Playing Together

It's nice when the kids play nicely together.

It is not easy for a toddler and a pre-schooler to play together. Usually, Little Lady sees Little Man playing with something, and she wants in on the action. Either she helps herself to the item or items he is playing with, and he protests. Or she points at whatever he is playing with and clamours to have a go while he screams or goes 'No, Mei Mei (little sister)! No!'

Sometimes, all Little Lady has to do is look in his direction to prompt loud 'No!'s or squeals of protest.

We did not want Little Man to always give in to Little Lady simply because he's 'older and should know better'. We did not want him to resent her. We didn't want to give her an entitlement complex either.

So we taught him to to offer her something else to play with, and taught her to wait until he was done with whatever he was playing with.

Every once in a while, Little Lady would be playing with something that would catch Little Man's fancy. He would then proceed to snatch it from her, which would, of course, result in her crying. Fair's fair, so Little Man had to learn to wait his turn too.

Sometimes he would anticipate that she'll want in on the action, and so he would pass her something even before he was all set to play.

This time however, there was no negotiation involved. They both just played nicely with the same toy! Of course, it helps that this particular toy has enough bits and pieces to satisfy both.

Of course, they were engaged in parallel play, rather then cooperative play, as Little Lady is not developmentally ready for that yet. But it was still very nice to have them play quietly together.

It was nice of them to let me in on the action too! :)

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Little Man: 3 years 9 months
Little Lady: 20 months
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