Why is getting dressed in the morning such a hard thing to ask???

[FlossieT]

I am at the end of my tether.

I have two boys, aged 8 and 5 (plus a baby girl of 19 months but she is no bother - so far. Clearly we're going to get it in the neck once she hits the terrible teens)

The 8-year-old won't get up in the morning. The 5-year-old seems to live almost exclusively in a parallel universe and will not get dressed - sometimes deliberately obstructive, sometimes just unable to concentrate (this morning, after the fifth time of my asking him to put his shoes and coat on, he decided that was the perfect moment to tear a chunk out of my work notebook and start writing a letter).

Neither of them will do ANYTHING in the morning until they have been asked at least five times, and usually then only when they have been asked AT THE TOP OF MY VOICE.

I can't understand why they want this situation to persist. I find it really upsetting - particularly because then on top of all that stress, I usually have to sign the "naughty book" at school because they are almost invariably late.

This morning I compounded things by taking a wrong turn on the way to work. At which point the 8-year-old remarked smugly, "Well, Mummy, we can't be held responsible for YOUR mistakes."

I rather lost it at that point.

Anyone else had to deal with this sort of behaviour and has any good advice???

Cheers,

Rachael

don't have any advice I'm afraid. I have a 3 yo dd who refuses to get dressed and her little brother copies her so he then refuses to get dressed as well.

Luckily, most mornings we don't have to be up and out of the house in a rush.

You have my sympathy

How about turning it into a game? First one to ..... and then tell them they will get their reward after school. It only needs to be a big hug for making the morning fun and not a nightmare.

have you tried a reward system of any sort?
ie, they get dressed nicely and earn themselves a star. x amount of stars and they get a prize.

rewarding good behavious often works better than punishing bad, and means that you don't have to figure out threats and quick punishments to do before you need to be out of the house.

tbh with the 8 yr old I would start letting him have a bit of responsibility. ie, breakfast at a set time. If he isn't up and at the table he misses out.
and the same with clothes. you leave the house at a set time. If he is wearing pants and nothing else then that's what he goes to school in. you'd only have to do it once I'm sure

try not to get cross with them and shout- they like the attention. make it very clear that you WILL be leaving the house at whatever time, and if they aren't ready then that's up to them. stay calm, and stay in control

oh you poor thing.

My advice, for what its worth, would be
no distractions (no TV, no games, nothing except getting ready),
Get clothes ready night before if possible, kids get dressed (you helping 5 yo if needed)
Give older DS a "job" to keep him focused (getting spoons out etc)
breakfast, limit the choices to a couple of managable things, cereal or toast at weekends this can be relaxed!
Teeth brushed and faces washed (seperately if possible to avoid distractions)
hair brushed and out the door.

Make lunch boxes up the night before, make sure school bags are in place ready to be picked up on way out.

Sorry if any of these sounds patronising, it isnt intended, just saying what works for us!

HTH

My problem is a 12 yo DD with attitude who can be asked all evening if she has homework and says no until 15 minutes before bedtime and then she suddenly remembers some and if she needs help and we dont come running she shouts and shouts and declares she is dropping out of school.

if your 8 yo wont get up can I ask what time he goes to sleep?

My five year old ds needed a boot up his bottom in the mornings too.

I googled a series of images which I laminated and blue tacked in line at his eye height on his bedroom wall:

a photo of a toilet
a photo of two cats having a cuddle
a photo of a child getting dressed
a photo of a flight of house stairs
a photo of a child pouring some cereal
a photo of a toothbrush
a photo of a stick man and his stick shoes
a photo of a cartoon TV
a photo of a boy walking to school with his book bag

The TV is ds' reward if he does the first lot of tasks in time to have some spare minutes before having to leave the house.

I set all this up in his room whilst he was at school and we had fun doing several dry runs of 'getting up' (including eating several bowls of cereal )

So far so good

Like fingerwoman says...My friend who has two boys who were probably about 8 and 9 at the time said that if they didn't get dressed, she would take them in the car as they were. So they wore their pyjamas. When they arrived at school, they realised how silly they looked. My friend had hidden their clothes in a bag in the car. Needless to say, they never did it again.

I feel for you - haven't quite got to that point yet although it feels like it sometimes.

My 6 year old ds is a complete dreamer and we used to have a absolute nightmare every morning..usually involving sitting on the naughty step when we should be on the way to school. Things have improved A LOT since...
I've hung his uniform, socks pants at the end of bed EVERY night...
Laid table for breakfast every night
Packed bag every night
put shoes at bottom of stairs every night...
See the emphasis on every night?,,,that's cos the nights I've forgotten (been too lazy!) the next morning has been dreadful!
Hope this helps

Agree with many of the other suggestions. Sit down and work out with them "getting stuff ready in the evening" and "getting yourselves ready in the morning" routines. Agree some reward system for when they do it well. Take away good things at the other end of the day (TV etc) if they don't play ball that morning. In some ways, it gets harder as they get older. My 14 year old DS is a nightmare to get out of bed in the morning, and it's not like I can dress him. (but THERE's a thought for a threat.....)

Thank you for all the suggestions - probably sounds daft but just knowing that other people have spared a minute to offer advice helps.

Unfortunately, I have already tried most of the things on the list :-( Clothes are put out the night before, in piles for each; shoes are returned to the shoe rack so they can be found without extra effort; I make sure their bags are ready and any extra stuff like swimming kit is already packed; and I have even started laying the table for breakfast the night before as well so I don't have to spend any extra seconds thinking about that.

There was a short patch when they used to put the TV on in the mornings but it became clear that was not working and it was banned. Recently I have started insisting that they are dressed before breakfast; we used to dress after breakfast but the little one in particular is quite a messy eater. That worked wonders for the first couple of days, and then they got fed up and now just whinge about being made to dress first and take nearly as long as they used to do afterwards.

I did try star charts with a linked coin jar this time last year (5p per star, credited to the jar when a chart was full, spent once four charts were full, one star for everything they did right that I needed them to - the idea was that if they were little angels, they should have a reasonable - not outlandish - sum to spend within a month). It didn't make an enormous difference to the behaviour of the 5-year-old but it did cost extra time in the morning sticking the stars on.... while the big one absolutely LOVED them (and very sweetly chose to spend his accrued wealth on his little brother's birthday present) and tore through four charts in no time flat. Mind you, at that point he wasn't having trouble getting up in the mornings so that wasn't on the chart...

@MrsWeasley: 8yo's official bedtime is 8:15, but he rarely actually falls asleep before about 10. They used to have story tapes after lights-out but have now been limited to just one side of a mutually-agreed tape as it seemed to help the little one to drop off but was clearly keeping the big one awake. He has never, ever been a good sleeper (neither am I. Genetics has the last laugh).

I have even tried the "I am leaving the hosue at x time, with or without you" tactic. Tends to work on the big one, but the little one goes to one of two extremes - either dumb-insolence, nothing you can say will make me behave differently as I don't care what you think anyway, or complete, incapacitating hysteria. And when it comes down to it they know, and so do I, that I can't exactly leave them on their own in the house.

I think I am going to have to accept that we just have to get out of bed 15-20 minutes earlier to accommodate all the ridiculous faff. Which won't go down well with the 8-year-old teenager-already, but hey - it's them or me if this carries on!!

Thank you all again for support and sympathy - MUCH needed.

Cheers,

R.

Sounds like you are doing all you can.

My 8yo goes to bed at 7 lights out at 7.30 or 8(latest) but if your DS isnt a good sleeper that probably wouldnt work.
What are they like in school?

Hi, just sympathising; my dd (nearly 8) has ben on and off terrible at this since she started school. Tried various things all of which help short term but we have to really keep on top of it... She is also not a morning person, neither am I...

Similar suggestion to others but what helped the most was making a big massive poster for her wall with list of things to do in the morning, from switching the alarm off, all the way through to putting shoes on (which for some reason she doersnt think counts as getting dressed, nor do socks for that matter). She absolutely cannot cope with more than one instruction at a time so if I say to her 'wash your face and clean your teeth' only one of those will get done and I will only realise as we are leaving that her mouth smells like a dead pigeon or that she has dried toothpaste on her face.

It also says NO FAFFING in big letters at the top

She would do each one and keep checking in between which saved me screaming at her six times for each and every thing.

She lapses sometimes but is in general pretty good now.
lol and at 'your mistakes', i would most definitely have lost it at that point too!

am sheepishly remembering doing to my parents exactly what mrs weasleys 12yo dd is doing re homework...

goosegg - that sounds fab, you could sell that on Mumsnet I'm sure!

Howabout go to the opposite extreme and go completely on strike. Don't shout or bother at all even. They'll think it's funny at first, but soon won't when they're not fed/ taken to school, etc.

When they finally realise that this isn't fun after all, then call a family meeting and try to agree the rules. ie get them to take responsibility for themselves. Any transgression meets with agreed penalties - something that they've decided is appropriate.

Suppose what I'm saying is go for a completely different tactic. Somehow you have to get them to co-operate and they won't if they know you're ultimately going to sort life for them. They're little, but not too little to help you out.

My friend's boy (8 at the time) used to be like this she had eventually had enough and decided one morning 'right if your not ready you go as you are', she stuck to it and walked the boy out of the house in his pants!!

They only had to walk to the car on the drive but the humiliation was enough for him and he always get ready now

Bluecornflower, Love it. Looking forward to the day. Will take a camera if it happens to my boy. (Must get some work done)