Encouraging Dressing

[LGBirmingham]

Anybody got any tips.

I would like to encourage my 3 and 3/4s age child to dress himself. He will start school next September and it would be great if he could do everything, and actually did do everything, himself by then. I think it would help him no-end when he's in school changing for PE etc... if it is already second nature.

He's actually pretty good it at it. He can do pants, trousers, shoes (velcro) and coats very competently (thank you nursery). Tshirts/ jumpers he can half do. Socks not at all. Zips not yet. He also can't take somethings off, such as tshitrs/jumpers.

The biggest problem I have is not lack of ability but lack of wanting to do it. Getting clothes on can be quite a battle anyway and he often just says 'you do it' about getting items on and inevitably we are in a hurry and need to get out so we just do it for him. I have had some success at bed time by sitting on my hands and pretending they are trapped and saying the only way he can free them is by putting the pyjamas on himself, which works sometimes and not others. When it doesn't work we just have a lunatic running round his bedroom.

Anyone got any tips for how to show children how to do the tasks, but also how to convince them that they want to do it themselves?

Look up "backward chaining" - basically you do nearly everything in the task, but allow them to do the very last bit. Then after they've succeeded with that, do everything but then let them do the second last bit. And so on until they can do the whole thing.

Buy socks in a bigger size or new ones which haven’t shrunk in the wash so they’re easier to put on.

Oh that's a good idea. And might also help with the lack of will to do it, because one of us has already done half of the task. Thanks for the tip.

He's actually just gone up to a bigger sock size which seem to be way bigger than his feet, so now must be a good time to really try and crack this.