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Making a routine out of preferred activity
It’s tiring, but it’s worth it. Create a routine where you will do the preferred activity together. Hold his hands and jump together, rip up scrap paper together… Create a routine, maybe it’s crunching the paper up first, tearing it second, then throwing it in the bin together.

Start with sound and light toys (be careful of sensitivity)
USUALLY, children like to play with what we call means-end or cause-effect toys. These are baby toys that something happens after you press a button. Sometimes, that’s lights, sounds or something that pops up. You can try these with your child first, see if she’s interested in these first. Bubbles nearly work all the time.

Play it yourself in a few ways to sell the toy
Think of a few ways to play a toy. I know it’s hard, but for example a car you can roll it down a ramp, roll it on the child’s body, put it in a box, play it with water, spray shaving cream on, the list goes on. Children play with us because we’re resourceful, we’re a fun add-on to the toy. So you cannot passively play a toy and expect a child to like it if they haven’t shown interest by themselves. SELL IT!

Last resort - teach playing with rewards
If all this doesn’t work, you might have to teach play skills as a task. That means sitting your child down, telling him that after exploring this toy, you’ll get a reward. I understand that this is unnatural, but sometimes that’s the easiest way to get it all going. If they don’t try it, they won’t know they like it. Parents always say that their children are “stubborn”, well the only way to change their mind is to give them rewards in order for them to try!

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