My 4 year old plays too much 🥴

I love my child’s little personality and I definitely don’t wanna change him but…. He plays too much and it’s hard to get him to ever be serious. He’s ALWAYS been a silly child! But I feel that now that he’s growing older and in school(which have a low tolerance for being overly playful) I fear its going to hold him back. Even at home, we’ll be working on writing his letters and I’ll tell him write the letter A and he’ll write a B and then start laughing hysterically and before I would laugh and call him silly but now I don’t know how to approach it. He does it with EVERY THING I ask him to do. If I tell him put his cup in the sink m, he’ll put it in the garbage and then laugh. Or if I tell him to brush his hair he’ll take the brush and brush his teeth with it. He’s been drawing stick people for over a year now so I know he can do it but yesterday he bought home something he drew in school which was supposed to be a person but instead he drew something that looked like a cat, and on the paper work his teacher wrote, work on drawing people at home . How do I teach him there’s a time and place to be silly and a time to be serious without always correcting him snd/or changing him as a person because he’s just naturally silly .

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My son is the same, I also need advice 🫠

My son doesn’t necessarily act silly but he has been actively defying instructions. I found it helps getting him to get things done with friendly competition. So if I need him to get dressed, we will “race” against each other. Not sure if that would work in your situation?

You son sounds delightful. If there is a problem with his teacher or school, try a new one of those. He's 4! He has his whole life to be serious, right now he needs to be silly! 🤪

Do you discipline with timeout? If not you should start. My kid is 5 however he understands discipline and there’s time and a place for being silly and having fun. These are things you need to teach at a young age or they will continue to play in your face when you’re asking them to do things. When he doesn’t do something you know he understands. Just say hey, I understand you want to have fun but right now I need you to listen and do what I’m asking or we will have to start doing a timeout. Please do what I’m asking of you & we can play after. I find that my kids did the sort of behavior you’re experiencing when I don’t have much time to play with them often. So I found putting in routine activities for us to do together helps tone that down. So we do color times, we’ll do a small easy craft & play with play dough another time & the park. I try to do four small activities with them so they know that I love them, they’re not forgotten & I enjoy time with them. Hope it helps some 💜

Tell, teach, and remind over and over that there's a time to be silly and a time to be serious. Demonstrate serious time, then give him silly time. Time to draw a stick person! Okay, now what silly hat could the person wear? Let's practice your name! Next, let's do a goofy dance With my son, we talk about the implications of him being too silly - - people might think he doesn't understand and will keep teaching him something. Or he'll need to go to the doctor (or we will think he doesn't need it when he does)... Etc

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