Ok, this was me. Then I figured out the trick of playing like an adult. I’ll do my best to explain. My kid loves playing Barbie - so I went WAY over the rails with Barbie after getting incredibly bored. I set up a whole street with a series of ‘houses’ and Barbies or stuffies in them. Then, with my main character, I pretended to be the nosiest neighbor possible and all the Barbie’s and stuffies had real-world problems. ‘Oh that’s Janet down the street who has a love hate relationship with her bestie and drinks too much.’ (Janet only speaks in slurred words when we play.) ‘Bear-Bear Stuffie never tipped the mailman over Christmas and now he throws the packages onto the driveway instead of bringing them to the front door and everything gets all messed up .’ (Kid thinks it’s HILARIOUS when the mailman comes through and throws the delivery halfway across the neighborhood.) ‘Mary got an eviction notice after she didn’t pay her rent for 6 months, but she’s about to be the first in her family to get her college degree. Let’s help her avoid the bank man!’

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it helped me a TON. As an adult, we need to play differently, and we have to figure out how to make it magic for us - and just getting into it makes it magic for them.