My son, who turned 3 in July, refuses to try to do a lot of things. Refuses to try and pee on the potty, won’t try to pull his pants up or down, won’t try to put his own shoes on (he will take them off) won’t attempt to put his own jacket on...most of the time when we ask him to do these things he says he “can’t”. We ask him to try and if he truly can’t, we will help but he won’t even try. He will lay on the ground whining until we give in (because we need to leave or get him in bed, etc). He is insanely stubborn. We’ve tried bribing, telling him he’s such a big boy, telling him how proud we are when he does do things independently...I don’t know how else to encourage him to try to do things on his own. Any suggestions?
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We went through this stage briefly, and we had to take a three day weekend to do boot camp, as we called it. We made sure we had absolutely no plans, and we spent the entire weekend refusing to do anything we knew she could do.
So first, make a list of all the things you know he can do. Then stop asking (at least temporarily) him to do things he’s not quite ready for.
Then, what we did was start with something small, like put your shoes on so we can go somewhere she really wanted, like the park. Flop. Well, we are not going until you put them on. And you are not leaving the foyer/door area until you do. So she was stuck in limbo, sure that if she could just wait long enough, we would do it for her. We were calm but firm. We didn’t keep saying it over and over. We just waited and reminded when necessary. Finally, she did it, and we praised her and headed out.
We kept that up the entire weekend, with planned scenarios where she would either have to do it or be miserable (and we made sure we required her to do those things over and over, to establish new habits). We had the upper hand because we had no where to be, and we were not going to be intimidated or outlasted by a toddler.
Day 1 was absolute hell. By day 2, she had begun to disassociate from the bad habits she had had before. By day 3, she began accepting the new routine as normal. But those days were LONG. And not fun for anyone. But she seemed to understand that we just weren’t going to put up with it anymore. And it confirmed what I suspected: her “can’t“ routine was all about exerting power over us when she knew we were between a rock and a hard place because of time constraints, etc.
We got up half an hour earlier than usual for the next week, and accepted that we might be late or whatever at some point, so that we could continue to wait her out as long as we needed to in order to show her that those tactics no longer work.
I don’t know if it would work with every kid, but it had great results for us. It was almost like potty training, in that we basically said, “You did x behavior before, but now it’s time for y behavior instead.”
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@Portboston: when my kids are like this, I feel like they are just seeking connection to me, so I endulge them for a while, and maybe even do things like pick them up and rock them like a baby while I sing Rock a Bye, and then they are ready to go back to doing things themselves AND we've had some great connection time so it's a win/win.
I also keep in mind that "easy" tasks like pulling pants up and down, putting on shoes, putting on socks, getting dressed--that are doable for kids but they take time and more effort than they take adults.
But I'm blessed with really easy kids! They love to please and they are very independent, so when they aren't their usual selves, I don't jump to punishing, I try to think about why they are requesting me to do a task I've seen them do myself before. Kind of like when my husband is making himself coffee and I ask him to make me a cup. Sure, I CAN do it myself, and he's certainly seen me do it before, but boy would I be pissed and sad if he told me I had to go and do it myself because I'm capable, haha. It's nice to be taken care of a little sometimes. It makes me feel loved, I assume kids are the same.
ETA: obviously I have those days where I'm just semi shouting 8 times on a row that they need to put their shoes on or we aren't going to _________, because in human. But when I can do better then they, I try.
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Try asking him what he doesn't understand about whatever it is that you are asking him to do and what you can do to help him understand better. This worked with my son when none of the other things you mentioned worked.
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I honestly give in. If I fight it’s an hour long tantrum. I give in on the first “I can’t” so she doesn’t think whining or acting out gets her what she wants. This age is so much about feeling like they are in control of anything. If I can’t help her, I tell her that and she can wait or not. I have some luck with, later, not letting her do a thing only “big kids” can do, because she wasn’t able to put on her shoes on, therefore she can’t do something she wants to do later. It’s cut down on some of it.
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@Ms.Mermaid: I can’t quite remember but i think I did too. I wasn’t too concerned about making her do tasks. But then again, I think daycare helped a lot with making her want to try.
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@Portboston: solidarity, my son also does this. His daycare lady makes a point to tell me he does everything at daycare pretty much on his own and she gets mad that he doesn't do things independently at home with me. Is your son in a daycare? How does he do there? I ask bc it can indicate they know how to "work us"- he knows I will cave and help him and he knows they don't deal with his antics at daycare. I do know it's a call for attention and love- he's most needy after the poor kid has been at daycare all day. You can hardly blame him for asking for attention the only way he knows how.
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@Anagram: Your coffee analogy....man that hits home. Sometimes I just want my coffee brought to me!
Sometimes I indulge but require them to be patient. Like sure I'll help you put your shoes on (which they are totally capable of doing), but I first need to fill up water bottles and get my own shoes on. Sometimes they get bored and do it themselves, sometimes they wait. Either way it forces me to slow down which is all they need sometimes.
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