Being slow

[*Karen*]

I hope I can accurately describe the problem here. A big struggle with my almost 4 year old is how slow he is in EVERYTHING he does. Part of this is that I am a rusher I know, but not all of it. When we get up and get ready for school I ask him to get dressed. I ask him and then leave. If I stay in there it becomes a power struggle, not to mention I have other things to be doing. I come back in, and he has taken off ONE sock or something equally ridiculous. If I leave him alone long enough, he will eventually get dressed. It usually takes around 90 minutes start to finish. So I tried to just give up on the fight and allow this process to take 90 minutes each day. However, then the kid gets no breakfast and no time to play. None. Then he is upset about it. I've tried the, "well if you would get dressed faster then you would have more time for other things." argument, but I really don't think he gets it. It is not just getting dressed, it is EVERYTHING he does. Going to the bathroom takes at least 5 full minutes. Getting in the car seat takes 5 - 10 minutes. And while it is always annoying, sometimes it is just flat out unacceptable. Like when we need to get to school or someplace. I really think he is just inherently slow at life. Please tell me this is going to change at some point! Or that there is any way for me to teach him to hurry things up. It causes so much stress in our lives, and so much anger from me.

[mom2grrls]

How about putting him to sleep in his clothes so he doesn't have to get dressed in the morning?

[*Karen*]

He still wears diapers at night which wouldn't fit under his pants. And I feel like that doesn't address the real issue. The real issue is that he does everything at sail's pace!

[LynnS6]

A couple of suggestions:

Break things into more manageable bits for him. Our dd is five and most days, it's much more efficient for us to get dressed in the same room. I bring her clothes in, and she gets dressed while I get dressed. I can then reach over and help her. She's perfectly capable of getting dressed and getting dressed quickly when she wants to. But only when she wants to.

Use Playful Parenting techniques when helping him get dressed. Spending 2 minutes pretending to 'lose' her foot takes the power struggle out of it.

Use the kitchen timer -- set the timer for 10-15 minutes. If he's dressed before then, he has time to play. If not, oh well. That takes you out of the roll of chief nagger. "Oh, the timer beeped, are you dressed?" It's amazing how fast my kids get dressed if that timer has beeped!

A visual schedule for tasks with multiple parts. Take pictures of what he's supposed to do so that when he's not on task you can say "what's next?"

Figure out when you can be on kid time and when you need to be on 'mommy time'. My kids got the concept pretty early and it helped them to know that they didn't have to always be on mommy time. "OK hon, we need to be on mommy time right now because...."

Have you thought about feeding him breakfast before he gets dressed? I need to eat before I'm very useful in the morning.

[crunchymomofmany]

Originally Posted by LynnS6

A visual schedule for tasks with multiple parts. Take pictures of what he's supposed to do so that when he's not on task you can say "what's next?"

Figure out when you can be on kid time and when you need to be on 'mommy time'. My kids got the concept pretty early and it helped them to know that they didn't have to always be on mommy time. "OK hon, we need to be on mommy time right now because...."

Have you thought about feeding him breakfast before he gets dressed? I need to eat before I'm very useful in the morning.

This is right on! I always bring my kids down in their pj's - have a snuggle time first, then breakfast. It seems to get everyone off on the right foot - I usually don't start flicking on the light and telling them it's time to get up until they are much older - 8 or so...

After breakfast, if we have to be somewhere it's "Go find your pants and pick out a shirt" then it's "Go find your socks and shoes," that kind of thing. Sometimes we will just stand in the living room and I'll help the younger ones get dressed - for the 5yo this means handing him a shirt, for the 2 yo this means holding pants out.

Remember, the calmer you are in the morning during your routine, the less of a struggle it will be.

[mama2cal&darby]

I think this is a VERY common issue with kids. Their agenda is not yours. I have to make sure that I am completely ready before my kids get up if we have to go somewhere in the morning, so that all of my attention is going to getting them ready. Yup, this sucks because I am still up a lot in the night with my youngest, so I have to go to bed very early in order to get enough sleep. Then I do the Playful Parenting thing and turn it into a game.
There is no way that I could give my 5YO the order to get dressed and leave him to do it in a timely manner. If something needs to get done within a time limit I need to be right there *helping*.
Good luck.