Originally Posted by daycarediva:
I absolutely struggle with it as well. No matter how hard I screen at interview. I find that the kids who DO play, play limited versions of TV shows. They also need a TON of attention when doing so. "LOOK AT ME. I AM _______!!"
I do a LOT of modeling play. A LOT. Then I step back, watch how it goes and intervene when they start to leave to get them reinterested. I have had moderate success with a few of my kids. The rest, even after months and months----nothing.
Same as this. When they tell me look at me I never look. If they want to show me something they have to say, "May I please show you something?" and then I will look. If they say, "I built a tower!!!" I will say, "You built a tower!" if they don't say anything and just show me a car they are playing with (this, strangely, happens so often) I will say, "A car!" My kids are all 2.5-almost 5 here right now.
I do take a bigger step back after I see that they CAN play and are just choosing not to. I also try to rotate toys frequently to keep their interest. We never do TV here.