Independent Play

Does your child need you around in order to play?  Does it seem that they can’t play without you or a friend, despite the shelves full of toys, books and other stuff you’ve accumulated to keep them occupied?

Don’t get me wrong, some children are excellent at playing on their own.  They almost seem to be born that way - able to entertain themselves happily and independently regardless of what else is going on.

And then there are the other children - who always seem to need or want your company when they play.  Who seem to not know what to do with themselves without your help.  And sometimes, depending on what else you’ve got going on, this can be exhausting and relentless for you as a parent.

It doesn’t matter if your child is 2 or 12, if they haven’t learned to play or entertain themselves independently, it can be really draining.  You might wonder why your child is like that, why others seem to play so easily and question whether they will ever learn to get on with their own company!

The thing is, most children need a bit of help learning how to play independently.  So if you’ve got a child who struggles with independent play, know that it’s actually perfectly normal.  Yes, play is the language of children and it’s how they learn - this is why it’s SO important that they learn how to do it.  But no, it doesn’t come naturally for all children and it is a skill they may need your help to develop.

Solo Time

Independent play looks different depending on the age of your child. 

For a child between 2-8, play could be imaginative, role-playing and a way to integrate and process all the things they are learning with each new day and experience.  It could be noisy play (such as acting out a role or playing with cars/bricks) or quiet play (such as doing a puzzle or reading book).

For an older tween child, these types of play are also possible, although with age the quiet play tends to overtake the noisy play.  They might enjoy reading, drawing, playing a musical instrument, crafts, construction, puzzles or listening to music.  But this can vary depending on the age, stage of development, temperament and preferences of your child. 

Regardless of the type of independent play, all children have the ability to play on their own and entertain themselves.  Learning this skill is really important - it is a way of helping them process their world, learn to be on their own and be happy in their own company without relying on external stimulation or feedback.

Setting Up for Independent Play

There are some simple steps you can take to helping your child learn to play independently: 

• Declutter
• Organise
• Set-up Play
• Chat-Through in Advance
• Recognise Efforts & Progress
• Engage in Special Time

Declutter and Organise

The first step to helping your child play independently is to declutter and organise your home, and in particular, their stuff.  How much you have to tackle in this tasks sort of depends on how much stuff you have, how organised it is, and where you expect your child to do most of their playing (in their room, in a common room, etc.)

Declutter

Go through all your child’s stuff and get rid of anything they no longer play with.  Create 3 piles of toys to go:

(1) Broken toys - these go in the bin if they can’t be easily fixed.

(2) Working toys in good condition but no longer loved - these go in a bag to be given to charity, friends or sold.

(3) Working toys that might be loved but aren’t currently played with - these go into “storage”. 

(If there are items that you suspect your child might want to play with in the future or something you struggle to let go of, pop them into a storage box that you can put in a cupboard, your attic, garage or wherever else you “store” stuff.)

Oftentimes we end up with far too many things for our children to play with and it’s overwhelming.  When your child sees all the stuff, they are so overwhelmed they can’t actually see it all or make a choice as to what to play with.    So the less you have out on display, the better. 

Some toys may need to go on a rotation schedule - pop them away into your storage box (or boxes!) so they can be taken out at another time when your child gets bored of their current toys.  Make sure they are neatly packaged (in a box or see-through bag) and labeled so you know what they are without having to open up everything.

Organise

If you can, create a toy cupboard with shelves where things can be neatly put away but still easily seen.  Place toys that are frequently played with or heavier on the bottom, and toys that are not often played with or that need adult supervision up high.  For example, if you have a younger child, you might want the craft items or big jigsaws up high, and vehicles, blocks, dolls, dressing up, etc. lower down.

Have some shelves in your child’s room or the common room where you are expecting them to play.  Put their favourite toys there or a selection of toys on these shelves.   The square shelves with bins are usually great to organise kids toys and books.  Use the ones on the bottom for the books they love to read and can look at on their own. 

Use bins to create  “categories” of toys - legos, vehicles, dolls, bricks, play food, etc.  Put the heavier bins on the bottom/lower shelves and the bins of lighter toys on the higher shelves.  Or use higher shelves to stack boxes of puzzles, board games, etc.

If possible, when using bins try to get the see-through ones so that you have an idea of what is inside.  If you can’t get these, then either take a photo or draw a picture of what’s inside that bin and stick it on the front of the bin (for older, literate kids, just write the word on a piece of paper).  That way, it’s clear what is inside each bin.

Have a bin, box or shelf for miscellaneous toys (you know, the random bits your child seems to collect) as well as one for “homeless” toys. 

The “homeless” toy box can be a place where your child puts toys when they aren’t sure where they belong or when you come across that random board game or lego piece.  Then, when you find you are missing a toy, you know the first place to check is the “homeless” box. 

(Or, if you’re super organise, once a month you can go through the homeless box with your child and get all the toys in their back to their proper home!)

Set Up Play

Depending on the age of your child, you may need to “set the scene” for their independent play.  This is generally the case the younger your child is, but also necessary if your child just hasn’t learned yet how to play independently or has forgotten how to do so.

What does this look like?  Here are some examples:

• Building the wooden train track and leaving the box of additional track pieces and trains out for them to continue building and pick the trains to play with
• Building a bit of lego and leaving out the other pieces for them to continue
• Setting up an animal farm
• Tidying up and organising the play kitchen so everything has a home and then setting up a small play table for a teddy’s picnic
• Dressing up some dolls and leaving out other dolls and accessories
• Putting out some cushions in a corner and laying out some books to read
• Laying a table with play-doh and lots of accessories.  Making a pizza out of play-doh and leaving it there as an example
• Setting up a game of solitaire on the table
• Printing out a crossword, sudoku or other brain teaser

I get that this may seem like some extra work, but if you have decluttered and organised, it should be pretty simple to pick out a bin of toys and lay them out for your child.  In fact, it doing any of the above should take less than 5 minutes, if only 1-2, of your time.

Chat-Through in Advance

If your child is not used to playing independently, you might need to talk about it beforehand the first few times until they get used to it.  Have a casual chat about how you’ve set something up for them and that you’d like them to try to play by themselves for a while. 

Talk about how they might feel about playing alone.  Maybe they’ll be reluctant, maybe they would prefer playing with you (of course they would!).  Talk about tactics they might try or what they could do to let you know if they are struggling to get into it.  Give them options (e.g. if you don’t like what I’ve set up, you can set up another activity of your choice on your own).

Children generally struggle with concepts of time so instead of telling them how long you need them to play on their own, to begin with, I would just see how long they CAN play on their own without you. 

The first few times you might need to intervene when they come and help you, show them what they can do, how they can play.  Or just talk through how they are feeling - acknowledge that they would rather play WITH you and how tough it is that you have other tasks to be getting on with at the moment.  Sometimes, just by acknowledging the elephant in the room, the elephant disappears.

Recognise Efforts & Progress

It’s important to give descriptive, positive feedback to your child when they make an effort to learn a new skill or try out a new activity.  If your child hasn’t been used to playing independently, it might take some time for them to develop this skill. 

Each time you ask them to entertain themselves and set them up to play independently, make sure that you give them descriptive and positive feedback on their efforts, as well as if they have made any progress since the last time. 

This might sound like “You know, today I noticed you were able to play for a whole 10 minutes by yourself before you came and asked me to join you.  That’s 5 more minutes than last week - double the time!  I wonder if next time you’ll be able to play by yourself for 15 minutes?!” 

Or, “I can see you really tried to play with your train track.  You assembled all your trains and put them on the track.  That’s a great start.  What do you think the trains want to do when they are on the track?”

Give your child specific feedback to the things they are doing well, so that they have the information to be able to repeat that same behaviour.  Recognise any progress they make so that they know you are noticing their efforts and can see their improvement - this will help you not get as frustrated when they don’t play for as long as you hoped, and it will also help your child see themselves as someone who CAN do this - giving them the motivation to try again another time.

Engage in Special Time

If you are not already doing so, spending some 1 on 1 time with your child, each day, is incredibly important and will go a long way to helping them be able to play independently.  We call this Special Time.

Special Time is a set time with your child where you hang out with them and do whatever they want to do with you.  It can last between 10-15 minutes and requires your full attention - i.e. put your phone and other distractions away and focus on your child for 10-15 minutes.  Your child might want chat to you, play a game, read, prep a meal, whatever (within limits).  Generally watching a screen should be avoided if possible.

If you can schedule Special Time in so that your child knows it’s going to happen each day and can anticipate and look forward to it, it will help “fill up their invisible bucket”.  You know, the one that needs your attention and needs you to love and notice them. 

Filling up their internal buckets reliably each day lets them feel seen, heard and loved and is absolutely a necessary prerequisite if you expect them to play independently.   Think of Special Time as filling up their bucket, whereas playing independently depletes it. Not that independent play is a bad thing, but it does require them to “be independent” and, even for those kids that love it, they still need their buckets regularly filled to feel balanced and grounded.

Start Today

Whether your child loves playing independently or is still learning this important skill, try to create time in their daily schedule for this important alone time.  If your child is a natural introvert, this quiet time will be hugely restorative for them.  And if your child is a natural extrovert, independent play will allow them quieter ways of processing the world around them.

The reality is, we all have moments in our day where we need our children to entertain themselves.  Yes, it’s easy to pop them in front of a screen.  And sometimes that will be the right solution.  However, there are easy alternatives and once your child learns how to play independently, you might find that they are actually happier doing so than sitting in front of a screen!  The more your child becomes proficient in entertaining themselves, the more they will enjoy it and choose it as a preferred activity.

Start today.  Take one of the above steps and start helping your child learn to play without you.  Remember, they may need your help to begin with, but with a bit of set-up, patience, perseverance and attention they will be off happily playing on their own in no time!