6 yo spectacularly slow to do things, any ideas (sorry, long)

[Takver]

My 6yo dd takes forever to do really simple things (that she can do really easily), anything from getting dressed in the morning, eating breakfast through to putting her coat on to go out the door. I know its a problem at school also in that she pretty much never finishes her work, again even when it is things that she can do easily. So for example she will start doing something (eg putting her trousers on) then just sit there staring into space thinking for maybe 20 minutes or so. Its frustrating for all of us, and leads to lots of arguments when she misses out on doing things that she wants to do because she has taken so long to get dressed, eat breakfast or whatever it is. Anyone elses dcs like this? Any ideas to improve things??? Help!

What do her school say ? Is she like this with her work?

Absolutely, we've been through a whole process since she went into her current class with her teacher at different stages keeping her in to try to get her to complete work, trying giving her (a) easier work in case it was too hard then (b) harder work in case she was bored by it, and putting her next to different children (helped a bit).

Just to say thank you to everyone who posted on this thread. We've been talking through what we can do so that I get less frustrated, and we can still get places on time, and we seem to be making some progress (this week at least ) - dd is trying to be a bit quicker, I am trying to be more chilled, we shall see . . .

DD1 is the same, including the staring into space. We've been talking about it recently, because her new year's resolution is to be quicker. It was, unsurprisingly, suggested by the TA in her class.

At the moment, a timer is motivating her in the morning. Her teacher has also got her an egg-timer which she uses for some tasks.

DD1 herself says that she "gets distracted". She is certainly a fiddler, so as soon as she sees something interesting lying around, she picks it up and then goes off on some inner mental journey that does not feature doing anything useful like dressing, writing, cleaning teeth etc.

Keeping things reasonably tidy does seem to help - there's less lying around to distract her. And being very clear about what needs doing. Sometimes she gets motivated and writes herself a list of everything she needs to do before school and ticks things off - which makes her faster as long as she doesn't loose the list and spend 20 minutes looking for it ...

How old is your dd, smithagain? I quite like the idea of a list, we've tried them in the past but not recently. I have been thinking again about a timer, but I feel like I want to try to get away from the whole thing of hassling dd to do stuff, for her as much as for me, and although a timer is kind of different, it would still be me or dh setting it.

She's six and a half and in Year 2.

The combination of the list and the timer seems quite good at the moment. She likes having control of the timer and ticking things off. Am just hoping the novelty doesn't wear off too soon - that's normally the problem with these things.

Sounds just like my DD2 as well, only with her it is less thinking and more messing about - have to tell her at least 5 times to do anything, and it's the same at school - she is in Irish equivalent of year 1, and teacher has a desk up near her own for DS's "bad" days, when she won't do her work... She is very wilful, and strong minded, doesn't help at all that she is a "mini-me"!!

I've tried the reward system - no effect. Some days she is perfect, others, not a hope!! good luck to us all!!!

DD2 is very like this (at 8). Her school work has improved since starting Juniors (yr3)- she is regularly finishing her work now, which is a huge achievement!

I have to wake her earlier than ds and dd1 to allow for the dreaming, but if I "remind" her too much she gets really cross. I know she can get ready quickly. I occasionally offer pancakes for breakfast if she can be ready to go in plenty of time, which helps but isn't practical every day

I still only remind her of one step at a time...so "put your socks on" rather than "put on your socks and shoes and get your bag", which reduces my frustration levels at least.

Lots of praise when we do make it out of the house on time, too.

Its consoling to hear of youngest children who are like this - I tend to worry that its linked to being an only (and therefore being able to get away with stuff because I have the time to pay more attention to what she's doing IYKWIM).
DD's just been for an optician's appointment and her eyesight seems to be pretty bad. She has been wearing glasses to see the board, but it sounds like she needs them all the time - am wondering whether if she can see what is going on, it might make her less vague