The Little One is 4 1/2, and has decided that she is a Medium-Sized One. This also, unfortunately, comes with the knowledge that she doesn’t have to do things just because Mommy is asking her to.
So now, suddenly getting her to put on clothes, put on shoes for school, take off her clothes and get into the shower at night, put on pajamas, etc. are all major undertakings. I’m finding myself using a hodgepodge of techniques, running the gamut of challenging her sense of competition (“Let’s see who can get dressed first, Mommy or Medium One!”) to special time (shower time has become Special Mommy Time where we talk about fun things that happened that day) to shamelessly exploiting her stuffed animal friends (“Kitty is tired and going to bed now! Want to come to bed with Kitty?”). I sometimes have to resort to a countdown from 3, after which she loses a privilege, but I really don’t like doing that and try to avoid it as much as possible.
I’d like to use natural consequences (and do somewhat at night – dawdling at night may lose you some fun time with parents because oops! bedtime) but it’s a little hard to come up with natural consequences in the morning, since after all the reason I need her to get ready is because I need to get to work.
(I’ve read How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk and occasionally am able to use its strategies, but she’s a little young – although it works sometimes, often when I ask Medium One to help brainstorm ways we can work on a problem together she has no ideas and doesn’t really seem to care. (She’s also, as I’ve posted on this board before, a little behind emotionally/socially.) Hopefully I can use this more as she gets older, though – I can already tell it’s more useful now than it was six months ago.)
She might be old enough for a star chart. Earn a star for finishing something quickly or correctly. Earn prizes for stars. We kept the star chart in the kitchen where the kids could see it, even get the step stool, with help, and add a star or two.
And, when things aren’t going so well, stars can be lost.
wait until she’s six, IMO. 4.5 is too young to worry about it. If she’s that age and slow to dress herself , I’d damn well dress her myself. And pick her up and put her in the shower. A couple repeats of that and they stop being so recalcitrant.
A start chart can be a good motivating factor, but once a star has been earned, it is earned. Losing stars can be confusing and seems unfair (because it is).
I was known to drop my kids off at daycare in their jammies with their clothes in a bag if they were too pokey.
Don’t be afraid of tying rights and responsibilities together - you’ll raise better adults if rights are tied to responsibilities almost instictively. She’s old enough to have the responsibility to get dressed on time, she needs to do that in order for you to go to work, if she can’t do that, she loses the right to have cocoa at breakfast - for my daughter this was big, you only got cocoa for breakfast if we had time, if we didn’t have time - too bad, so sad, you’ll have to wait until they feed you at daycare and it won’t be cocoa.
A friend of mine recommended buying a kitchen timer that is only hers. We picked on out together on Amazon, they have lots of fun ones really cheap. Then I would set the timer to just a tad longer than the task should require - ten minutes to dress, 25 minutes to eat, etc. (Mind you, she still occasionally treats the bell as a cue to start the task. :smack: )
This really helped Celtling develop a sense of time and how long certain things should take. At 4.5 years they have absolutely no clue as to the way the day goes by, and how much of it can be spent on each thing.
Another big help to developing this sense is an old-fashioned clock with hands. The digital clocks kids are surrounded by these days give no clue as to where they are in the day. Watching that hour hand go around is a much better metaphor, and helps them understand.
Honestly, your kids will test you in ways you can’t even imagine, and thi sis a big one. Celtling is seven, and even now on the rare occasions that I raise my voice, it is nearly always to the phrase “Do it NOW!!!”
For I while, I tried counting to ten, with punishment at the end, such as a swat on the butt or putting her favorite toy in Time Out. While I eventually got her conditioned to respond to “One… two…” most of the time, it created a lot of bad feelings.
Recently, maybe because she’s easier to handle than she used to be or maybe because I’m really good at it, I’ve gotten her to scoot by giving small incentives. An M&M, taking a toy in the car with her, doing something she wants to do while we’re out and about, watching Spongebob while we put her clothes on, whatever it takes. To find something that makes her feel it’s all worth it will make it happen… though I often have to remind her of the incentive several times in the process.
My car leaves at 7:30 with whomever is ready to leave in it. “Ready to leave” is up to the individual - if you consider being in your pj’s with your clothes in a bag “ready,” then hop in! If not, I’ll see you later, love you, bye!
Sounds harsh, but just one event of being left home (for only the time it takes to go around the block, of course) was a real wake up call for my pokey daughter. (And she wasn’t actually even alone; she just didn’t know her teenaged brother was sitting quietly in his room and in on the plan.)
That’s the natural consequence. When we’re not ready for the bus, it leaves without us.
ddsun, Blue Mood, Dangerosa, TruCelt, and WhyNot, those are all good suggestions that I’m going to have to try. I used to sometimes use our analog clock and stopped, and I don’t have a good reason why – I should start that again – and I don’t have a kitchen timer and having her help pick out one sounds like a great idea. I tried a small incentive this morning (Kitty in car!) and that worked beautifully! I wonder if I can use the “car leaving” thing on a weekend… she’d probably like being left home with dad on a weekday
MrDibble and Blue Mood, manhandling her used to work when she was three. Now that she’s four, she’s faster than I am, and it’s both annoying and time-consuming to chase her all over the house to plop her in the shower. Also, I’ve noticed that when I do that she is more likely to resort to physical means when she doesn’t agree with me – trying to push me away, hitting, etc. – she doesn’t do it hard enough to hurt, but I’m not sure I should be encouraging that.
Also, if he eats breakfast and gets dressed before it’s time to go, he can watch Scooby Doo while I finish getting ready.
If he dawdles getting in to the bath or wants to play in the bath too long, he knows he runs out of time and doesn’t get a book.
If we have somewhere to go and he drags his feet, it means either we don’t go (if it’s something he wants to do) or we don’t get to do something he wanted to do later.
I guess I try to frame it as, he’s not putting me out by dawdling, but losing privileges he wants.
My 4.5 y/o knows that if I have to scrub the grass stains off his knees I don’t have the most gentle touch Ditto shampooing the old hair. Or taking off the shirt…ears are sensitive.
My kid is a few months older than yours, and I tell her what’ll happen if she dawdles - like if she dawdles tidying up her room at night, we’ll have less time to read and chat, or if she dawdles getting ready to go out to the shops, then we won’t have time to collect and discuss and rehome every snail in the whole damn neighbourhood.
Ditto shampooing the old hair. Or taking off the shirt…ears are sensitive.