Am I enabling my child to be non independent

[ghostspider]

So for a bit of back story, i have one sibling and we grew up in a home with my parents who are married. My dad is easy going and my mum is quite a stressy person/worries about everything. Growing up I was the oldest and had a lovely childhood as far as childhoods go. Me and my mum clashed a lot as I grew into my teens, and I was very lazy. I was a good kid who went to school and I was tidy etc but lazy.

My brother on the other hand was and still is horrendously lazy, neither of us were taught how to cook/clean but as I got older I learned the basics and once I had my children can cook and clean just fine. My brother cannot cook anything and doesn't clean ever, he still lives at home at 25 which is relatively young so no problem there. He doesn't wash a dish and I feel for my parents. He is insanely selfish, very sure of himself but has numerous mental health problems.. anxiety/depression which seems to have been helped with medication.

My mother is a fixer, she does everything for my brother and still tried to for me. It's quite over bearing but I am 30 now with 3 children and know how to handle her. My husband says that I am quite like my mum as in I do everything for our children and he says it's not going to help them later in life. I can see his point, she mothers my brother no end and he struggles with everyday tasks. My oldest is 7 and my youngest is newborn so I guess it's my oldest my husband is more worried about.

My question is, (if you've read this far thank you!), how much do you do for your children at that age or what do you teach your children to do for themselves? I don't think I'm doing too much.. my eldest dresses himself for school and can make a drink/cereal for himself.

I had a moment the other day when I gave him a cloth and asked him to give his school shoes a wipe over as I was tending to the baby and we didn't have much time, he looked at me and said "why can't you do it?" I didn't really know what to say other than, because I have to do something else. Now im stuck between am I doing enough or not enough! My partner's upbringing was the complete opposite of mine and he had to do everything for himself from a very young age. He thinks it's helped him as an adult.

Sorry for the long post, it's hard to know as a parent what the best thing to do is sometimes

We were brought up doing everything for ourselves from a very young age, being mostly self sufficient (washing ourselves, getting dressed, being able to clean, use the hoover, washing machine, lawnmower and cook a simple meal from around aged 8-10 with zero issues or accidents.

I wanted to decorate my bedroom at 14 so with my parents permission I painted and wallpapered it all on my own. Didn't do a bad job either!

It honestly baffles me that parents think there is any other way to bring up kids and that mollycoddling them is any way beneficial. I have friends that were never allowed to be independent and they have suffered as adults and are still incapable of simple tasks.

I'm extremely grateful for my upbringing and would never change it.

I'm a gran by now, and what I do with my grandson : I ask him would he please help me with a something (like setting the table), because if we do it together it'll be done quicker and better. He's 5 😊

My 7 year old definitely helps around the house in little ways. She knows she's responsible for putting her coat and shoes away and when she's finished playing with toys, she puts them back in the toy box. She loves baking, so as a bolt on, sometimes if I'm cooking she'll stand on a step next to me and she'll put in the cold ingredients and loves the idea that she 'cooked' her own dinner.

I think you can build little jobs into every day life but make it part of a game/fun activity. At a minimum, give your 7 year old responsible for putting his toys away...little things like that.

My son is 9, here is a list of what I expect him to do round the house

• His cereal in the mornings where we don’t have breakfast club
• get dressed, including coat and shoes
• fill own water bottle for school
• take plates/lunchbox in to the kitchen and scrape food into the bin/put in the sink
• put dirty clothes into the hamper
• own bedtime (such as wash face, do teeth, get pjs on)
• bring down cups from bedroom (although this one is very hit and miss!!)
• walk the dog round the block
• fill the dog/cat bowl up if asked
• make sure his phone/nintendo is charged before going to his dads for the weekend (I have to remind him to do this but he does)

That’s about it really, I’m terrible for making my own bed (sorry mumsnet!) so I dont always ask him to make his. i do occasionally ask him to run an anti bac wipe around the bathroom sink/scrub the toothpaste off it when I notice it and he’s on his way to the bathroom anyway but I end up re-doing it because it’s never fully cleaned 😂 I think when he hits secondary school and is making his own way home and will be home before me I will up his chores to running the vac round/doing the dishes/putting clean clothes away. I think at 7 you have plenty of time to ‘house train’ your child. When they get to teenagers and want to go out with their friends you can offer chores as a reward system. If you want to go to the cinema Saturday afternoon with your friends then XYZ needs to be done around the house. That type of thing.

he looked at me and said "why can't you do it?"

I wasn't sure until I got to this part. If your seven your old has the expectation that you should do everything then I agree with your DH and strongly urge you to change how you are treating your DC.

Your main job as a parent is to bring your children up to be good, useful independent adults.

Read up all the ways that a parent can get their children used to doing things. Make a game of it, see how much can get done in x minutes set a timer, race to be first and let the child win and then praise fulsomely.

My mother I have since learned was known to stand in front of something that needed putting away saying 'no one is clever enough to know how to put this away - I could be relied upon to figure it out. '. 😀

Don't leave them to go to Uni being helpless. All the best.

or does the quickest worst job just to say he's done it!

That's why it needs to become a gain, so he learns to take pride in doing a good job. The start is to make sure he doesn't get let off and learned that it's actually quicker to do it properly.

Don't glory him off with shoddy work and make it fun.

Try this

childdevelopmentinfo.com/chores/the-ultimate-list-of-age-appropriate-chores/

Don't feel shit. None of us know what we're doing, we're all winging it!