A Hard Lesson

My daughter loves social interaction and her favorite thing to do is having conversations with barbies.  Ever since she could say "hi"  she would do this.  She would expect you to carry on whole conversations using her "Little People" just from her saying "hi" over and over again.  The problem with her being highly social is that when she is at home she expects someone to play with her all the time.  I've seen her "independent play" skills" decline drastically and I've seen her become way to reliant on others in this area.  I went through a short stint of just letting her play by herself for days in a row and she did good.  But as soon as we started play with her again like normal, she fell back into the same pattern of constantly wanting somebody to play with her.  What's bad about that is she also begins to act like she has nothing to do, as if she needs someone to guide her play.  I know she is very creative and more than capable of playing by herself.  It looks like I'm going to need to give her more time to practice this at home. The thing that is hard for me is that I love playing with her and being with her.  It just always turns into a tantrum because she doesn't know how to give her parents a break and then she acts like she doesn't know what to do with herself.  It seems when I leave to her own play and don't interfere at all she is fine, no tantrum and no crying.  But it's hard for me  because I'm so use to being hands-on with her.  And I enjoy teaching her and doing things with her.  I know this is part of teaching her as well.  Teaching her "contentment" is one of the most important lessons she will ever learn.  But it's one of the hardest lesson for a parent to teach.  But I think if I focus on allowing her to be content with herself, then I can one day return to being hands-on with her, without the tantrums.