My DS is almost 3 and for as long as he's been born he's been fiercely independent. It started off as handy as he doesn't rely on me to do everything but I'm now finding we're all having to fit into a strict routine otherwise he just goes to pot. It's lots of little routines like when we get home he has to take off his shoes and put them by the door, then take off his coat. It sounds ok but he gets so anxious about the whole thing because he has to do it all himself, offering help or even standing nearby makes him go into a panicky rush. For example I carried him in and his shoe fell off so he just had a complete meltdown, he then had to put his shoe back on so he could take it off himself, then he struggled with his coat, the zip fell apart and again it was meltdown so I zipped it back up so he could do it himself. I try not to give in to the meltdowns but get him to calm down as much as possible and have him say 'help please'. But it's so difficult when he has this reaction to mealtimes, bathtime, play, getting in the car, everything!!! we've had hour long meltdowns because I picked up a drink to hand to him, all because he wanted to pick it up himself. It doesn't feel normal for him to get so anxious and frustrated with these things. And there is no distracting him, he's not happy until he's done it himself. I've tried to explain the concept of 'helping' and I've found the phrase 'let's do it together' sometimes works. Does it sound normal, I know toddlers go through a bit of a phase but it just seems really extreme and I can see he gets really anxious and upset over it.
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Behaviour/development
Toddler OBSESSED with doing everything himself and it's taking over
8 replies
jeblee · 25/01/2016 16:50
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