Teaching Self-Help...

[gkids09]

I guess that's what you'd call it...I have a little dcb who will be 5 in September. He has always been extremely immature for his age. He has just recently been able to put his own shoes on, and only sometimes, when things go just right. Socks are a different story...

When he goes to the bathroom, he comes out with his underwear and pants TOTALLY crooked and looking like they are still halfway down to his knees...

This summer, we are having water play days A LOT. It's only June, and the average temp. this month has been right around 100 degrees. Ridiculous. Anyway, I have been trying to get him to take off and put on his own clothes since I have 3 year olds that can do it.

He is going to be with me for another year, since his birthday is so late and he is so immature. All he talks about doing at home is playing his video games, and when he plays in the playroom, that's all he wants to play.

So, my question is, how do you teach an almost 5 year old to dress himself, when apparently his parents do EVERYTHING for him at home?? I used to do it too, I will admit. But since he will go to kindergarten in 2012, I think he needs to learn how to do some of it alone. Don't you think??

[Michael]

A similar thread: https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18751

[Preschool/daycare teacher]

Yeah, he REALLY needs to be learning how to do that for himself. It's really frustrating when parents baby their children so much that the child can't even put their own shoes on at 5 yrs old! Most of our children would let us do everything for them if we would. We had a 2 1/2 yr old in particular that really fought the whole self-help thing with shoes and socks when I started teaching it, and help in the bathroom. I quit doing it for him (it took soooo much longer to get ready to go outside and spent a lot of time listening to him holler for help after going potty, but he eventually learned I wasn't going to do it for him. He could pull his own pants up, he just wanted us to do it for him), but after a few months of this, he finally got the idea. I wouldn't let him go outside or anything until he'd done it, so he soon learned that it was in his best interest to do it by himself. I think he needed a confidence boost, too that he could do it. I knew he could if he would just try because when he was feeling a little less stubborn he'd try it without being told twice. But most of the time he'd really fight it, turn on the tears and be really convincing that he just couldn't do it. No matter how guilty I felt, I stuck to it, since I knew he could he just didn't want to. Now I'm working on another 2 1/2 yr old. She's a bit stubborn too, on the "I can't!" thing. But I've seen her do it when she was in a less stubborn mood, so I know she can, at least with the socks, and can almost get her shoes on by herself also. Plus she can pull her own pants up, but usually gets too busy playing around in the bathroom and just doesn't. And then I get in a hurry (especially if everyone's waiting for her so we can go outside or eat or something), and I end up doing it for her and sending her on her way.
Good luck with the 5 yr old. I hope you have some good help watching the other children while you wait for this little one to do it by himself. It takes a lot of time and energy, it seems. Maybe that's why parents baby their children so long and do it for them! We have a school ager in care right now, 6 yrs old, and his mom still dresses him (as in physically slipping the shirt on over his head and pulling his elastic waist shorts up for him), puts his socks and shoes on him, ties them, even brushes his teeth for him and combs his hair. And any time he does something wrong, it's always someone else's fault because he's just a baby and didn't know better. Anyway, I got off topic...sorry!

[QualiTcare]

i wouldn't worry too much about it. i got frustrated with my son (with him, not toward him) and he got frustrated with himself because he couldn't get dressed correctly or put his shoes on when he was 4. my daughter was dressing herself when she was 2 with no problems. i thought he would be the same. wrong! he used to lay his jacket down on the floor, spread it out, and then lay down on top of it to get it aligned and put it on. it was super weird and i'd never seen anything like it. a former early childhood professor/friend of mine told me it was a good thing that he was trying to figure it out, but it was still hard to watch - not to mention time consuming. shoes were another story. he would get so frustrated he would tear up and throw them down. then, all of a sudden, he started picking it up quickly. it's like something clicked and he figured it out overnight. he just turned 5 this week and only started being GOOD at dressing himself within the past 6 months. i've heard of kids doing the same thing with language. they hardly speak at all and then all of a sudden they start talking and won't stop using all the words they'd been soaking in. in my son's case, if he can't do something RIGHT, he gets upset and won't do it at all. no amount of praise or encouragement changes it. i dunno. i guess i'm saying don't assume there's anything "wrong" or that he can't do it because his parents always do it for him. that's not always the case. just keep encouraging him and even make him dress himself just for practice. he'll get it.