14 | How to Teach Your Kids to Play Independently: Practical Strategies for Peaceful Motherhood

Hi Friends, welcome back to Intentional Motherhood. I'm your host, Kelsey Redd, a mental health counselor turned stay at home mom. And today we're diving into a topic that can truly transform your home and your child's emotional growth and your own mental load. If you remember from the last episode, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's my number one parenting tool that is so critical to teach your kids for your own sanity and for their social and emotional development.

Today, we're talking about how to teach your kids to play independently. Because I know if you listened to the last episode, you were thinking, Kelsey, everything you're you're saying sounds great. I would love to just be able to lay on the couch while my kids play independently, happily with no conflict with their siblings for the next half hour, but that will never happen in my house. They can't play alone for more than thirty seconds before calling for my help or fighting. I know.

I get it. This is so common and so normal. And it's not a sign that your child is broken or that you're failing or that you've done anything wrong. Independent play is a skill. It's just like any other skill we have to teach our kids.

And it's something that they're going to have to be taught. They're going to practice and fail and practice and fail, but it is a skill that will get strengthened over time. So as a little reminder, let's talk again about why independent play is even worth all the effort. Independent play helps our children develop emotional regulation skills by allowing them to process their emotions and their experiences in a safe, creative, imaginatory way. It also gives them opportunities for problem solving and coming up with creative solutions without your help.

It builds empathy by allowing kids to take perspectives within a role play situation that they've created and understand how everyone in the little story feels. It also allows kids to be more confident in their ability to be independent, as well as to have a better focus on concentration because they're not just constantly being stimulated and entertained and stimulated and entertained. They might actually grow to have a little bit more of a sense of peace in solitude. And it will normalize boredom and the opportunity to sit in stillness sometimes. One of my children will often go to his room for a little bit of alone time, and eventually we'll find that he has fallen asleep with his Lego creation in his arms or with his head down on a book that he was reading.

And I am so glad that he has the opportunity to listen to his body, to recognize when he needs some stillness and rest, and to actually have that moment of rest because he's not being shuffled around from activity to activity. On the other hand, my four year old daughter loves to be by herself. She had a lot of time to be by herself when her older siblings were in kindergarten every day for the last school year. And she would be in her room and you would just hear the little whisperings, this little whispering gibberish. It was so cute.

And I would go in and I would peek and if she saw me, you know what she would say? She'd say, Mom, go away. And I'd be like, Okay, okay, okay, I'll go away. And I loved seeing how she was learning to be a little mom. She was role playing the mom.

She was role playing the teacher. She was role playing the teenage sister, sometimes was her favorite role play. But she was learning so much from this creative, imaginatory role playing. So let's talk for a about the myth of constant entertainment. Unfortunately, in today's culture, there's this pressure that we have to keep our kids constantly entertained, but they don't actually need that.

What they need is more space to explore their own interests and creativity. And sometimes this means letting them be a little bit bored, which is honestly where the best play usually begins. So let's get to the practical side. How do we do this? How do we get our kids to play on their own without bugging us for more than thirty seconds?

This is a skill that has to be built up slowly. So let's start small. Number one, start small. Don't expect that your child is suddenly gonna play independently for thirty minutes if they're not used to it. You might wanna start with manageable blocks of like five to ten minutes, where you can just set a few toys or activities in front of them and let them know that you'll be nearby, but you're not going to be directly involved.

I often say, you know what? I need to go do work. This is when I work is when my kids are independently playing usually. Or I need to rest for a minute, or I just need to get these dishes done, so you need to play by yourself. And when they can do that for five minutes, make sure you praise the effort, right?

Good job, you played by yourself for five whole minutes. And over time, you can slowly extend that. Another tip that I like is to set out small curated collections of toys or even craft materials that encourages them to play independently. Maybe one day you say, Hey, let's get out the Play Doh and I'm gonna set it all on the table. And you get to sit here at the table and play by yourself for the next ten minutes.

And when you switch it out, it keeps that novelty, you know, factor. It keeps it fresh and interesting without necessarily overstimulating them. Although I will say that as your kids get better at this, you don't even have to do this. You can just say, You guys gotta go find something to do because I gotta put the baby to sleep. And they know they have some options and they'll figure it out on their own.

My number three tip for you is to be present, but don't be involved. Especially at the beginning, it might help to be in the room, but giving them a little bit of space. Maybe you're reading a book, maybe you're folding laundry or doing dishes, but they can see you, your presence is comforting to them, but you've communicated to them that you're not actually going to be directing the play. Again, this is something that will change as they get better at it, where you might be able to say like I do, I have to go put the baby to sleep in my room with the door closed, and I need you to not bug me because the baby's got asleep. And so they have to learn to do that even without you being present.

My next tip is to model your own independent play. I'm using quotes here. This is when our children are actually watching how we spend our quiet moments. Do they constantly see us grabbing our phone or complaining about boredom or watching TV? Or do they see us modeling contentment and mindfulness just sitting quietly, resting, reading, journaling, praying, doing something for ourselves?

When they see that they learn that this stillness and solitude isn't a scary thing, but it's something that we can value and enjoy. It's a peaceful time. And my last tip is just to normalize boredom. Again, I think at some point boredom became a scary word like, Oh no, you're bored. Why is that something we need to fear?

Actually, boredom is often the entry point to true creative play. And if we rescue our kids from every moment of boredom with screens or constant entertainment, we rob them of the chance to develop imagination. So it's okay if your child feels bored at they will. And that's a great thing for them to feel because they will learn to work through that discomfort and actually discover something to engage with. So I want to remind you that this is a process.

This is a learning process. This is a skills teaching process. It might take weeks or months for you to get up to fifteen or twenty minutes of independent play, and they might need a little bit more coaching on how to do it, and a little bit more presence from you at the beginning, and that's okay. Stay patient, be consistent with it, and celebrate the little wins. Because remember, independent play is not only an amazing tool for children to learn really important social and emotional skills.

It's also something that you need to be able to rejuvenate yourself throughout the day in your mothering. It allows you time to reset, time to care for yourself so that you can mother in a more intentional and present and joyful way when you are re engaging. Let's teach and model to our kids that we will engage in self care, that we value stillness and solitude, and that being bored and alone with our thoughts is not something to be feared. If this episode encouraged you at all or gave you some new ideas, I'd love for you to share it with another mom who might be feeling overwhelmed. If you want more practical tips, scripts, and real life stories, please make sure to subscribe to the podcast and follow me on Instagram.

I would love to connect with you. Thank you for being here and I will see you next time on Intentional Motherhood.