parallel play question

star1123

Do you toddlers still do parallel play?  Or, are they starting to initiate more play with kids their age? 

I am just kinda pissed at my mom for even bringing this up.  She knows I easily worry about something, and she always makes comments like this which doesn't help.  At Aiden's birthday party there were eight kids, but only from two families.  So, one set of five kids were siblings and then the other three were siblings.  Aiden was watching them and a few times would sit down and play by a kid - or, I saw one time when he sort of tried to play with a kid - he sat down by a boy who was playing with his farm and started playing, too.  But he didn't go up to anyone to initiate play.  I didn't think anything of it really - he was pretty social at the party and he tends to be on the shy side.  He went up to all of the adults and said hi and even asked to be picked up by several of them.  

But my mom made a comment about him not initiating play at the party.  DC tells me ALL the time how he plays well with the other kids.

 

Five Months to Plan

My DD does not initiate play with others. At one of our classes there is 30 mins of free play. I think only the girl who is over 3 plays with others and intimates it. All the others ones either parallell pay or try to steal each others toys. I think this is still totally normal at this age. 

KelCaryn20

Elliott seems to play WITH the little boy from daycare that is:
A the same age
B there every day, all day with him.

With All other kids his age he pretty much still does the parellel play thing.

pitterpatter129

Nate got his personality from some other people, because DH and I are both hermits who were very shy kids, but he loooves other kids.  He'll run over to do whatever they are doing.  When I pick him up from daycare, he and the other boys his age are usually getting into some sort of trouble all together.  The other day Nate was putting one to "bed" with a blanket in a big box.  

That said, parallel play is completely normal way up into early grade school.  A lot of 4 year olds still engage in mostly parallel play and I even still have some first graders who just prefer to play alone or play next to other kids.  It doesn't mean they can't socialize, just prefer not to.

This article had good info: https://ezinearticles.com/?Stages-of-Play&id=900253

 

jillybean800

Actually, my SIL and I brought this up to my nephew's therapist (he gets occupational and speech therapy) because A and my nephew sometimes play together but mostly just play next to one another, or ignore each other. She said they don't even look for signs of playing together/initiating play until closer to 4. So I think you are fine!

Cheekers2010

Yeah, G does a lot of both.  I wouldn't be worried at all.

Kellina

We had Pete's birthday party today and he was playing by himself almost the whole time... He plays with his brother a little, but only b/c my older one goes over and bothers him, or the older one starts a chasing game or something with him. But this is his bro that he sees 24/7. Other kids? No way! I don't think they "get" playing together till 3 or older.

lrn327

Does taking toys from each other count?  :-)  Ha ha!

C does initiate a little bit but I'd say it's mostly still parallel at this point.  He's in a large DC full-time too so has lots of exposure to this.