Hi everyone, feeling low today as we had a rough morning. I have a 6 year old son, overall, he's a lovely, caring little boy who loves school, but he's becoming really stubborn about getting ready in the mornings to the point of at least 2 meltdowns a week. Some day’s he is absolutely fine and does what he needs to do, but other days, mornings are so stressful and I’ve no idea what triggers it.
I have to start work at 9 which means dropping him off just after 8.30, but recently he's been refusing to get dressed to the point of having screaming, earth shattering meltdowns. It's nothing to do with not wanting to go to school, he absolutely loves it, it’s to do with wanting to do things when he's good and ready. He will take a ridiculous amount of time to eat breakfast and I give him plenty of notice about how much time he has before he needs before going in bathroom, five more minutes, two more minutes etc. but once it gets to the point where he absolutely has to get ready, no amount of persuading or cajoling will help, he just sits on the bed refusing to move and in the end I have to carry him into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth which inevitably ends up escalating the situation but I have no choice. Dad has usually left for work by this point so can’t help.
I try to keep things as calm as possible in the mornings and go really gently on him, and I’m probably making a lot of mistakes and doing things you’re not supposed to do, pleading, threating to remove toys, bribing, begging, I even ended up in tears myself this morning as I was so stressed about being late for work. I’ve also tried getting him dressed first thing and having breakfast after but it doesn’t help. He just point blank refuses to co-operate and even if I manage to get him washed, getting dressed is a separate battle. He is very strong now so dressing him myself when he doesn’t want to be dressed is nearly impossible. This morning I was late as I had to wait for him to calm down before helping him get dressed, he went to school looking really disheveled and will probably be tired all day too as a result. Also- we live in a flat so goodness knows what the neighbours must think!! He has no underlying issues and on the whole, is charming and co-operative, I just don’t think he’s a morning person and is incredibly stubborn. I would really appreciate some advice about how other people deal with high pressure mornings such as these! Thank you.