Four Year Olds and Attention Span

i think she wants more of you because you are her momma and she loves you and with daycare and all she doesn't get to see much of you.
she sounds like a social little girl that needs to be gently taught how to be alone. give her lots of praise when she does the right thing.
if you are playing toy kitchen with her will she make you cakes and pies for more than 4 mins or does she run off to her swingset and leave you sitting there cooking all alone?

do you ever do puzzles together that is a task that you have to stick with to accomplish?
Kids usually love playdough too and will do that for a long time.

A.,

I have an only child as well. When my son was about this age, I started a routine of 'quiet playtime' to ensure I got a break during the day.

I started slow and there are a couple components to this which made it work.
FIRST, I ensured I had a time of complete, undivided attention with my son immediately before the quiet playtime. This was often in the form of either a 'snack storytime' (he eats a snack, and I read to him) or playing with him for at least 15-20 minutes.

Then, I started using a timer and explained that he might play in his own room until the timer went ding. I started at about 15 minutes or so and worked up from there. It's important that they trust the timer *will* ding, which is why I started small and worked up very quickly. At four, a 40 minute quiet time is reasonable; much more and they will have a harder time with it. I had to work up to that 40 minutes over about 2-3 weeks, if I remember correctly.

Always praise them for staying in their room. Much like bedtime, if they pop out, take them back to their room with little conversation. "This is quiet playtime, I'll see you when the timer goes ding/beep" and go back to your business.

Some pointers: for kids who need help entertaining themselves, limit media to no more than 2 hours a day total (for video games on leap pad AND tv combined). As a preschool teacher, I did notice that kids who had more media exposure typically spent more time not knowing what to do.

Help her beforehand-- before the quiet time, gather up some things she might like to do on her own. Beading activities, lacing cards, washable markers and paper on a clipboard... whatever you think she can handle on her own. Help her, though, to get an idea of *what* she wants to do before you leave her alone.

Also, schedule playdates whenever you can during the summer. Fours often want to be social, so ask the daycare who she plays well with at school and see if you can make some connections that way. As the mom of an 'only', it is WORK to keep my son fully busy in a social way, but that was the choice I made in having just one.

Remember, too, that at daycare she has adults who are accessible to her most of the time and with other media, she more or less hasn't HAD to entertain herself. So do give her 10 minute chunks of "I need you to keep busy while I'm doing X" a couple times a day, and anytime there's something she can help with, include her, even if it's just moving the clothes from the washer to the dryer-- my son loves to do that with me. :)

Well, according to babycenter.com, she's normal - http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-4-1-2-year-old-a-growing...

It's only about 5-10 minutes.

She sounds very normal.

Of course she vies for your attention! She's in daycare all day and misses her mama! My kids are *with* me all day and STILL want my attention! haha It's not about the activity - it's about time with YOU.

The BEST way for her to stay with one activity for long than 10 minutes is to ENGAGE with her. Read *together*, colour *together*, play outside *together*. I'm certainly not one of those moms that can play pretend at all, but we can all sit down together at the table with crayons and colouring books/pages and chat and colour for almost an hour. Then we clean up and they're good to flit from toy to toy while I get some stuff done for a while. It works out well.

I really encourage you to spend time playing with her. There are so many things you can do that don't involve that "pretend / role playing" that some moms just don't like (me included). Do puzzles, colour, make crafts, bake or cook, go for nature walks (print out a scavenger hunt list beforehand and see how many items you can find), go to a park, have a water gun/balloon fight, set up an obstacle course in the back yard, teach her some of the games YOU used to play as a child.

Being an only child has nothing to do with it. Most only children are used to playing alone, unless they've been exposed to a daycare center. What happens is that they get used to playing with other kids, daycare center routines, and daycare centers keep them busy when they're not playing. (They have nap time, coloring time, listening to a story being read, etc.) Daycares are a possitive thing, but the disadvantage is not being used to things at a quieter/slower pace. There are 2 things you need to do. One is involve your daughter in what you are doing or do things together. You can remove all the knick knacks from the tables/shelves and let her help you dust... Let her help you vaccum with a child's vaccum...Bake cookies together...Let her shuck the corn for supper...Let her set the table...Play on the swings together...Play a game together....Have her color a picture to decorate the fridge...etc. The other thing is you need to find something she is really interested in. She might not be interested in her toys, because there is no creativity or challenge in them. Maybe she would be interested in learning the piano, dancing, martial arts, painting, drawing, etc. You just need to find her passion.

My 4 year old - something fun or messy 10 minutes. Something normal 5 minutes.

All kids are different. Some will focus for a long time on things, some won't. Discipline can achieve being still for church and piano lessons and times when kids can't move all around and be loud. But it's normal for her to flit around to all different things and to want your attention a lot because it's much easier to be engage WITH someone than to figure out what to do on your own. But you don't HAVE to keep her entertained every minute either, because she will figure out what to do with herself. Sometimes you can just assert that you need to get something done and need to be left alone for a bit. I never got in the habit of having lots of toys and activities everywhere we went because I wanted the kids to learn how to be patient and deal with being bored at times and they've always been fine. Now we regularly wait with other kids during a class, and all the other kids bring tons of toys and video games and stuff and I feel bad because my kids want to play everyone else's stuff just because they see it....so I guess I have to start carting all kinds of stuff in too to be fair..Your daughter is fine. Play when you can, leave her be when you can't. She'll entertain herself if she has to and it does improve with age.

Look up the developmental age stages of a child. For EACH, age. Their cognitive and physical development.
She is 4.
They are very active.
4 year olds, are not all self-reliant and independent and self-directed.
They don't even have full development of impulses or attention or communication nor social skills nor deductive or inductive reasoning.
She is 4.