Question
I am writing you with a question about my 3 1/2 year old son. We have, for a long time, noticed that he has problems keeping himself occupied for any period of time. We have followed your advice and kept our "toy" stash to a minimun, including blocks, a train set, puzzles, and a ton of books. He has what appears to be very little initiative to find things to do himself, and constantly follows me around the house asking to for me to play with him and find things for him to do. We also do not let him watch TV, maybe a few short videos 2-3x per week. I do find things for him (say, "here are your blocks, play with these," to which he will dump them all out, play for 1-2 minutes, then come find me and tell me he's done. I then make him clean them all up and it's back to square one again. Things have gotten a little better since his baby sister is now walking (15 mos.) and can go with him to his room to read or play trains (as he frequently asks or wants me to come play or sit with hime while he plays.) I feel like I must say 50 times a day, "go find something to do, please." Often I will go and find him in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, doing absolutely nothing! Is this normal? I don't feel I should follow him around all day finding things for him to do, but if I don't he does what I mentioned above, or worse, gets in to something he knows he's not supposed to for my attention. When the weather is nice I have been known to put he and his sister outside for a half hour and lock the door. He paces back and forth in front of it, whining to come in or get a drink, etc... ! He seems to do fine (or better) when I'm with him (I don't necessarily have to even play with him, just be in the same room.) Of course I can't do that ALL day long! I've signed him up for a pre-school this fall, just so he has structured activities. I searched your archives for "bored pre-schoolers" and only found a hit on a bored 13 year old, to which you said it was his problem to fix the boredom, not the parents. Does that apply here too? Are there other things I need to get for him? Am I not stimulating him enough? Help!
