to not pull my 4 yos sleeves up?

[ballbaby]

When he's perfectly capable of doing it himself?

He went to the loo upstairs while I was making dinner and looking after my 20 mo. He shouted for me to - ahem - clean him up - which i did, then I put some water in the sink for him to wash his hands and set off downstairs to rescue dinner and make sure ds2 was ok. When I got to the bottom of the stairs he shouted to me to roll up his sleeves. I said no - you know how to do that. He proceeded to have a 25 minute hit the roof ear splitting tantrum.

Yes it would have been easy to roll up his sleeves but we are having a bit of a power struggle at present and it's just one of the games he plays. What would you have done?

Exactly what you did :-), but possibly at 4 I might have not wiped him up too, or at least threatened, but told him that his teachers won't be doing it so don't expect me too!

Poor you, keep it up and it will pass

Thanks for that PP - wasn't sure if I was being too hard on him.

Never really though about the wiping bit - there's another battle for us to have!

agree with PP, I may have just done it in passing, but if I was already downstairs and he shouted I would have done the same. Although never actually had this as we don't roll our sleeves up - if he gets wet cuffs its his own fault!
re wiping - he wipes, i check if need be - but less and less now (4.5yo).

well, if it's within the context of a 'power struggle' perhaps I might have phrased it differently? Something like "oh, you do it quickly then come and draw me a picture/show me your thomas toy" (or whatever it is he's really interested in)....

I think adding another thought in there of what will come next is sometimes enough to distract the child from seeing it as a chance to engage in shenanigans. He might have been so keen to come down that he would have just got on with it. Possibly.

But you were quite reasonable and of course he can do it himself....I guess sometimes a power struggle from the child's point of view is about attention more than anything else. and of course you have two kids so can't be in two places at once; but that doesn't mean that your ds will reasonably accept that; he still WANTS you 100% of the time!

Why not be a slobby, slatternly mother like me and just let him squeeze some soap, then rinse it off under a running tap and never even make him roll up his sleeves

He's got a thing about having any splashes on his clothes - that's another battle we have as he wants to strip off anything even slightly damp! Oh the joys of motherhood!
Agree that distraction might have had a better outcome, but I resent doing it sometimes - I just think he should behave without me having to pussy-foot about.

well, he SHOULD BB, but that doesn't mean he WILL