6 1/2 year old DS won't respond toanything in morning

[farfalle]

I'm at my wits end and losing sleep over this now as my DS will not get ready in the morning. No amount of cajoling, helping, assisting, deadline setting and shouting get me anywhere and it's now really getting me down. Can somebody please offer alternatives? On the whole he is a good soul but mornings are definietly not his thing!

What time does he go to bed?
What time do you wake him up?
Does he have an alarm clock?
What does he do to avoid getting ready?
Do you let him watch television?

Basically, please can I have some more info!

my ds1 is 4 and he knows that if he doesn't get dressed, or, more to the point if he doesn't let me dress him, he goes out as he is.

a very cold trip down to brighton in pyjamas mostly worked at letting him know I am very serious about this.
(I did take clothes, and we did put them on at his request as soon as we got there!!!)

i just totally chill about it. fine, ds, if you don't get ready there is no breakfast and you go out in what you're wearing.
no stress for me, it's all down to him. he rarely chooses not to get dressed any more

Yes, I think you need a morning or two of following through so he experiences some consequences. Explain beforehand what is going to happen. he is old enough to get ready by himself now.
In our house, the ds's have to be dressed before breakfast (they dress themselves and have done for some time - they are 5 and 7). We have also instituted a cut off time for breakfast - anyone who isn't down for breakfast by 7.45 will miss it!

It is working at the moment, but I find you do have to have periodic reinforcements to let them know you mean it!

Hi Littlefish, he is in bed by 7.30, and always wakes up himself around the 7am mark. At this point he manages to fiddle and faff with anything possible. If I could, I'd remove everything excepthis bed from his bedroom but that doesn't help either. He already knows and has experienced the no breakfast rule if not down in time - exactly what happened this morning. There is absolutely no TV/wii/anything slightly play oriented until he is dressed, breakfasted etc. IT was OK for awhile but he seems to have regressed massively. Doesn't help either that DD is 3 and happily gets herself dressed alongside me while I finish getting ready. Have tried this with DS but now not interested. The whole debacle this morning ended with me ranting at him all the way to school as I'm trying not to shout. Both of us are left miserable for the entire day and it's likely that the whole sorry story will repeat itself tomorrow again.

Farfalle - you are not alone. My DS (5.5) is the world's champion faffer. I am at my wits end every morning - I have now found that if we play a game to get ready it helps.

I know that I sound like a nutter but sometimes we are birds and we have to go and wash our beaks and eat our worms and berries and get our new plumage on. Sometimes babies, where we do it all in goo goo talk, sometimes bears, dogs etc. It is a right pain, don't get me wrong BUT he does get ready, he does eat, he does it all in good time and he goes to school happy.

The plus for me is that I haven't spent the morning purple with frustration and shrieking. I don't mind speaking in barks if this is the result!!

My friend took her son to school in his PJ's .... he was mortified Mind you, he never did it again.

Ok along with the stick, how about a carrot as well? Agree a really motivating reward and tell him if he is ready on time every day next week he will get it.
Obviously you can't do that on a permanent basis but it might help get things back on track in the short term.

And, when you decide to implement your get tough/carrot and stick strategy, you also need to give up nagging and ranting. Leave him to it and implement the consequence calmly. That is the advantage of setting some clear limits/timings - you stop nagging and leave it up to them. No warnings.

Farfalle you have my sympathy. It is so frustrating. I have threatened the go to school in pjs and that seems to work. My ds will be 6 in April and he is pretty good now, but he used to be a little devil and would waste time and whinge or say "mummy get me dressed" which used to really wind me up especially when I knew he was more than capable of getting dressed himself. I am sure you do already, but I always make sure that both dcs clean school clothes are laid out the night before, in the winter I put their stuff on the radiator and they love putting on snuggly warm clothes on cold mornings. Another thing I used to do when ds was being stroppy was to say "race you" and we used to see who could get dressed first.

I think at the age of 6.5 he is old enough to be getting dressed himself so maybe introduce a reward chart to encourage him.

Hope this helps a bit.

I've tried everything - carrot & stick, games, races, setting limits and deadlines (went to school 1/2 dressed yesterday with no breakfast, but me ranting all the way to school). This morning, just to prove me wrong, he got up, got dressed, had breakfast and was even offering to help me tidy up while I finished getting ready. Chances are that tomorrow. we'll be back to the same old story and it all starts again. How can I stop this vicious circle repeating itself?

The rule in this house is that you have to get up dressed and out of the house without wingeing and causing a fuss, not run off either on the way or way back from school and do all homework or else there is no Nintendo Ds/TV - which he then has for an hour between 6-7pm. Ds is 5.