As a child, how did you play?

Post Reply New Topic

when i was younger, i found i played a lot like an NT child, some of my favorite toys were the very very tiny ones, ( i actually still have a shoe box full of small toys) and i would make houses, cities and fairs for the toys, because i thought they deserved a place to live, i would also make houses for my other toys too, like my gameboy or a Rubber halloween mummy i had, that i named, Mummy Dude (he was my obsession before Sonic) and i made the houses Elevators and motorized cars.

but i also had, well play that was considered not NT... i used to bang my head on walls for fun, I'd rehearse movies like Lilo and Stitch or Lady and The Tramp 2 constantly. i would also stack and line up toys for fun to calm me, id also watch bugs for hours on end and throw toys out my window tied to string (which my mom didn't like). when i was a toddler i used to make piles of clothes outside my room, roll down hills constantly, hide under laundry baskets a LOT, i dont think these are specifically ASD play patterns, but i know none of my peers liked to do this, it was unique to me.

i remember one thing specific, is i would organize my cousins play room at the age of 7, it was always messy, so id organize it by putting toys with certain colours in certain bins, linning up trucks, evening out the rug, alphabetizing books and i had a LOT of fun doing so.

what are some things you did as a child that you enjoyed?

I played in the snow and imagined I was playing with space ships and bases. I don't really know how to explain it, like the snow in my hand was a space ship and the base was the snow on the ground, which I raised up a bit.

I used to play pretend with my mom as well, make pillow forts, play with stuffed animals and with toys.

I don't remember much, but, for the most part, my play was very similar to NT children.

I played a lot with Lego and I also built forts out of basically anything I could find. Probably my favorite thing, though, was to hop on my bike and just roam the back roads of my town.

I don't think my play differed from an NT child except that I mostly preferred to play alone and if I did play with others I would pretty much have to be in charge.

I liked to play a lot with plastic food toys. I didn't have an Easy Bake oven or anything like that but I liked to pretend to put icing on plastic cakes even though the icing was already there. I also liked puzzles with puppies and flower prints. I don't remember coloring too much. I liked to take my mom's clothing and dress up, not necessarily to role play but just to mix and match.

I don't remember being a very active child. I didn't like being outside, had too many allergies, etc.

I liked playing with stuffed animals a lot and little figurines. I would often pretend they lived on TV and re-enact plots I saw on television. I would also make the whole living room a movie theater with all of my plush toys watching movies, and sometimes I pretended they had concerts.

I also recall just playing with objects in general. For example, I used to stack VHS tapes and other things, even though I never really played with blocks.

I am "old school". I played with lincoln logs and errector sets. I also remember having a Fort Apache. I was very content to play by myself and I was very good athletically. I loved playing baseball, softball, and basketball. I also remember that my friend and I would climb out on his roof at night and listen to St Louis Cardinals' baseball games (even though I lived in Virginia)

i mostly read. there were also games of tag, red rover, freeze tag, and hide and seek. board games and rummy with mom.

I was pretty young when I started rolling out D&D characters with my brother. Otherwise I liked to read or play sports. Didn't do much else outside and wasn't very social with people outside of my circle unless we were playing football, rugby or basketball. I've never been very coordinated but I understand sports very well, so my coaches had me play defensive end, middle linebacker, strong safety, fullback, and tight end. On the basketball team I was a power forward and center.

Football was awesome, probably the only reason most anyone at high school had for liking me, even though people on the team were dicks to me. But when I found less team oriented sports like judo, boxing, and wrestling in high school I was done dealing with all of the pricks on the football team. Wrestling is of course still a team sport but nothing like football or basketball and when it came down to it, whatever the team's points were I still went onto the mat by myself and whatever I accomplished then wasn't dependent on anyone else.

After my first year in high school I was done with wrestling for sport altogether and I just focused on judo and freestyle wrestling because they are art forms, not sports. I would highly recommend martial arts to anyone, it will open up your mind in all kinds of new ways and teach you a whole new level of self discipline. Also it's awesome that I'm getting towards fifty now and I still have little in the way of sore muscles and joints, the martial arts and morning stretches (some yoga stretches and stretches I've learned in jiu jitsu) keep me feeling good and vigorous every time I wake up.

Just an amusing anecdote the first time I played football. My team gave me the ball to run with. I saw that all the people on the other team were running towards me and trying to stop me so I turned and ran the other way.

I have fond memories of playing as a child. Sometimes I think about playing again- now I can buy what toys I want

I could easily sit and hold my baby dolls/stuffed animals for hours, just petting them and holding them. I didn't enjoy the full imaginary play, just giving something love was enough. I would sit and rock them. They also had to be put up very specific ways- these were my trusted companions and were to be respected. So each was wrapped in a blanket and in clean clothes to stay comfy and not lonely till I could play with them again. They each had turns- so none was left out.

I also enjoyed watching ants or other insects. I still enjoy this very much- any wildlife really, but I love birds and insects the most.

Barbie dolls were for staging a scenario, but not for playing the scenario. I would dress them, brush their hair and then place them in my made-up dollhouses (dining room chairs, boxes, dressers and the like).

I read as my obsession until I was told to quit reading so much by a teacher. So I quit reading for a few years. Obstinant little spit, I was. I would start a book and not physically be able to stop until I finished it. This is the same now, as an adult.

I loved playing with lego's too- I would build four intersecting walls and then tear them down. I never built anything else.

Playing with other children was ok, but I much much preferred to be on my own.

My mom said I would take things apart and put them back together exactly how they were a lot. I liked to mess with things, taking them apart and seeing how they worked. I also liked to do origami a lot, I got really good at it as a little kid. I don't do it nearly as much anymore, but I still have a lot of the instructions memorized, even for some of the more advanced ones. I can make some pretty complex stuff, like a realistic-looking rose or an extremely detailed dragon (it even has eyes and horns )

Other than that, I played video games, or sometimes pretended I was a character from a show I liked and imagine being them in my mind. I specifically remember on multiple occasions pretending to be Pikachu when I was supposed to be napping I did sometimes play with other kids, but I always felt like I was just going along with their way of playing rather than actively participating.

I played with toys how any typical child would play. I made everything interact, even my set of safari animals. I pictured some other kids making them fight, but I put them all into families and made the cubs go to school and stuff.
Also I did the same with the little people in my dolls house. And with my Barbies. I would pretend the Barbies were High School students into fashion and hairstyles and boys, and one of them would go out with Ken and her best friend got jealous. I don't know how I knew about all that, because my brother wasn't in High School back then.

I remember when I was 4 I had a toy ironing-board, and I watched my mum iron and copied her with mine. That's a great way for a child to learn general skills. And I remember I had a toy tea set, and I would set all my teddies up and make a teddy bear's tea party. Then I got my plastic toy bath and put the teddies there for a ''wash'' afterwards, one by one.

And with imaginary games, I had a very big imagination. I went on all sorts of adventures using my imagination. I could also share my imagination with other kids, and we played for hours and made up different games.

So yeah, I played quite typically as a child.

I read lots of books. Like YarnMonster I couldn't stop until I finished them or they were confiscated, whichever came first. I can remember reading some really age-inappropriate stuff like 'The Joy of Sex' when I was quite young. I couldn't help it - someone left it lying around and I couldn't not read a book if I saw one.

Mum sent me to play with the neighbour's children a few times but they sent me back complaining I wouldn't play. Apparently, I 'made' the boy next door spin around in circles until he fell over and hit his head on something. It wasn't my fault he was so bad at spinning around. I didn't ask him to copy me.

It goes without saying that I spun around In circles a LOT.

I clapped my hands constantly, making up little rhythms.

I made up my own secret codes which I then deciphered, giving myself scores on speed and accuracy. I made treasure maps which I aged in various ways to look more authentic.

I played with dolls. I was fascinated by how their joints moved. My Barbie had earrings and if you took them out she had holes in her head. I would squeeze her head and feel the air come out against my skin. I would submerge her in the sink and fill her head up with water, then squirt it out and repeat endlessly.

I also built things like tree houses and cubby houses, jumped on the trampoline, rode my bike around, hammered nails into every spare piece of wood I could find, made parachutes for my dolls, made a swinging tyre, chopped wood into tiny splinters, played with fire, played with my pets etc, etc.

All completely normal stuff

A lot of my playing was nothing too atypical. Except I did walk and walk and walk a lot almost always by myself- sometimes through forest and sometimes around my little hometown in Pennsylvania mostly daydreaming that I was travelling the world. The little downtown of my small town of about 8000 people became Manhattan and the forest became the Rockies in my own little world.

I made houses in the woods for fairies and stocked them with hickory nuts so the fairies would have food when they moved in. I played space ship with a parted out car, it still had the frame, seats, and lever for the parking brake so it was an ideal spaceship for me. (or F16 jet for my brother.) I use to love the Wooden blocks at school. I built castles with them (some times I sat inside the castle walls) and I would create orchestras with My Little Ponies by lining them up and giving them makeshift instruments; a comb for a harp, a straw for a flute, baby doll cups for drums...

School is where things got interesting. I didn't often play with other kids because I didn't know how to join them. So I befriended a tree. I'd bring it water from the near by fountain and sit down under it. I once even bought an apple seed with me because who doesn't like babies? I even swaddled the seed in a leaf and stuck it in a knot hole so my tree could 'hold the baby.'.

Hmmmmm, maybe THAT'S why the school suggested I see a shrink...

I also liked to smash little pebbles between two large rocks looking for crystals after seeing a geode in a class room. And would try to create new trees by pulling seeds apart and putting them back together with different seeds and other ingredients. And would poke holes in the dirt and try to coax passing bugs to move in to their new home.