Hi all,

I've been reading this post here to get some perspective on my own child, but I'm still fishing for answers since our situation is different in nuanced ways.

My stepdaughter is almost 8. Ever since I've known her (about 2yo), she has had trouble playing by herself. Of course, at certain ages, this is completely normal, but around 4 or 5, it started to concern me quite a bit because she no longer asked us to play with her, but at the same time, she never seemed to learn how to play on her own. So a lot of times she would just wander about, sometimes clinging to us, sometimes commenting on how bored she is. It's almost for a lack of imagination, because if we tell her what to play, she'll often do it, but sometimes it's almost like she's being productive for the sake of being productive (like she'll make necklaces for us), but not really enjoy the process. We used to laugh, too, because in the past we would tell her to just "go play something!" and she would go to her room, and after a while we would realize that she got so bored she fell asleep.

However, if at least one child comes over for a playdate, forget about it. She'll tell us to go away because of how much fun she's having. She even leads the games fairly often, so it's almost like the other child acts like a mirror for herself. She also likes some graphic novels, so I'm wondering if we should just lay into that, or get her to transition to more serious reading to help work on her imagination (since she often goes through a new, thick graphic novel in less than a day).

I'm mostly trying to figure out what we're working with here. Is she just an acute extravert and that's what they're like as kids? I keep wondering if she got too much tablet time when she was 2-4yo and it just really killed her imagination or something. Or if it's because she moved around a lot until she was about 4yo, and it's some mild trauma manifesting itself as anxiety; I can definitely relate to anxiety making you feel bored.

For background, we now live in a house with a big yard where she can wander. We (the parents) are home almost all the time (I work remotely and my wife is a homemaker). She has a 2.5 year old sister that frankly plays on her own more than my stepdaughter ever did, but they're just too far apart in age to play together organically.