8yo dd still hasn't a clue how to get herself ready int ime for school. am so tired of having this conversation/argument

[jellybelly25]

My dd (8) has an inherent inability to get ready for school no matter what incentives/punishments she gets. I'm not expecting magic answers but I just want to vent a bit. I'm exhausted with it. We've been doing this battle since she was four, and not a fat lot has improved.

I cannot tell you how many star charts we have done...She doesn't even remember she has one half the time and nothing ever works for longer than a couple of days at best. One day is usually the limit. I can stand there going 'you won't get your star if blah blah'' or 'if you get ready quickly today you will get another star!!! WOW!!!' and she goes 'ooh ok' and looks happy, then just.... doesn't.

I feel like bombing her room to be honest. This morning I have chucked out a load of plastic animals she was fiddling with instead of getting ready, but that sort of punishment doesn't really work because she'd just fiddle with something else. I am qutie sure that if she had nothing but a bed in her room, she would find a way to fiddle with that instead of getting ready.

And standing at the door going 'it's time to go' whatever state she's in, no shoes, no bag ready etc, just doesn't hit home either. she still can't remember what she needs to do to get out

I just want to know if anyone else's child is like this at this age?

[louii]

What a bout a list on her door.

1 put socks on
2 clean teeth
3 put jumper on

Etc etc

[Porpoise]

ds2 (just turned 8) made his own timetable.

8.15 brush teeth
8.20 put on shoes

etc etc

Works well.

When he remembers his watch!

[elliott]

We have a fiddler too! But he is not TOO bad...
We ahve a rule of no breakfast until dressed, then no playing until wash done after that. It seems to work reasonably well.
I think your dd is at an age when she might learn something of the consequences of her fiddling....perhaps you need her to be late once or twice....
Or set up a reward system with some real consequences - like no pocket money if not ready on time etc etc
Having said that we are often guilty of not following through on reward systems/star charts so I appreciate it can be difficult...

[MumRum]

Is your child like this at school?
can she follow a list of instructions or do you think its her memory that making her forget what to do..

[jellybelly25]

we've done all that, a number of times. doesn't look at it past the first day its on her wall. OR whilst looking at it, fiddles with something and wastes ten minutes, then between walking from her room to the bathroom has forgotten what was on it.

[igglepiggles]

im guilty of still doing things like that

[summersun06]

Yes I have this same problem with my DD (9) I hate a morning we argue EVERY morning and I get stressed out and she get told off, my poor DD2 (16month) looks at us in despair. Im sure there must be an answer, we have also done the charts,punishment. I now tell her if she cant get ready in a morning that she will have to go to bed VERY early and get up very early to have lots of time to get ready, she doesn't like this and it sometimes works and it sometimes fails , good luck though x

[jellybelly25]

and i know what you mean elliott, about learning the consequences... we have been late so many times.... and she doesn't care AT ALL.

I'm not sure about the memory. She has a terrible concentration span, but she is very bright. HEr teacher adores her creativity and is always telling me how bright she is (he's a bit old-school iykwim) but he does say that she talks too much and often doesn't focus.

[PrincessPeahead]

I was like that at that age
and I can tell you no amount of lists etc would make a difference
my brain just didn't WORK like that. I can't explain it but there is no way on earth I could have got dressed, had breakfast, organised my stuff, and got ready on time. I think it was partly a complete inability to judge time passing and partly an inability to remember stuff that wasn't interesting/relevant (like what things one had to do to be ready for school)

So no help really, except to say that maybe it is beyond her control, and maybe she isn't doing it on purpose. And if she is like me she'll suddenly get it a bit more together aged about 14

sorry!

[jellybelly25]

summer, i hate it too. sometimes i end up shouting all the way to school and it's awful i hate myself for it!

ok i'll do the very very early thing. that means i have to get dinner ready very very early too then!

[PrincessPeahead]

I had a SUPERB memory for things that mattered and I was interested in (freakishly good) but NO interest in or ability to remember day to day stuff. And punishments/consequences were completely irrelevant to me. I didn't care if I was late (so what?), didn't care about detentions (they just sort of happened if you were late - but it would never have crossed my mind that if I'd got dressed faster I wouldn't have detention) - my brain just didn't work like that.

She sounds very bright and on another planet. Which is fine, albeit frustrating for everyone else!

[elliott]

mmm, ok then, not sure what will help. ds1 is a bit like that, will get distracted and absorbed in something.
Look up on amazon for books on 'how to get your dreamy child to focus??' ! I bet some American has written that one!

[jellybelly25]

thanks princess. i have omitted the fact that i have been a late and disorganised person all my life, which i'm sure is a contributing factor, but i have managed to get it together in order to get her to school, but she just cant get it together! i think that's one reason why it upsets me so much, because it really takes so much effort for me to get myself and the baby and her ready in teh morning, that when i go into her room after half an hour and she's still in her pants i just despair!!

[clumsymum]

Have you tried

a) setting off to school on your own without her

b) pretending to ring school to tell them that she can't come because she isn't ready.

As far as bags and so forth, you HAVE to make her do that the night before. I have a rule with ds, if it wasn't prepared the night before, it doesn't go to school. nd if that means he gets into trouble at school, then tough.

[BettySpaghetti]

Your DD sounds exactly like my 8 yr old DD jellybelly. She, too, can get distracted by anything and everything.

I don't think its a memory thing either as she will remember small details about something years ago.

We now insist that she gets dressed before breakfast as at least we're part of the way there then. Beyond that I can't think of anything thats really helped I'm afraid.

[jellybelly25]

hmm, yes she sounds like you princess! freakish memory for other stuff is spot on!

I am currently sulking at her (very adult I know) and burying my head in the computer because when I was trying to have a 'lets make a plan to help you' conversation with her on the way back from school, I realised she was gazing across the road at someone from her class and she looked at me and said 'only two people go to janet [local childminder] now' so I asked her what I had just said to her and she spouted some junk, at which point I started to cry (also very mature...) because it was really taking a lot of effort to be nice instead of angry about the whole thing and she just wasn't listening at all.

For the record, I am not normally like this, hence posting today. It's really getting to me now and I am losing the ability to be reasonable and practical about it.

[BettySpaghetti]

sorry but I have to lol at the bit about going to her room half an hour later to find her still just in her pants -that is my DD

[Mercy]

I bring dd's clothes downstairs every morning so she and ds get dressed together at the same time. I also bring their toothbrushes & paste down.

At least you will be able to keep an eye on her - and keep reminding her to do x,y and z.

Good luck, I hate that constant chivvying every morning!

[louii]

Why not just dress her or stand over her and say you will continue to treat her like a baby until she can get dressed without messing around.

[jellybelly25]

she always dresses before breakfast, so.... she hardly ever gets to finish her breakfast, or eat it at anything other than indigestion pace, because she is never dressed and downstairs with more than five minutes before we have to leave. this morning she got up FIFTEEN MINUTES earlier than usual (new plan, hoped it would work) and STILL wasted all the usual time, plus the extra fifteen minutes.

And when she 'gets her stuff ready' the night before, which she is supposed to do every night, she always fails to remember that she may need trousers, or socks, or her water bottle, or tuck, or swimming kit, or whatever. and i go 'have you got your stuff ready?' 'yes mum' 'so have you put your water bottle in?' 'no I'll just go and do that'. So I can't rely on her to do that unless I stand there and tell her each item one at a time. And, realistically, this does not happen every night. Sometimes I have half an hour to spare to follow her around, most of the time, I just don't! It's ridiculous.

[summersun06]

Your DD sounds like a clone of my DD, I send her upstairs and if I dont stay on her case she wont come back dressed for 30 to 40 mins. I sent my DD up stairs tonight after school 3.25 and she is still up there now, I bet if I shout up now she still isn't dressed aaaarrrrhhhhhh! But it is out of our control. A friend of mine has had a similar problem with her DD but far worse (very different to our problem) she wasn't get ready on a morning and had to do everything in her own time, my friend said it was like world war 3 every day in her house and she was at her wits end, not long ago she was diagnosed with ADHD and Aspergers (sorry about spelling??) she now feels very guilty about her way of handling the situation, but she didn't know. I know this is very different but sometimes its not what we think and they just aren't doing it to get our back up, its just the way they are.........although I dont think so at 845 in the morning when DD isn't ready for school.......never mind these things are sent to try try us lol

Ps MY DD has just can down stairs dressed it only took her an hour x

[Mercy]

Jelly, how old is your baby?

I think you are going to have to rearrange your timetable and way of doing things tbh. I realise this won't make your dd any more aware or respnsible for herself - but for your own peace of mind I think you will have treat her as a younger child for now.

So, what time do you get up and what time do you have to leave for school? (sorry if I sound bossy btw!)

[jellybelly25]

I will try leaving without her, although she has this habit of telling her schoolfriends things like that, and then other mums come up to me and say 'did you really dangle your daughter over the banister?' or something.

We had this huge row about a month ago about her taking responsibility for her violin practise - I kept reminding her and she just wasn't doing it, then complaining that the teacher was angry at her, so she BLAMED ME for GOING RUNNING EVERY NIGHT (I run twice a week, and it has nothing to do with her practise!!) so she then CAN'T DO HER PRACTISE ?!? So I told her I was not going to remind her to do anything if she was going to blame me, and then I got some garbled report form one of the other kids about how the violin teacher thinks it's terrible of me not to remind her!!!

If I pretend to phone she will know I'm pretending. I might actually phone for real, the secretary already thinks I'm mad, due to things like the above violin incident.

the other trouble i have is that there doesn't seem to be any real consequence of being late or forgetting your stuff at school. she's gone in with no bag or bottle or homework or anything before, and i asked her if she got into throuble (what? I mean trouble!) and she said no!

[janinlondon]

JB I am in exactly the same position with my 8yo DD. I was wondering this morning if there was some kind of digital timer (like on a microwave) that I could put in her room and set for the number of minutes she has till she has to come downstairs. I guess I just need a big digital timer but ideally I'd like it to beep every five minutes or whatever I set it to.....

[2sugars]

jellybelly, I could have written that. Except that in our case it's exacerbated by the fact that H insists on carrying her down in the mornings and PUTTING THE EFFING TELLY ON. Nothing I say or do will make him stop.

He then has a leisurely shower, breakfast, reads the paper et al, before asking them both "Are you ready to go?"

I dress her. It's the only way. And if he thinks for a moment he's letting her cycle to school while she can't even get herself downstairs and dressed he's got another thing coming. I shan't allow it anyway, but they don't know that yet (we live on a busy main road, but even if we didn't, she's still too young for that).