of different colours? Love you! Hugs!

By the way, there have been many effective novels and short stories about adults tortured by the play activities of small children. The ransom of red chief springs to mind.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Sunday21

[Guest]

My wife sent me this article to articulate how she feels sometimes.  It sounds very similar.

https://kristenanneglover.com/sad-on-sundays/

[anatess2]

Ahh, I've been through this.  I have 2 boys and I can only tolerate so much wargames with their toy soldiers before I have to go take a break and desperately dream of a mani-pedi session.  There was a time when the older kid was 3 and the younger brother was too young to play with him so he would constantly badger me about playing soldiers and trains and so I got him a Ken doll and I got me a Barbie thinking he'd play with them because I don't mind playing dress-up with the Barbie but then Ken became a soldier shooting at Barbie who became the Godzilla trampling on the trains.  Arrrrggg.

I am so happy the younger brother finally became older and they're like peas in a pod playing soldiers and trains.  Good timing too because they graduated to pet snakes being the king deploying their toy soldiers... there was no way I'd be joining that game.

Anyway, my kids learned very early on... they can whine they can cry they can throw a tantrum and nothing is going to get me to play when I don't want to play.  As a matter of fact, the more they throw a tantrum, the more they're not getting what they want from me.  Yeah, I have no problem ignoring crying kids.  Anyway, the way we run our house, the kids are not the center of the universe.  They're planets, like us parents are also planets, orbiting around the family identity (Christ-centered).  I can't allow the kids to knock me out of orbit in the name of "precious moments".  Every minute of every day with all of us orbiting in peaceful harmony around Christ is a precious moment... even when that's with my kids in one corner of the house doing their thing and me in the other corner of the house doing my thing and we all come together at the dinner table telling each other about our separate things.

 

Edited February 23, 2017 by anatess2

[Sunday21]

Don't get a puppy for child to play with! My sister tried this! Dog is worse behaved than the kid!

[Sunday21]

A case in point!

http://www.isd518.net/Websites/isd518/files/Content/3803780/The_Ransom_of_Red_Chief_(VOA).pdf

[Sunday21]

I used to take my niece to:

pet shops. I called it the free zoo. I had to carefully rotate shops or we would have been banned.

walmart. We would see how fast we could walk from one end of the store to another.

the dollar store. I promised that I would buy any object for one dollar.

playground. Other moms. Nice.

drugstore where you could listen to cds. Why these people did not ban me, I will never know.

we ocassionally left her with a daycare centre. expensive but those people earned every penny. I once took my 3 yr old niece there when she was so out of control, she did everything but foam at the mouth. I had to go to work and she was not happy.

my niece by the way is now 13. She is fine! They grow out of it!

Edited February 23, 2017 by Sunday21

[Sunday21]

@anatess2. Excellent philosophy! Very sensible.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Sunday21

[NeuroTypical]

12 hours ago, Backroads said:

I know, I'm supposed to be treasuring this precious and brief time wirh her. But I'm not and I don't know how much more of it I can take.

When you're about at your limit, remember these pictures, and think about how it's coming to your house waaay to soon.

[Sunday21]

Many people are lovely teenagers! Things will get better!

[Backroads]

Thanks. The constant game is still going on. Today I was assigned to be Maui, Moana's mom, and my parents' neighbor who has dogs (so she could pretend to be one of those dogs).

Something anatess said drove home. I don't think I have been giving myself enough self-care as of late. I scheduled some of that in, allowed one of my classroom moms to bring us take-out (an offer she put forth during my daughter's meningitis scare), and am trying to ocassionally say "Mommy's reading/cleaning/coloring/playing video games right now".

I feel more refreshed and able to continue.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Backroads

[Bini]

It is a short-lived phase but may feel like an eternity. My 5-year-old daughter is good at self-entertaining from being an only child for a while but when she's with others she does enjoy the world of make-believe and pretend play. It's a healthy part of development, as I'm sure you know from your teaching, so aside from it getting old and exhausting, you at least know she is progressing as she should.

When I'm not in the mood to play kid stuff, I try to extend myself to taking her somewhere like the park or as mentioned a play area, where she can release her energy and interact with other children. Sometimes children she is not acquainted with are the best playmates for creative play. I would try this. You could still squeeze in 'your time' with a coffee or beverage of your choice, read a book, play an app on your phone, chat with other mums, whatever you find relaxing for an hour or so while your little gets energy out.

[yjacket]

2 words: John Rosemond.  Read him, implement it, love it.

It sounds like Backroads you've fallen into the modern trap that our current culture pushing on very good, well-intentioned mothers. And it goes something like this .. .the good mommy is the mommy who plays with her child, the good mommy is the mommy who always ensures that her child is happy, the good mommy does everything she can for her child, the good mommy is in effect a vending machine for her child-what the child wants the child gets.

And quite frankly, it's a load of crap, it doesn't do anybody any good and has lead to more mental health problems for mothers and children than can possibly be imagined.

You've got to nip this in the bud right now. You are not responsible for the child's happiness, he/she is and the sooner you implement strategies to enforce this the better off you will be.   I remember growing up and my parents never got down on the floor and "played with me", from time to time my dad would throw us up in the air, tickle us, etc. we'd have family activities, but it was most definitely on his time not on mine as a child.

Before you can know what you are doing and why you are doing it as a parent you have to know what your goal is as a parent.  Is your goal as a parent to "savoir the precious moments b/c they go by so fast"? Or is your goal to raise, well-adjusted, happy, healthy, independent, hard-working, civil, respectful adults?  And quite frankly the two don't go so well together.  The first, leads to guilt on the parent (oh if I don't do xyz the time is going to go by and I'll never get it back, so I have to enjoy every moment). The second leads to an attitude that the child should pay more attention to the parent than the parent should to the child.

If you know what you want to create as an end product by the time your child is 18, it will guide every step of your actions as they grow up.

And don't feel guilty-we have an extremely messed up society that has utterly and totally confused and messed up marriage and the raising of children. So the messages you get either consciously or sub-consciously from society absolutely 100% do not mix well in the raising of proper adults and it takes a lot of fortitude and courage to go against the tide.

1st things 1st,  Priority #1 set your relationship with God as #1 in your life, along with priority #1 make taking time for yourself an extreme priority (a drowning man cannot save others) priority #2 set your relationship with your spouse as the most important earthly relationship-never let children come in the way of that relationship. Priority #3 spent time educating yourself on how to properly parent and the biggest then that can be done in that area is a change of attitude.  As in I'm the parent, you are the child, you do what I say to do, period! When you as a child request things of me, I will consider that request but more likely than not I will give you a healthy dose of Vitamin N (No!) but if I deem it okay, then I will say yes. And then along with that, let the child manage their own affairs (with corrective guidance from time to time as necessary).

Do that and everything will work out just fine.

And then you will be able to play pretend when you want to on your terms and then when you are tired of it or need a break, you say no and that's that.

Edited March 8, 2017 by yjacket

[Guest]

Balance. Be somewhere between the cold authoritarian and the obsessively attached.

Children benefit from being in a family that plays together, and from learning to play alone. They suffer from being raised as an object instead of a person (I work with these every day), or from being the center of the universe.

It's great to play with her for a short time, and to tell her when you're done. It's great to connect with her in ways that don't pain you: board games. Baking. Crafts. BOOKS!

It's great to tell her to use her imagination by herself and send her outside to play.

Healthy, well adjusted children need warmth and balance.