Dana Obleman: Dana: Hi, I’m Dana. This week’s video question comes from Colleen. She’s wondering, “How can I encourage my two-year-old to play independently? All she does all day long is follow me around like a shadow.”

I love this question, Colleen, because I think independent play is getting less and less common. There are a few reasons around that. It really is a bit of pet peeve of mine because I think our children, their attention spans are becoming so short that it’s really hard for children to think of creative ways to amuse themselves.

By starting at two with your daughter, this is a really good step in encouraging her to find ways to amuse herself that don’t involve you or electronics, which are a really big problem for older children. A soon as you turn off electronics, children look at each other like, “Oh my gosh, what should we do? I have no idea.”

I love that you’re thinking of ways now to encourage this behavior. The first thing you need to do is be really realistic about your expectations around this.

You have to remember toddlers have very short attention spans. That’s normal and natural.

You can’t expect her to play quietly by herself for hours on end. I would say a good rule of thumb around timing would be anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes of independent play is actually really quite good for a toddler.

Keep a check on your expectations there. Now one of the things that I find really helpful is to first engage with the toddler in something.

It’s very difficult for a two-year-old to look around the room and think of something fun to do, and then go and initiate that. She needs a little guidance.

Set her up with something. Sit down on the floor, get some blocks out, play with her for a few minutes, get her engaged in the activity, and then quietly make your exit. Scooch away a little bit. Then sneak out of the room and try to get a few things done.

You may find that that’s a lot easier than expecting her to come up with this on her own. If she’s really enjoying herself, she might not even notice that you’ve left until a few minutes later.

With older children, I would say anywhere around two and a half and up, you can use a timer. I love a timer. I think it’s an awesome parenting tool.

It can really help with all kinds of things. But certainly, independent play is awesome place to use a timer.

I would, again, engage the child in something, looking at books, coloring, playing with blocks, whatever it is that you think that they would find enjoyable, and then set a timer for 10 minutes. Tell your toddler that when the timer rings, he can come find you or she can get up and move on to a new activity.

If you reinforce this and make it a rule, you’ll find that you can slowly start increasing the time as they get older, so that you can work up to 15, 20 minutes, maybe even 30 as they get a little older. But you have to really reinforce it.

Nothing is a rule unless it’s the rule. If she comes to find you before the timer goes off, you need to take her back, engage her in the activity, and tell her she has to wait until she hears the bell.

This might mean that you have to do this five, 10, 20 times to encourage the behavior. But the more you do it, and the more practice she has with it, the better she will get.

You might have to start with a minute or two. That might be where you start and work your way up.

It really is such a good thing to teach a child. I want to encourage you to work hard on this so that she really does get to a place where she understands that she can play on her own and she can amuse herself. She does not need constant attention from you. She doesn’t need constant stimulus from the environment, that she can do this herself.

Thanks so much for that question. Sleep well.