As a child, how did you play?

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I paced in circles by myself around a shed while daydreaming every day at recess. Then I came home and did the same thing, around a car this time.

I read more than I played, but my mom said I loved those little sensory playpen thingies as a baby, and I remember acting out stories with stuffed animals which generally ended in misery for some reason. Also, my friend and I used to strip forsythia branches, pretend they were broomsticks, and play Quidditch.

Between my sisters and I we had a lot of toys but I never really played with them. My younger sister loved to play with dolls and polly pockets so I would spends hours dressing them up and making different outfits then stop playing as soon as she wanted to start playing with them and pretending to talk for them. I could never pretend to make dolls or stuffed animals talk but I loved to play "pretend" but it was always pretending to be in school. I mostly watched a lot of tv, but not kid shows, my favorite show from 3-9 was The Price is Right, then i watched mostly cooking shows and home decorating. If my mom made me go outside I spent time collecting rocks and looking for beetles.

I grew up pre IDEA in the 50s. On non-school days our parents would turn us out after breakfast and tell us to be home when the street lights came on.

I climbed trees and played in the "Jordan River" that ran through Indiana University campus. I played baseball under the tutelage of a man who was sentenced to tuning pianos because he was blind.

I tried to play with girls. They supposedly played Barbies. I had my Barbie (scary things in the 1950s) beautifully outfitted b/c my other was a talented seamstress, but somehow there seemed to be more going on than just Barbies and I never figured it out.

I live a sensory rich childhood with social consequences that guided me to becoming an independent adult.

I feel so sorry for these IDEA disabled autistics who will struggle to amount to anything but depressed adults.

I read in the official papers I got after my diagnosis that my parents had said I used to play "normal" things with my siblings (things that involved imagination and role playing etc) but that I also spent a lot of time by myself. I liked Lego a lot and I also really liked sorting things. It wasn't unusual for me to could spend the whole day just sorting my ice-hockey cards over and over again or lining up pieces of Lego.

I played with other kids just fine when it was tag, ball games or just running wild in the neighbourhood.
I read a lot of books, so I'd sometimes (kind of rudely) start reading during a playdate. Imaginary games were slightly more restricted, I'd play out the same sort of story with plushies, toys or even marbles (who I gave personalities), and didn't like it when others would mess that up.

I didn't have any close friends as a kid so most of my play was alone, when I did 'play' with others I usually just observed. I do remember sitting for hours in my room taking apart my brothers VCR player and other electronics and putting them back together (they still worked after). I spent a lot of time in the woods exploring and I often had fires there because I have sort of an obsession with fire. I spent most of my time 'pretending' by myself. I would act like my favorite characters from shows. One thing my family always thought was really odd was that I used to sit with my eyes closed for maybe hours at a time listening to classical music and imagining stories and what-not to go along with it. I've done that since I can remember and I still do sometimes.

I took things apart to see how they worked, - and I didn´t put them together again! Whithout interest! Had seen, what I wanted. It was actually a problem. My parents had to hide fine toys from me.

Later I played stone age, primitive kitchen, kept snails and worms everywhere, undressed and dressed my dolls and sat them in a row.
If a comrade wanted one of my dolls, I gave it to her, and my parents collected my dolls and things round about. I think, my stuffed teddy dog meant most.
I spent a lot of time out in the fields and in the moor.

Besides, I drew, played the piano and read a lot - and had one friend at a time. Especially one with whom I played very dramatic and rather poetic plays in the style of H.C.Andersen. If there had been theatre classes for children, we would have been there.

"Cowboys and indians" wasn´t exactly my lane and sports was completely out of the question.

I mostly played alone.
With my stuffed animals at first, then I played with action figures, He-Man and then Ninja Turtles. I also had an electric train that I would play with very often by myself.
Then I also played video games, alone again. Sega Master System, Original Game Boy, then the Sega Genesis, and then I got my first computer and spend a lot of time on that.
I also read a lot and watched a lot of movies, even at a very young age.
I would also create in my own head my own scifi world and pretend I was the captain of my own spaceship and would built my own s**t in my room using tin foil, my video game controllers has the control panel.
And of course I would play a lot with Legos, could spend hours playing with them. And still own a couple today.

As a child, I played by myself.

I liked playing sports; it was a way not to have to talk to people. I wasn't very good at sports--but I enjoyed the challenged, nevertheless. I had quite a will to win, which caused many tantrums.

I liked hanging out with my "best friend" alone, rather than with other kids.

When I was home alone, I used to pretend to do "normal" things. I used to play house with girls, whenever they came over.

But, when I was 12, I enjoyed pretending to be unconscious. Also, at that time, I tried to make up a new language, and play American football with pennies. But I used to spend quite a bit of time pretending to be unconscious.

I didn't, even if I ever did play with anyone or other children, it was with plants.

I liked them better as toys, along with bugs.

My stacking and organization pushed boundaries. There were big, complicated patterns, difficult feats of balancing, or I tried to reach the ceilings. I never really endangered anyone, took their things, or created disturbances but was yelled at, even by the 'nice' teachers. They were allowed to use big, unusual words. I was criticized for it.

A library was within walking distance, at the top of the block, but there were only a limited number of non-fiction books, in the children's section. I wanted to know the names of things, and how they worked, particularly the plants and animals, which seemed more intricate, colorful, and complicated than anything in the Popular Mechanics books, at home. The librarians wanted me to read simpler stories, which I thought were for infants. I was allowed look in books, from the adult section, but not to check them out.

I tried to solve religious questions by testing them, so dabbled in spiritism, probably, at an unusually young age -- more along the lines of Tesla or Edison than Marilyn Manson -- but equally annoying to the atheist and Christian parent.

I was usually treated as though I was trying to be a little too clever with adults, or precocious. I was not especially trusted, yet could never be caught doing anything particularly wrong. My hearing seemed abnormal, I was lipreading, watching people's faces, when they talked. This seemed intense and made them feel uncomfortable. I had a visual memory of what was being said, and, on repeating it, was treated as though it was a trick, like I was trying to hold them to something.

I played imaginative with toys with my brothers, I was the oldest so I could pretty much set up the scenarios and what not. I'd play with others but I always was the one leading it or I'd just go off on my own, I was kind of in my own little world. I liked animals and exploring nature a lot, I'm grateful whenever I was able to spend time out of the urban city where I lived.

If I played with other kids, things had to be done my way, under my control. I do not recall having any concept of other kids as having feelings and stuff. I remember when I was at kindergarten, playing in the playhouse, I did not like any of the other kids coming into it. I did not seem to really know how to do imaginative play with other kids. They would go through these phases with different toys, and I would copy and go buy loads of the same and think that was enough and would try and barge in, but of course, I was always kept outside the groups.

When alone, I liked to sometimes dance in a circle to a favourite song and I would pretend there were other children there, all in a circle, dancing too. I lined up my soft toys and would talk to them. I loved lego hospital and scalectrix. I tended to collect things a lot, i am afraid I did have barbies and cindy dolls.