My friends have an almost six year old, he's coming to the end of year one, plus he has a toddler brother. He gets babied a lot, and asks to be - typically won't get himself dressed or undressed, or put his own velcro shoes on, he moans until someone puts them on for him. Has his teeth brushed for him, often asks to be carried from the sofa to the table for dinner, will whine if he drops or spills something until someone else sorts it out for him or picks up the dropped item. If it's his favourite food he'll feed himself, but if he's less interested he gets it spoon fed to him. By choice he uses a potty rather than the toilet when he can get away with it, thankfully only for pee now. He will go to the bathroom and get a potty, bringing it out into the living room, to pee there rather than in the toilet itself. While he can communicate well and play with others, follow tasks, etc he is prone to also have toddler style tantrums where he collapses to the floor screaming and crying if he doesn't get his way - for example being told he can't play a particular game right now, wait for ten minutes then we can.
Is this an unusual level of lack of independence/babying for a child who's almost finished his second year at school? I know he can do things like put his shoes on himself, he just doesn't want to. So is it a case of getting away with being treated like a baby at home because he can? His parents don't always want to argue with him so it's easier to just e.g. put shoes on for him to get out of the house on time. My mum used to make comments about boys often being more lazy than girls; don't want to give in to cliche but it does seem like it! I would have thought he would want to seem grown up compared to his two year old little brother, but at least when he's at home he wants his parents to do everything for him. Does anyone have suggestions of how to encourage him to do more for himself, or even to want to?