Do You Hate Playing a Certain Game with Your Kids? I Hate Barbies!

Im with you I hate barbies and babies. I dont like the fact that I can't play the way I want to without them telling M. what to say. with kids i would rather do board games, catch, video games anything besides barbies and babies. Thank goodness my son will play barbies and babies with her (for the time being, i'll be so sad when he is too big to play with girly toys) I do feel bad about it but when its repetitive and she is telling M. what to do say she might as well be playing by herself. Im horrible I know but I make up for it with stories and snuggles.

You sound J. like M.! I HATE Barbies, dolls, most imaginative play. I don't think I did this at all when I was a kid, even. My daughter, now 9, has learned not to ask M. very often. I'm the parent who will go for bike rides, playground play, scootering, ice skating, reading, puzzles, and other things, J. don't ask M. to play Barbies.

She used to whine, but now she plays differently with her dolls and stuffed animals. She is usually designing and making clothes for them from clothing/material scraps, or setting up tea parties. It's interesting that when she has a friend over, they don't play with Barbies or other dolls, either.

My kids want to play rough. They run at full speed into M.. I hate it. They want to tickle M.. I hate it. They want to climb all over my head. I hate it. They want to jump up out of the shadows and scare M.. I hate it. That's what dad and big brother are for.
They also want my help to play computer games. They cant quit read yet so they get stuck and need my help alot. It annoys M. to stop what I'm doing and come play computer games with them.

I am no fun at all. I am J. for hugging, learning, watching movies, making food, going places, and kissing booboos.

I'm like you...I like doing board games, or helping DD with a puzzle, but sometimes that open-ended imaginative pretend play is not something I can get into. I feel bad, but DD doesn't get much into it either actually, so I guess we're a good fit in that regard. DD has a playmate with a huge imagination who is constantly hosting elaborate tea parties and birthday parties for her dolls and stuffed toys and her parents usually play along, but I'm not a fan. I think it's great when they can play that way independently but I don't need to be sucked into it too. Sometimes this other little girl tries to get DD to go along with her "scripts" but then it turns into her casting roles that allows her to boss DD around, and then DD gets fed up with it.

However, whenever DD is in the bathtub, she'll be playing with her tubby toys and always wants M. to J. sit with her and watch her play - and that's J. the most boring thing in the world. She doesn't want M. to really participate - J. sit and watch. I tell her no, I got things to do, and she can play while I stay close by (usually I'm cleaning up the bedrooms or on the computer and can hear everything that's going on). The way I figure it, I'm her parent, not her playmate - I will do some things with her for short periods, but then I have work to do, and it's her job to entertain herself.

I feel your pain though - my daughter is 4 and wants a baby sibling too, because I think she thinks that means she will have someone else to play with all the time. She's happier when she goes to school and other activities when there's other kids to play with - she's J. uber-sociable. But I think it's okay to expect them to play on their own and not depend on you for their entertainment. They might whine about it, but that doesn't mean you have to cater to their every whim.

Setting up the army guys and tanks and bunkers and fences........but I do it. On occasion.

Any game/toy CAN be imaginative, I think. It depends on how you play.

I won't play loud games with them. They have this one where balls pop all over this dome and you have to collect your color. I won't even let them play it around M., it feels like the balls are popping around in my head!

I don't play barbies either and try my best to keep people from giving her barbies. Maybe it is a tomboy thing. Then again my girls are tomboys too so they aren't much into barbies. :)

I teach my kids creative things like art to feed their imagination. I think that is why I hate barbies so much, they aren't using their imagination they are role playing TV shows they see.

No they don't whine, they don't like crabby mom so they J. make M. happy. It is only one toy that I hate, ya know?

Our daughter never whined, but she did seem hurt when she heard others say they J. did not like Barbies. I guess because she was really into them. Not many of her friends played with them, but they did dress them all crazy and also pose them with our daughter some of the time.

She had a ton of them. She did not play with them so much as design fashion shows. She mixed and matched, she posed them in crazy ways.. On book shelves, the front porch on her head board on the back of the sofa..

She designed clothes out of scraps of fabric, painted paper, cardboard. Then she took photos of them.. At the time we had the photos developed and placed in photo albums. Now they could use a digital camera and then turn them into videos etc..

I liked to encourage our daughter to follow her interest and who she is. She actually had a photo published (not of Barbies, hee, hee)on the cover of a City of Austin report when she was in Middle school.

She is now in college and a dble major. One of them is studio Art.. so it is fun to go back and look at her childhood work.. it includes her photography of her Barbies.. Pretty funny and some are very clever.

It is give and take. We have our kids do things they do not like, we can honor them by doing the same every once in a while.

I played with my kids when they were little. I stopped playing when they turn around 3 and can play independently and now they have each other to play with. I hate playing most kids games. I enjoy board games, so when they are old enough for that I will join them. But I don't like pretend play. I do enjoy setting up trains and building with blocks sometimes, but being a single Mom I mostly J. do not have the time. Do I feel guilty? Yes. But I have accepted this is the way it will be for now. My oldest is a girl and my interests are geared more toward my youngest a boy. So yes, I don't play the games and things I don't like now that they are getting older. I did however do it when they were toddlers.

I don't play most stuff for long. No, they don't whine, they're used to it. We have lots of stuff we do together, homeschool lessons, music lesson practice, errands, park, tons of books, wrestling (I like wrestling and rough housing a bit to get dome exercise), singing, memorizing, etc but when it comes to their imagination games and barbies, etc, it's usually time for M. to go do the dishes or make dinner-or anything but barbies!!! :) I feel bad sometimes, but it's a major perk to having 3 kids-they do fine without M.! And yes, my son gets roped into barbies, fairies, and babies a LOT. Luckily when my oldest daughter was the only one old enough to "play", she didn't have barbies yet. Our friends gave them to her (thanks a lot friends) when her brother was old enough to be drafted. Plus I've always taught my daughter to play alone while I worked pt from home, so she can play alone fine if she has to. When I was her age, I LOVED playing barbies too. My mom would make clothes for them, but never play them :) Luckily I had a neighbor friend who would play barbies with M..

I love playing with my children. What I don't like is when my son gets all bent out of shape when I try to throw in some silly things to make it fun. He takes the fun out of it. Nothing worse than trying to have fun then your child kills it by yelling 'nnnnooooooooooo, not that way'. I like to engage him in imaginative pretend play and it seems like the more I get into it, the more fun he has. But actual toys, he is very rigid in play. My daughter is only one but I look forward to Barbies and getting her an Easy Bake Oven.