help playing with 4 yr old son...please

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Hi there,
Im just wondering if anyone else has trouble with imagination play with kids??
I have a fantastic 4 yr old son, who has no signs of being aspie, toally oppisite really. But, he will come to me pretending he has made a shop, or he made a space ship out of our clothes dryer/airer stand thing, all I could see was our clothes horse on its side with the sides sticking out....I didn't know what to say???

I am really good with playing board games,playing nursrey rhymes on guitar, memory card matching (thank you photographic memory!!) but anything I can't see infront of me sort of thing....Im totally lost....
any ideas??
Thanks,
Verticalmum.

Pretend that it's real

And drive horses or any space vessels as if you were driving them in real.
For the shop, were you the customer or the seller?

Hi zena4,
thanks for your speedy reply,
I have real trouble pretending...it just seems sooo false...I don't know how to pretend.
The shop...didn't even think of asking him if I was the customer or the seller...hmmm.
Thanks for the ideas though.

But the truth is... it's all false

But then, one day, your little boy will go shopping more or less on his own - for real this time - and he will know how to do it!
And not pretending this time.

You might also ask him to learn you how to play, saying that your youth is so far away that you can't remember well how to do it.
Or telling him the truth: until now, you only knew how to play some games but not the ones he likes.

Perhaps he will be pleased to teach you?

when your child is pretending, ask him about it. Tell him that you don't know how to play spaceship, or shopping and ask him what he wants you to do. Or ask questions like, How does the spaceship work? Can it fly? Can you fly me? Where do I sit? What are we shopping for? How does this work? What do I do? Kids love when you show an interest, and if you don't know what to do I'm sure he will show you. I play stupid all the time with kids and they LOVE it. They are so proud when I get it right after they help me.

Let you child lead, they won't care if you fumble around. He just wants to play with you.

And I know it feels false to you, but think of it this way. It's like doing a trial run before doing the actual thing. It's a way to explore the world and apply what they learn to their life. Try not to look at it as false, but more like practice, or interest exploration. As for shopping, maybe you can use real things, (canned food, fruit, cereal) and create your own store. That may make it more real to you and easier for you to play.

Hi zina4, I will ask him to teach me, I have said to him in the past how different people are good at different things and that Im not so good at some of the games he can play, but that I can play him guitar, or sing for him...etc....

Hi MommyJones, I get where you are going with this, oh, ok gives me an idea of what to say. Thank you.
Look at it as practice, ok, yeah, I will use real things like canned food, fruit, cereal, that will make it easier.
Thank you,
Verticalmum.

Kids don't really care at that age whether you believe what is happening.
They know it isn't real. For shop, just think of the last time you went to the local store. Ask him can you buy some sweets, bread and milk, or whatever you got then. ASk him how much it costs.
Treat it like a real shop. You don't have to do anything strange or weird.

If you aren't that good at it though, doing other stuff to play with him will be enough for a kid to know you care.

And kids don't expect adults to know everything. :p They often get a kick out of having to explain things. It seems we know so much it brings us back to a human level to have things we don't understand.

For the money, you have the Monopoly paper to play with!

Hi Azharia,
Oh , ok, good idea. I guess if I ask him...really, how do I play that, can you explain to mummy how to play, he will get a kick out of it too.
Yeah, we do heaps of other stuff too, more practical stuff like I was saying......

zena4, true, never thaught of that.
Thanks for all your help.

be prepared to be laughed at though. :p Some kids find it really funny when you ask that. :p But as long as they are happy who cares what they are laughing at. It's cute! :p

My mom has always PRETENDED she doesn't get the games even though she does, just so they can show her. :p

Not parallel play topic

All my three kids are NT. I knew, from study, that co-operative play is what they engaged in after age two. Soon your son will want to be more social and have friends over. This just increases as they get older.

I have mostly liked one on one play with my children, and encouraged them to be social, as this is their nature as NTs. Now, though, the problem is that they do not understand my need for solitude, and now rule reinforcement when they have caused infractions related to social issues, and I need to clamp down. But that is another story. Your son is still only 4!!

Advice here is good.

Hey, it's simple. With kids, it's called "pretending." Adults call it "fiction," but it's exactly the same thing.

Did you ever really enjoy a movie, or a play, or a novel, or a TV show? The reason you enjoyed it is because while you were caught up in the experience, you were pretending in your mind that it was real.

When kids are playing pretend games, they're doing what the screenwriters and novelists do, creating characters and situations.

When you lose the capacity to create characters and situations on your own and you have to have them fed to you, when you lose the skill called imagination, it's called maturity.

There's skills to be learned from kids, skills we might have forgotten.

Hey there, thanks for all your advice,
Im learning to think more about stuff that is not there, its hard though, but I think I am improving.
I really don't like TV if its a fiction show, doco"s yes, music shows, yes.......just can't see the point of watching it if its not true...loose interest real quick.would rather play music!!
Thanks again for all your replys.

Glad you are finding ways.

Wow, this thread really got to me.
I have a 4 year old NT son, and I've got the exact same thing going on.
He will come to me with a stuffed animal or toy, and expect pretend social interaction...

And I'm as clueless trying to pretend-talk with a teddy bear as I am trying to actually talk with a human being. I just never have any idea what to say. I have a limited number of scripts that I've developed for this kind of thing. But they are just that: limited. It's really hard responding to the spontaneous imaginative play of a 4 year old.

He and I enjoy play that is not verbal. We love to play ball games, and go exploring in Nature. That kind of stuff we generally do fine with. As soon as verbal social interaction is required, I screw up.

I really don't want to impair his development socially. Hmmmm