parenting

Ask open ended questions. “What do you think they’ll do next?”

It never hurts to fall back to the old improv trope of “yes anding” where anything your child does with the toys, you further by adding to it or reinforcing what they’re already doing.

If you have any memories of playing as a child, you can rely on that to help inform your current opportunity to play. When I was young, Hot Wheels tracks were multi-purpose. It’s a sword. Made into a circle, it’s a magic portal. Often as adults we don’t engage with our imagination in the same ways that we did so effortlessly when we were young. If you feel silly, you’re doing it right.

When my kids were around this age, I loved to give the toys unique voices. British accents. Low deep voices. Slow voices. Fast voices. Robot voices.

At 4, their building capabilities aren’t the greatest, but you can help in that arena by creating landscapes of blocks for their toys to navigate. Towers, bridges, streets, hills, pyramids, mountains.

If a toy/character can fly… guess who has the strength to pick up a four year old holding a “flying” toy to add the simulated sensation of flight to their imaginative play…

Let me reinforce that you don’t have to be good at this. You’re wanting to be there. You’ve reached out for help and you clearly want to give your child the best. That means you’re doing better than most. You are a great parent. Your talents and abilities will influence and provide for your kiddo’s wellbeing in a myriad of ways over their lifetime. You’ve got this.

my girl is almost 4 and loves play-doh and drawing. More often than not I can give her some crayons and paper/coloring book and she'll be fine playing by herself, and if she wants me to help she will direct me to specific pieces of the coloring book. "you do this, I do this". Makes it a lot easier to play when she's telling me exactly what to do.

Is there something specific distracting you/pulling you away? Are you looking at your phone or something?

Recreate the October revolution each time you must imagine a scenario

I don't have kids or know how to talk to kids or play with toys and whatnot but I would suggest trying to learn from what your kid does, like see what they enjoy doing with the toys and just do more of that

And don't feel like a terrible parent for not engaging your kid the right way. As long as you're being kind and you're paying attention to them you're a good parent. They'll remember having fun with you, not the specific shit you play

Not a parent either but I played with my younger siblings as a child so I remember what I did. You could try making a simple storyline with heroes and villains and act it out with your kid using the figures (if you don't remember how, tap into the kids' shows you liked as a child yourself). Just go ham acting the various characters (your kid will be one of the good guys probably), you might start enjoying it yourself

What kind of toys are we talking about here? We have a number of dress up "toys" that let the kids pretend to be doctors or construction workers or cashiers, and those are a lot of fun. They drive the play by being a doctor and you just pretend they're your doctor.

When in doubt just pretend to be Italian American and put on a funny long island accents. Works every time.