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For anyone of you who sometimes only has one child (or a preschooler with an infant, where the preschool child doesn't have anyone to play with): What do you do with that one child? Pretty often anymore I only have one child attending, and those days are SO LOOONG! The 4 yr old wants constant attention, begs to be played with, has to have a comment from me on ANYthing she does or says. Even if it's something she's already done several times, and I've seen her several times. If she tell me what she's doing...again...she expects me to comment on it. No simple, "yes I see". She wants a longer comment, like, "Yes, I see that you are racing the cars. Which one won?" If I don't comment like that, she repeats and repeats and repeats. On the days she's alone, she seems to think everything should revolve around her and what she wants at that time. When she has someone to play with, she's fine. Plays and enjoys herself, follows the routine, does each activity that it's time for, etc. But alone... if it's time to go outside and she wants to stay in and play the computer instead, she acts like it's the most obvious thing, and that's what we should do. And she'll get really pouty if I don't spend like the whole day on the floor with her. When I have just one child, I like to use those days to catch up on some of the things there's not time for when there are more children here (like paper work, cleaning daycare things, etc). I would ask her to "help" me, but some of it she can't help with, like the paper work. I can sit her down at the table with me with some crayons and paper, but the whole time she's asking, "what's your favorite color? What color do you want me to use next"? Etc. I always tell her it's her picture and she can choose what SHE wants, but she's not happy with that. She wants me to have my constant attention (and eyes) on her and what she's doing. But even if it wasn't for her wanting constant attention, it'd be a looong day because it's so boring, compared to what I'm used to haha. Any suggestions beside building up enrollment? I'm really trying to get mpre children in, but after so many left for Kindergarten, I haven't been able to get anymore enrolled.
So how do your days go, when you only have one child (or one without someone close enough to their age to play with)?
So how do your days go, when you only have one child (or one without someone close enough to their age to play with)?
: I give them a smoothie or lemonade so I don't feel bad about using their play area for freehappyface
but she expects me to do it with her, and pouts the whole time she's playing if I don't. And has to have CONSTANT comments on what she's doing. And one time while waiting on her mom, she was mad that we didn't have time to do something that we'd already done several times earlier in the day, but she was pouting again and said, "We didn't get to play x." I replied that no, we didn't, but maybe she could do it again tomorrow. She informed me that, "We could have TODAY, but you wouldn't get up and do it!" Whew! I can only imagine what she's telling her mom. She probably makes it sound like I sit around all day being lazy and won't do ANYthing. Truth was, she got busy doing something else and I thought why bring it up if she's actually busy playing something else? But now I always feel bad if I don't play with her a LOT during the day because I'm sure if she's mad about me not playing with her, she'll tell her mom some more stories about how I wouldn't get off my but*. And plus she looks so sad that I feel bad... is it wrong to want to wean her off of that constant attention and just let her play alone, without me being right there near by to at least comment? Sometimes I'm not busy at all and I could play, but I also feel like young children need to be able to self entertain too.
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