My 6 year old daughter doesn’t play with toys.

To the woman in the store the other day looking for an item for her 6 year old daughter that really didn’t play much, I want to apologize, as I don’t feel like I gave you very much help. All I did was tell you what our best selling items were for girls her age and well, to be honest with you, that was pretty presumptuous of me to think that your child would be like others and want to play with the same things when you clearly told me that you were having problems getting her to show interest in playing at all.

Our children are saturated with all the technological gadgets that we adults crave and from watching us, it is natural that they want those gadgets as well, even though they may not be ready for them. Sometimes that very same technology can make traditional play seem static and boring to some children if they are using the technology so it is important to try and remind ourselves and our children of how much fun it can be to play with a simple toy. Likewise for some children, if they haven’t seen a commercial for it or watched it on TV, they might not know how to play with some toys.

So now that I have had some time to think about your original question, here are some suggestions that I would like to make:
1. Remember back to your own childhood and what you liked to play with at that age. Tell her all about it. Was it dolls, arts and crafts, horses? Whatever it was, telling your daughter about the things you played with as a child will get her interest and at the very least provides you and her with a mother/daughter moment.
2. Think about what you would like her to play with and try to lead her in that direction. While it is very easy for us adults to just provide our children with the things that they think they want, it is also important to sometimes gently nudge them into doing and playing with things that we think would be good for them. You know your child best.
3. Get her involved in collecting something. Figurines, dolls, erasers, stamps, or even rocks can all been fun objects to find and collect. Collecting can sometimes be just like a mini treasure hunt as your looking to find items to collect. Yes, collecting is a form of play that can turn into a lifetime hobby that is fun, educational and personally fulfilling.
4. Ask a grandparent to get involved. There really is a lot of wisdom in those older generations. Of course you might end up hearing a long story about how the only thing they had to play with was a stick and a rock, but the important thing is that they knew how to play, entertain and amuse themselves. Marbles, Jacks, and paper dolls are all still great toys as well.
5. If you really want to get her to notice toys and how to play, then buy her a toy normally meant for a boy. This may seem strange to most but why not? Maybe she isn’t playing because she really doesn’t like girl toys and wants something different. We as adults sometimes need to break out of the gender stereotypical ideals about play that we impose on our children. Girls can build with construction sets and drive cars, trucks, planes and trains just as much as boys can so see if she wants to play with those toys.

I realize of course that a lot of these suggestions do require some adult guidance but don’t fret it. It doesn’t need to take up a lot of your time nor does it need to cost a lot of money. Just like children sometimes need help with school work, sometimes children need to be shown how to play as well. Unlike school work 5 or 10 minutes is usually all that is needed to get the old play juices in a child’s brain flowing as they are naturally drawn to play. With our children being saturated with video games, computers, iPods and cell phones, they are only modeling what they see us adults constantly doing every day and think that is what they should be doing as well. It is important to remind ourselves and our children that it is important to play and that all those technological things, while being a lot of fun, are not really needed to keep ourselves entertained. We also need to develop lots of different play patterns so that we can become a well-rounded individual familiar with a lot of different things. I sincerely hope this is a better answer to your question about getting your 6 year old interested in playing. I also hope that you don’t forget to play as well. Even as an adult, we can benefit from good quality playtime.