Only the lonely

My daughter, Jennifer, is an only child. After her little brother arrives in 4 months, that'll change. Until then, she's been having a love-hate relationship with being an only child. She loves it because she doesn't have to share any of her toys (that is, unless a friend is over to play). She hates it because, well, let her common complaint sum up why: "There's nobody to play with."

For a long time, I've been working on how to fix that problem. I look for neighborhood children she can play with. I often take her to Playland, where she can spend a free hour playing with other children and creating crafts. I take her to the park, where she can play with other children, and I enrolled her into preschool. Part of the reason why I enrolled her into summer school is so she can keep up that social interaction among other children. (She LOVES her school.)

There is one other thing that can meet her social needs: A sleepover. Last night, Jennifer had her very first sleepover. My neighbor's daughter, who is 6, slept over after playing with Jennifer almost all day. The two of them are inseperable and she was delighted that her friend got to spend the night with us. (The child's dad was working all night, anyway.) They played games, watched movies, dressed up, played outside and colored pictures. I made a dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and peas, and afterwards we sat on the front porch, enjoying an ice cream bar as we watched the colorful sky during sunset. They both took a bubble bath together and we also watched the movie Inspector Gadget before bedtime. They shared my daughter's bed and ate cereal this moring as they watched Curious George cartoons. I didn't mind having an extra child to care for at all and my daughter LOVED how she had her very first sleepover.

But, still. All of these strategies to combat her loneliness can only happen so often. Of course, when she was younger, she was content to keep herself preoccupied -- and of course I encouraged this because I want her to be able to play independently, exercise her creativity and not always rely on someone else to create entertainment. Nowadays, though, now that she's older (going on 6), she wants more social interaction rather than independent play. I have no problem with this, but like I said, it's hard sometimes to figure out ways to meet that need. I LOVE going out, and I often have her going out with me to run errands or visit the library or just to take a walk. These activities, however, do not always gaurantee she will be in an environment suitable for interaction and play with other children. Also, I have DESPERATELY been trying to kickstart my inner child, just to play dolls with her or play games. It hasn't always been easy, though. I am, unfortunately, too "grown-up" to let my inner child free, even for 30 minutes of playtime. And I'm in no physical condition to play jumprope or a game of tag.

Because she has a sibling on the way, some people have remarked that her loneliness will soon be cured and she'll finally have another child to play with. I am not so sure that is the proper remedy. For one thing, he'll be a BABY for a while, making it pretty hard for her to have someone to play Checkers with or ride bikes with. For another, he WILL be her little brother, and not all little girls get along very well with their little brothers. (You know how they are when they're young. They fight like cats and dogs. That's how it was with me and MY little brother.) So, it will still be some time before her sibling can act as "someone to play with."

I suppose the best thing I can do is to just keep up what I've been doing. Sometimes it's not easy. I grew up in a large family, so I'm not exactly versed on ways to help an only child cope with loneliness. But it's not like I don't play with her at all; sometimes, we find a fun activity we both enjoy. And we'll also do things together like bake cookies or read books together. The main thing is to keep her life happy and fun, because that's what being a little kid should be all about!