Quality time/activities, failing, - Help!

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Hey everyone,

I need to find some quality time activities to do with my kid, maybe 20 min at a pop, things we will both like doing in the evening after I come home from work, that is not too stimulating before bedtime. Also some weekend activities.

He wants to play with his trains, but I find it utterly boring.
He wants to play with water or with messy arts and crafts, which I go nuts thinking about the mess and clean-up involved, which just adds on to the time if I ask him to help me, leaving less time to spend with my other kid.
There are projects, but I find them too hard for him to sit and follow step-by-step instructions, and other projects are too consuming and I hate leaving projects in the middle without finishing them.

I feel so utterly useless and unable to overcome my hangups about messes and leaving projects unfinished. I tend to take over the entire project, or I just give up.

I am feeling like an utter failure as a parent and human being. I need to teach my kid certain things yet I can't change myself enough to be able to help him. Does anyone else grapple with this? Someone please kick me in the head...

Go with messy things but do them outside on the cement where it does not matter if you make a mess as you can just spray it off with a hose.

You are wonderful for thinking of this.

However, it is another hangup of mine, that I don't like to sit outside in the heat (I hate the heat!) with all the bugs that love to get on me (I hate bugs on me!). I am a real kill-joy.

If you'd be willing to set up a dedicated table in his room, you could make Lego brick films (stop action animation using legos) together. If your background, legos, and lamps could be left in place, you could make a scene each session in about 20 minutes. You just need a digital camera, two gooseneck lamps, Legos, a sheet or poster paper for a backdrop, and $40 software to make a video from the images. Search for brickfilm on YouTube to see some examples.

Would he read a book with you? Like a longer book that he might not be able to read himself yet but has content that is interesting to him. Our nanny is currently reading the Harry Potter books to DS (7 yo) . He probably could read it to himself however he doesn't really want to read books that don't have pictures.

Is he into Legos? I find this satisfies DS's desire to create when I don't want him dragging out the paints and glue and such. Mine really likes crafts too and sometimes I am like you and really cannot tolerate the thought of the mess that will need to be cleaned up. We got one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Neat-Oh-LEGO-CITY ... B002OE05L4
DS loves it, he can play legos and then when he is done we can pile them all on the mat and zip it up.

What about a drawing program on the computer? No mess! You could take turns drawing pictures. DS loves Tuxpaint.org

Is he old enough to play some simple card games like go fish or Uno? Or other "board" games like Connect Four or checkers? Battleship has become popular at our house. DS also likes Chutes & Ladders.

I'll see if I can think of more.

Thanks everyone for your really great ideas.

I wish I were a behavioral therapist. My son has a very low frustration tolerance. This means I don't want to do many new things with him, because his angries are a real downer. I like the Legos idea, we just have to find a place where his little brother (almost 2yo) won't destroy the projects we work on, and that is not easy as that kid is a strategic climber.

The board games are good. He used to play Candy Land with me. He got a little confused with Chutes and Ladders but maybe we should try it again. Battleship is probably too difficult for him, as he has a hard time conceptualizing things that are not there (this was observed in his ADOS evaluation). Reciprocity is also something that he still needs work on, and he gets more frustrated with me, perhaps because I react to his frustration, and we get into a downward spiral together.

I got a dry erase board which would be good for Hangman if and when he learns to read/spell. He does not like the computer drawing games so much. I think he prefers to work with tangibles and making real messes (sigh).

It is hard to get him engaged in books if it does not have lots of pictures of trains and volcanoes LOL

I'm feeling a little less hopeless now. Thanks, and keep those ideas coming if you can. Whether or not I can implement them, I do appreciate it!

Audio books, then you can cuddle up together and follow the story. Relaxing for you and hopefully him.
I would try to engage with the trains, I totally understand where you are coming from, finding them boring. I had the same issues with my nt 8 yr old when he was little... He loved little people toys, I liked to set them up with him but the playing drove me a bit nuts. He so loved it though when I did play with them, with him. Very special for him. If you could do 10 mins with your son and see if he adores it, don't be afraid to set a time limit, tell him it's not your favourite thing to play but you know he loves it, so you'll give it a try. You never know, he may not want your involvement. Train tracks for my 5 yr old ( pddnos) are a solitary activity, he thinks he wants others to play but we always do it "wrong", so now he chooses to play them by himself. He loves this other game where you have to make frogs jump in to a bucket, a bit boring but we always have a laugh, it lasts less than 10 mins and gives him some good, fun time with mum or dad. It's low stress, not much can go wrong in that one.
Also colouring in or drawing together.
Lego, big hit in our house too, it helps I can build faster than the kids, so I can duck away in the midst of it to do jobs and not miss out.

When my son was young and into things like trains and Legos, I noticed that I enjoyed building the scenes, but got bored playing with the trains once a scene was built. So we ended up doing a version of parallel play, where I'd engage with him on design ideas and put the ideas together, and use up our time that way. He'd have such an exciting new track to play on that he didn't even notice that I didn't stick around for that part.

Point being, sometimes you can find a compromise way to connect to a child's interests. And, of course, you can choose to introduce him to new things that you like.

That last one sounds exactly like me and my brother when I was young. He used to get Lego sets and I used to build them (the bit he found boring) and then he would play with them (the bit I didn't like). But I digress.

I was going to suggest to the OP perhaps getting a large plastic sheet for messy activities and doing them on the floor. Can still be hosed down (and hung over the line to dry) but can be used inside.

Papercrafts? I am guessing he doesn't have the motor control to do origami (DS and I sometimes do that) but he might be able to cut out a string of paper trains with your help (instead of paper dolls.)

There are dozens of downloadable papercrafts where you just print it , cut it out, and put the tabs together - very simple and not requiring anything but paper, scissors and a glue stick.

(One thing we got for DS when he was little - I couldn't have a sandbox, so we made a "bean box" - I filled an old cooler about 1/4 deep with dried pinto beans which I bought in bulk somewhere - if your son is looking for sensory feedback you can do all kinds of stuff with them and they're contained, plus not that hard to clean up if they spill out.)

Tolerable messes: I used to spread shaving cream on a baking sheet and let my kids squish their hands in it and "paint"--very easy to clean up; play dough is also very tactile and not too disgusting. Hope this helps.

Does he like baths? I use to give the kids shaving cream sprayed on the walls, or those bath paints, bath crayons, we had a mesh bag that suctioned to the walls full of toys, lots of bubble baths. I'd sit on the toilet lid and read them a book while they played with their toys, or we'd do things like spray numbers or letters on the walls that sort of thing.

Maybe an early bath with lots of play would help? (Worked with my oldest two, but wouldn't have with the youngest. He hates water.)

Does he have any special interests other than general trains play? We give him dedicated time where we let our son teach us about his special interests and he loves the opportunity to brain dump and teach us something he loves.