# anyone else's 3 year old not play with toys/pretend play?



## veganmama

i used to LOVE pretend play as a kid, happily making up stories in my head by myself with my toys but my LO never touches his toys...like EVER

he has a cooking set, a train set, some animals, duplo, and lots of vehicles and they have never been touched 

all he wants to do is play drums with the toys he has (like use his cooking set as a drum set hitting it with sticks) he has a real drum set at grandparents house cant bring it here though we live in an apartment but this is all his play that he does all day


just wondering if anyone else's lo is like this


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## JenX

My LO is very imaginative and plays with toys, but was just wondering- if yours likes drumming could you get him some other small percussion instruments? We have and love shaker eggs, castanets, bells, rhythm sticks, cabasa, xylophone and more. Would he be interested in things like that?


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## FAB mama

My son plays with his toys often and is getting more imaginative. Sorry! I'm sure some kids must be similar but I can't think of one that I know except maybe kids that play outside a lot.


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## AngelofTroy

My friend's son is like this, he's not at all interested in toys but his thing is fiddling, taking things (the Hoover, tools, anything he shouldn't have!) apart and putting them back together. She tries to buy things that follow his interests like toy tools and building kits but he shuns them. He'll be 3 in August. 
He's a very intelligent boy with good speech, however I'm not suggesting anything about your son but I should mention that his nursery have expressed some concerns about his social skills. 

How is your son when playing with other children?


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## sequeena

Mine didn't do it until a few months ago. He would (and still does) go from toy to toy spending only a few seconds with it. He preferred things that He could push around.

Now He pretends to be our dog sky, a postman, emergency vehicles etc. The programme Let's Play on cbeebies really helped. There are episodes on youtube :)


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## alibaba24

My daughter showed little spats of pretend play here and there but tbh her imagination only really started taking off from age 4. She loves to role play etc now age 5. She's never had any interest in kitchens/dolls or anything either even now


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## sequeena

Also there are varying levels of pretend play and I think it depends on how verbal The child is. Thomas does The basics of role play. If he's a dog he will bark and lick, postman he will sort and give you letters. Emeegency vehicles he will run round shouting bee-orr! He doens't yet make up situations or really involve me in anything other than to lick me or give me a letter.


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## minties

My sons lack of role playing wasa major sign of his having aspergers. He doesn't ever sit down and make his toys pretend to talk to eachother etc, but he will pretend that he is a transformer/cat/batman etc. Sophie is much more into toy play. Thomas likes to construct and deconstruct more.


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## veganmama

my LO likes to watch other kids play and if its interesting to him will try to play with them but mostly just copying what they are doing nothing really imaginative. 

i mean, if im playing with him say cooking, he will play a along for a bit and pretend to eat some food with me but ONLY if i instigate it and its pretty basic and boring, like dont get me wrong he will play with his toys for a bit if im present and playing with him but like i said, pretty basic boring stuff and i thought he would be playing on his own now and not having to have me be there to play


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## Agoo

Pretend play is what my 3 year old spends most of her time on... even if she plays with other things like blocks, she'll try to chat them up. What's nice about it is that we can go on a long trip and forget the toys as she'll happily talk to her toes. The not so great thing is she's got so used to having her toys actually talk back, she often needs someone to play with her... so she'll bring me a stuffed toy (or honestly, a ball, a piece of broccoli, whatever,) and say "will you animate this mama?" and have long conversations with it. My problem is how to get her to have the other half of the conversation in her head.


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## 24/7

My 4yo was about 3.5, maybe slightly older before he started proper pretend play. Now at 4y2m his imagination is just incredible and he plays amazing games! x


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## OmarsMum

My friend's son who is 6 now doesn't play with toys, he likes to dismantle them. He uses a screwdriver like a pro, he even managed to dismantle his bed at the age of 4.


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## minties

Thomas is pretty handy with a screwdriver too. Funny how kids are so different, Sophie spends hours every day getting her toys to talk to each other and I don't think I have seen my son ever do it.


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## Wriggley

My 4 year old doesn't play with toys 

His favourite thing ever is his skateboard - we are regularly up the skatepark he is a proper little skater lad 

We are not really in the house a lot but when we are he still don't play with toys

He is a complete earth child who only wants to be outside - last week he told me 'when I grow up I'm going to buy a camper van and live in the forest' 

He's heavily into skateboarding, climbing, swimming and is starting parkour very soon. 

he loves the outdoors climbing trees looking at nature bugs flowers wildlife in general 

Saying that I have no concerns what so ever he is extremely bright and has amazing social skills - a lot of young adult lads seem to get on well with him because he's a proper mini dude. He makes friends easily but won't engage in toy play with them but he often makes friends up the skatepark and will 'hang out' on the Ramps with them and skateboard with them. He gets on well with older people there's a couple of teens up there he will go about with as well as a few kids his own age 

He's very impressionable and looks up to older lads - he will only wear sports socks pulled up at the skatepark because 'that's how they wear them' he prefers to wear the colour black and has certain shorts and t shirts he likes to wear up there that he won't wear as general every day clothes he brought some skate related stickers today and the guy told him he's got a box of around 700 stickers and told
Him he needs a box... So z has now pinched my super dry shoe box and put his stickers in it haha 

I wouldn't worry Hun all children are different I'm not concerned my boy is well socialised - preschool, crèche as my gym, 2-3 visits a week to the skatepark, swimming lessons, gymnastics lessons he's well mixed you just have to nurture their interests and support who they are :)


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## alibaba24

Wriggly your son sounds awesome :D


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## Reid

My lite boys only just started getting into it now and he was 4 in April. He's very speech delayed 
He's really enjoying his lego junior and lego duplo building the cars and zooming them round building stairs and making the wee men go up and down them.
If you have lego look up the lego apps for the phone/tablet me son really enjoys them it might help encourage more pretend play as you see the wee lego men driving about in the cars ect xx


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## jd83

Do you have all his toys available to him all the time? Sometimes putting a bunch away and rotating them periodically can spark interest in playing with them again. My kids get this way sometimes, where I think they just get bored with ALL the toys because there are too many to pick from for them to even make up their minds on what to play with. When they get like that, I pack up a bunch in totes and put them in the basement, and just rotate through them for a while.


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## morri

Em likes both. building stuff with lego for her toys to use(slides, tunnels, escalators, tv tower, garages..)


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## SarahBear

Agoo said:


> Pretend play is what my 3 year old spends most of her time on... even if she plays with other things like blocks, she'll try to chat them up. What's nice about it is that we can go on a long trip and forget the toys as she'll happily talk to her toes. The not so great thing is she's got so used to having her toys actually talk back, she often needs someone to play with her... so she'll bring me a stuffed toy (or honestly, a ball, a piece of broccoli, whatever,) and say "will you animate this mama?" and have long conversations with it. My problem is how to get her to have the other half of the conversation in her head.

I love how your daughter phrases her request. Violet says "can you make this talk?"


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## Indi84

They are all so different. My ds is 3 in Oct and has just exploded with pretend play recently, I saw him driving his various Thomas trains around and they were saying hello to each other and calling them by name (Percy, Gordon etc) and telling each other how they were to drive around the room!


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