Problems motivating almost-5-yr-old

[AngieSuperbabysmom]

Hi, everyone, looking forward to hearing your advice/experience.

My son is going to be 5 in a month. He seems to be going through a very stubborn phase where he doesn't want to do what we ask him too. Also, after having been pretty good at helping around the house (clearing off his dinner plate, for example), suddenly he is not wanting to do these things and saying, "you do it," which makes me mad!

Here are the big problem areas:

1. Cleaning up toys/messes (this one has been a long-time ongoing problem). He never wants to do it, or wants me to do it with him. Usually I do, although at what age can/should that stop? When I do help, what he often does is act like he's going to put something away and then just play with it instead. Sometimes it takes him an hour to clean up. It's extremely frustrating and I KNOW he is capable of doing it quickly because he does it 2 days/week at preschool and I've seen him clean up at friends' houses or when it's before someone he likes is coming over.

2. Fighting us at transition time (getting dressed/getting in the carseat/getting ready for bed. He seems to do all he can to not cooperate. With dressing, I have been able to have some success by deciding in advance that I will only wait so long for him to cooperate before doing some other task. Usually, all it takes is me saying, OK, I guess I'm going to get up now, since you don't want to get dressed" for him to cooperate, but he'll cooperate for 2 seconds, then it's back to testing me and I have to issue my warning again. With the carseat, he wants to play in the car every time, and I feel like a fool standing outside (in the cold!) waiting for him to get in his seat. I tried a "counting to three" thing, where he could get in by himself before I reached 3 or I would put him in. However, he recently figured out that if he pushes it past 3 and I try to put him in, he can struggle and get away from me easily. Getting ready for bed is Daddy's territory, and it is ugly, lots of threatening and authoritarianism, IMO (Daddy wants to be AP, but it doesn't seem to sink in too well). 

3. We also have dinnertime struggles, but I read another thread about this that gave me some ideas, so I think I'll leave that one alone. 

I feel like I am having to badger him or threaten him all the time, and that's not how I want our relationship to be. Plus, I've been losing my temper and sometimes nastiness comes out of my mouth, another place I don't want to be.

Ideas?

[pianojazzgirl]

Have you read "Playful Parenting"?  Sometimes taking a playful approach can get you through things (getting dressed, carseat woes, etc) that had previously become major power struggles.  If you haven't heard of the book before I suggest searching the Gentle Discipline forum here (just type "playful parenting" in the search box and you'll get lots of results) and you'll get a good idea of what it's all about and how mamas here have used the approach to great benefit.

Some ideas regarding cleaning up...

- try to make it fun.  Sing "the clean up song" or whatever you come up with.  Make it into a game or race.  Use the toy bin as a basketball hoop and see if you can throw the toys in from x distance.  Etc.

- throughout the day try to get one activity cleaned up before you start the next.  Too much mess is overwhelming.  It's much easier to do several small tidy-ups.

- make cleaning up toys with a million little pieces (I'm thinking Lego!) easier by laying down a play mat (we just use an old receiving blanket, lol).  After kiddo is done playing with those toys you just lift the mat and dump all the toys right back in the box.

- think about rotating toys (putting some toys away for now) so that not all his toys are "in rotation".  Fewer toys means less stuff to add to the mess, and also (usually) aids having a more organized space

- organization.  Make clean-up easier by having easily accessible "homes" for all the toys.

- clean up at the same time every day.  Sometimes it goes easier if it's just another expected part of the routine (dinner, play, clean up, bath, etc... for example).

- re. playing with toys during tidy-up.  Something that's worked for me is to say something like "hey it looks like maybe you weren't done playing with that toy yet - is that right?" (ds answers "yes").  you: "I'll tell you what.  We won't tidy up that toy right now.  We'll put it aside for you to play with some more when we're done putting the other toys away.  Would you like that?"  (ds answers "yes").  Ok, let's finish up quickly then so you can get back to playing with it. 

I hate cleaning and tidying.  It is totally not something I do by nature.  I have to force myself to do it.  Now I do it because I see the larger benefits of having a neat and clean space, BUT, sometimes I also make it a bit easier for myself by promising myself some kind of "treat" (be it an actual edible treat, giving myself 15 mins to veg on the computer or read a chapter of my book, or whatever).  I am not at all of the "bribe the kids" persuasion, but, on the flip side, having something coming up after the clean-up that's pleasant to look forward to might help motivate him.  If you make "clean up time" a part of the daily routine, try to think if you can put it at a time of day where some pleasant activity follows (and not when he's likely to be hungry or tired either).  Like maybe dinner, clean-up time, 30 mins of computer time, bath, bed (or whatever... that's just a random example).  So dinner's done, then "come on ds, let's get the clean-up done quickly and then it'll be computer time".