This, like most of my posts here in r/parenting, is somewhere between a rant and a request for advice. My son is 4 years old. We have lived in our city for 3 years. He is very sweet and very bright, but also very demanding. It seems like he needs constant attention. We have some family friends and try to set up as many playdates as we can, and he's in a small daycare that he loves. But it seems like it's not enough -- anytime we're home with just him, no matter how recently he has been hanging out with other kids or out doing stuff, he asks constantly for someone to play with him. And I really mean constantly, sometimes as often as every 30 seconds. This morning he stopped in the middle of playing with me to go ask his mom to play with him. It seems like he can't stand knowing someone is in the room and not playing with him.This sounds trivial enough, but I feel worn down, in part by trying to figure out what we're doing wrong: one day I feel awful for ignoring him too much, the next day I feel like we're spoiling him, the next day I think we're way too controlling, etc. We moved a few months ago and instituted a 15-minute time every night where both of his parents play with him and he gets to pick the activity. (He also gets a lot of time with us one on one aside from that.) It helped with some of his acting out, but there's no real relief -- I feel like my free time is all devoted to playing with him or disciplining him because he got into some shit because no one was playing with him. Even more annoying is that he doesn't want to do things we suggest. He wants attention, but refuses to, say, come with me to get errands done. He has thrown stuff at me because he wanted me to stop making dinner and play with him. It's really frustrating. I've become resentful and disengaged, which is not how I want to be. My wife is more patient (at times maybe overindulgent) with it, and as a result he often chases her around the house (like if she leaves a room he goes after her, barges in on her in the bathroom, that kind of thing) and says he won't do anything with me because he doesn't love me.I'm at a loss as to what the real issue is here and what to do about it. My son loves people and being around his family, and we do our best to spend time with family and friends as much as we can. But still, he gets bored and starts breaking some rule or other or asking over and over for someone to play with him when we have down time. It has gotten to the point that weekends at home are miserable. It is so tempting to stick a tablet or iPhone in his face because that's one of the few things he'll do for long periods on his own, but I'm not comfortable with that.I tell people he's an extrovert, which I think is true, and he definitely seems to prefer having more people around. But this seems beyond just a personality type. Is it anxiety? Have we failed in helping him learn how to play on his own? Are we doing something else wrong? If so, what can we do to correct that now? Or is the problem us, not him? Or is this just what life is like when you live far from family and don't yet have a strong local community?Also: we're going to start trying for a second soon. But I feel conflicted: if he needs this much attention, is he going to go nuts when there's another kid in the mix? Or will it help him be less demanding? And if we are hopeful that he'll be less demanding with a sibling, are we doing the second a disservice by having it basically so the first will have someone besides us to play with?tl;dr: halp me think about things via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2DXSZZH
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