apparently i have unrealistic expectations.....

[pukkapatch]

i think a nt four year old should be able to dress themselves.
i think an not six year old shoule be able to get himself a breakfast of cereal an dcold milk. and shower by himself
i think an nt four year old should be able to deal with school, assuming no bullying taking place.
i think a nt ten year old should be able to make sandwichs and feed himself and younger siblings as needed. same ten year old should be able to make tea/coffee. cook pizza, wash dishes, iron own t shirts, etc. however i know that to expect same child to keep room clean is asking to much.

so why am i constantly being told that its ok that five year olds cant dress themselves. eat their own foor. go to school. sit and listne to a teacher. know what to do with a pen pencil book? do i have very off the wall expectations?

Pukka, you're absolutely right about the school thing, And other things on here - showering was the only thing I could find personally to pick holes in

dd was mobile at 3.5 months. i kid you not. she would kick her feet against the bed, and go backwards. she couldnt roll over, but she could get accross the room, and get her head stuck under the sofa. however the lazy littl emadame didnt walk till a good three months after her birthday. her brothers both walked before their birthdays. my cousins dd didntstart walking till after 18 months. lazy souls i think.
so ignore all those people tabitha. its all within the normal spectrum. but, make sure you get her to start dressing herself when she's a bit older.

I guess it does, pukka.

Sometimes, when I get low, and I think about my family's offer, I think sometimes maybe it might be better for my girls to be brought up with values like that, despite everything that goes with it, being a big city like that.

We are one, our family, even now.

It was only me that left.

Everyone else is still there, just as open-armed and accepting as ever.

Because we're family. Our chores weren't punishment, they were what we did to help our family. Babysitting our cousins and cleaning our auntie's house was fun! We did it together.

I remember, when my dad's youngest sister married a man from Kerala who left the priesthood to marry her.

Back in the 70s, it was such a scandal.

But not to my dad and his siblings. It was just Carmen marrying Joe.

They're a happy lot.

I can't say the same about many folk these days.

individual capabilities.............that's what I was looking for

I sort of take that back! LOL.

My first cousin Eric took up Indian nationality from his dad's side and is marrying a woman from Kerela next month.

His sister, whom his parents adopted from the Punjab region in 1982, is marrying a Korean man in June.

So I guess maybe who knows where their kids will end up!

But we're still family!

you are very lucky to have such an accepting family expat. i know mine wouldnthave been so accepting. well, my extended family that is. immediate family would have been happy.
recently i have hurt my ankle, andbeen unable to do most things. ds2 has been loading and unloading th edishwasher. etc. he loves thefeeling that he is helping mummy. he has actually asked for chores. normally i don task them to do stuff, if it is easy for me to do it. but i do ask that they be capable of doin gthem.

peaches. my dc have showers, because i hate supervising them in th ebath. but it's expectations isnt it. well put faq.

All normal, though in this house I don't let the 6yo put the shower on by himself as I still want an adult checkign the temperature firat. But at school they shower and dry themselves from reception (but temperature of showers is set centrally and not controlled by the boys). TAs and teachers do ties and top buttons in recpetion but by the end of reception/mid Yr 1 they are usually paired off to help each other.

I'm very lucky, pukka!

I know that every day.

yes top buttons are hard to do. and ties. although ds2 learnt how to tie his at th ebeginning of year1. lazy ds1 didnt till year four i think.

doing stuff at home, it helps people feel like a part of the family.

we even had exchange students and they just got right on the rota of chores.

and when i was an exchange student to france when i was 15, they got me involved straightaway with their farm and in the home and i was so glad! i was so proud i could show my host mother, who had no daughters, that i wasn't a lazy, snooty, good-for-nothing and could iron, sew, clean, wash and cook, as well as help in the farm.

we had a Quebecoise and Japanese girl live with us for a year, as well as other students from all over the world, and we just got them right in!

we had my mother's only sibling's only child living with us much of the time, as her sister was a single mum who worked as a flight attendant, and we thought nothing of this.

we just stuck him on the chore list and put him in school with all of us.

if people bullied him, well, there was us to answer to.

When you compare with different countries, it is helpful to remember that different cultures ask different things of their children, so it is not always the case that Child X does everything and Child Y nothing.
In Sweden, for instance, a 5yo would not be expected to sit still all day and listen to a teacher- this indoor sedentary life would be considered inappropriate for a young child. They would also not be expected to read or write unless they wanted to.
On the other hand, IME they tend to have a wider range of practical skills and are much more independent.
They are allowed to question their teachers more freely (in a polite manner) without being considered rude and they are generally more involved in decisions. On the other hand, maybe more maturity is expected.
A 10yo might well cycle to school on his own, go skiing with his mates without adult supervision, and if living on the coast probably be allowed to take a dinghy out on his own. He or she would regularly go shopping for his/her parents and probably be able to prepare a simple meal.
My 10yo niece used to get home from school just before her Mum got home from work and would usually cook supper supper.
My 9yo nephew decided that he didn't want to carry on with the after-school club, so he was given the key and allowed to look after himself until his Mum got home (hardly a latch-key kid in the traditional sense as activities were available and it was his own choice).
So by the time you get to 10, these kids are probably much less demanding of their parents' time and contributing more. But Swedish parents seem to fuss relatively little about what their 3/4 yos can do; the general attitude being that at this age you get such enormous differences in children's development that general rules just don't work; it all evens out later.

Some can, some can't. Some will, some won't.
Not sure what the fuss is about.
If they can do these things - great. If they can't, no big deal they will given time.

juule th efuss is the parents who barge into school and demand the school change to allow for th efact that their dc cant do certain things.or wont do them. its not actually a problem with the kids, but with theparents expectations of everyone around them jumping to accomodate their pfb, or whatever number child.

Some kids just can't. And the day I let my 10 year old boy near a steam iron is the day hell freezes over.

A "My child can do it so yours should be able to" attitude isn't helpful, it's quite ignorant about child development too. My child could walk at 13 months. Does that mean the parents whose baby can't walk at 13 months are getting it wrong?

How silly.

Nothing wrong in my book with parents asking for help for their children with things that the child is unable to do yet.

cory - yes, you are completely right to point out that there are two different spectrums for development - biological (with large variations on the normal spectrum between children) and cultural (and some cultural spectrums are much more rigid than others). Plus there are family circumstances that come into play.

Which all makes consensus about when particular milestones "should" be attained pretty difficult to achieve.

Think it depends on the child. Just 3 year old NT Ds3 is very independent likes to dress himself etc etc 6 year old NT ds2 is cack handed and not remotely interested in doing anything himself. It's been hard work and taken a long time just to get him to (almost) dress himself.

I wouldn't expect all those things of my kids but they can and do sit and concentrate at school.

ds is four. He can dress himself but struggles with the top button on his school shirt (the hole is horizontal, not vertical like the rest of them).

I don't actually give him any chores yet - he just seems too little. Probably a PFB thing! Odd bit of tidying up. Maybe I should... what chores do you all thing a 4yo should be doing?