Genuinely how do you respond in this parenting scenario?

[Settyhetty]

Young son aged 7. In the mornings he is so slow doing everything to the point we are late to school and me to work. I gave him countdowns, warnings etc but he is just slow.

do you them implement a consequence or is it better to ramp up the encouragement and even dress him? I don’t want to move back to doing everything for him

Monitor every second to make sure he’s not getting distracted. Issue some consequences like no tv time if he’s late.

We have 2 dc like this. The only way we can get them out of the door is to have all uniform downstairs, toothbrush downstairs, bags packed the night before and use song competitions to get them moving (get dressed before the end of this song)

I make it into a competition - 'I bet you can't get dressed before I've counted to 20!'

I had a series of alarms with different songs on my phone or you could use an Alexa.

Every 5-10 mins eg Time to get dressed / Go downstairs / eat breakfast / brush teeth

Then it's the phone nagging / telling not me. Plus the different songs now trigger a Pavlovian response!

I get my six year old dressed every day. If I left it to him, we’d get to school about lunchtime.

We have a very clear routine and we don't deviate, over the years it's what we've realised works best for DD.

• Up at the same time every day
• Clothes are already sorted in a pile ready to go.
• Downstairs and breakfast is fruit which is already cut up and in the fridge so she grabs it and a drink and eats.
• while she's eating she reads her book, I make her some toast, she eats that.
• I make up her bottle for school and put it in her backpack which is ready to go by the door,
• wash, brush teeth, brush hair, get dressed.
• coat on, shoes on, bag on and out the door.

We have the right amount of time available to do those tasks, nothing else is added no tv or toys in the morning, nothing that would distract or divert attention,

Start earlier. When that hasn't worked, I've let her be late so she had to go in through the office door (not into classroom as usual) into the head teachers office and explain why she was late. She didn't do it again

Is he in Year 3? Is his stalling a recent thing? My poor DS used all sorts of delaying tactics in Year 3, he was struggling and was later diagnosed with Dyslexia. In the short term he needed to hear where I was going and what I was doing all day, and he had a gem stone in his pocket that I gave him so he could hold it if he needed to think of me during the day.

I wouldn't give consequences. Some people are just slow. My husband and his whole family are like this -- but I can't give them consequences unfortunately I think encouragement plus a list stuck up in his bedroom of what he needs to do each morning in the right order to keep him focused.

Aloe plenty of time
Have a set routine
Give time warnings.

I have one of these too and he's driving me insane! We are late every morning and I end up incredibly stressed, he's had me in tears more than once

I have tried asking nicely (87 times), shouting, pleading, bribing, explaining the importance of being on time for school, threatening consequences etc...nothing works!

I have had very limited success with timers but still not great. I also have a 3 month old velcro baby with bad reflux that I can't put down so I struggle to physically dress him etc myself

Clothes are out/bags packed etc all done the night before and we get up 1.5 hours before we need to leave, it's not lack of organisation, he just takes 10 minutes to put on a sock and if I send him to brush his teeth he'll come back after ages in the bathroom, having not done it but instead had a poo and played with water for 5 minutes! He takes 20 minutes to eat one pain au chocolate!

He has no Switch or iPad before school and banning the TV makes no difference, he just stares into space or starts jumping off the furniture instead, I am at my wits end

My son is so like this. He spentv15 mins on a sock this morning 🤯

Honestly, the only thing thst worked here was physically carrying him outside in his pj's and throwing his clothes and bag out and locking the front door. He got dressed in 30seconds flat. It also worked for DC2 as she didn't want the same to happen to her! She was never quite as bad as DC1 though because she didn't want to be late and got upset when DC1 made us late, whereas DC1 didn't care.

They're still the same at secondary, DC2 leaves 10 minutes before the bus, DC1 is often still in pj's and runs out about 2 minutes before the bus is due to leave.

I have never allowed screens in the morning and it would cause more problems than it would solve. I reckon it was around Yr5 when I could stop constantly walking from bedroom to bedroom chivvying them along.

Get up earlier. Encouragement. I remember those days.

That's really horrible. Don't do this.

DS1 (nearly 9) is like this....I get him up half an hour earlier. Then I just give constant reminders, and make sure we are ready to leave 5 minutes before we really need to.

I also bribe with the promise of scooting to school if we are early. (We live so near the school scooting its actually more effort to get the helmets on and then walk the scooters back home then it is to just walk to school)

@TuesdayRubies maybe. But it worked. After 2.5 years of cajoling and bribing, explaining, shouting, everyone being stressed, and the last half year DC2 often in tears because she knew she was going to be in trouble for being late when it wasn't her fault...yes it may not have been my most glorious parenting moment but it reinforced the message we had to leave on time far more effectively than any reward chart did 🤷‍♀️

7 is still so young.
What I would do is create a visual checklist that he can tick off.

Set out his clothes on the floor in the correct order. Stick Alexa on with a 5/10 minute countdown. Make a game out of it.

Tell him breakfast will be after dressing. Set another timer for breakfast.

Then teeth/ hair. Another timer.

Lots and lots of over exaggerated praise to keep him going.

Have his bag/ coat/ lunch/ shoes sitting by the door

I'd wake him up earlier and prepare as much as I could the night before. Uniform out, shoes and bag by the door, lunch in fridge, table set for breakfast.

That's great, a fun game is better than a stressed scenario.

I would go with the carrot method, if mine gets ready quickly they can have 10 minutes of telly. I find sensory timers are helpful also.
How much time do they have to get ready? Mine has 90 mins everything and I lay out their clothes. But they must make their own bed and do their own teeth.

Hmm, one morning I put DS’s clothes and shoes on the door step, locked the door and walked round the corner alone. He got dressed by the door in 1 minute, hurried to catch me up and we were all at school on time. I think he was 6 probably, he’s 22 and backpacking round Australia at the moment. He was so much better after that day and a simple reminder did the trick.

I would bring both bedtime and getting up time earlier by 30mins and explain that it takes X amount of to get ready for school and he needs y amount of sleep. If he can get ready for school quicker, he'll get to stay up a bit later, but he needs to prove he can do it.

Also get as much as possible ready the night before, but he helps with it, so feels a sense of ownership for any saved time or methods that work.

Thank you all

Have seen a good visual reminder on Tik Tok that looked pretty cool. It’s those battery push lights that you can get to stick on the wall in the hall, with a picture reminder above each “teeth” “shoes” “bag” etc etc. you push all lights on first thing in the morning and as they action a task they push light off. This would have motivated my DS when younger.