Losing my mind with 9-year old son

[Malara]

We have a 9-year old son and 5-year old daughter.

Our son is not able to do things without us standing over him. We send him upstairs to get dressed, go up 15m later and he's reading a book. For his bedtime routine, it's the same thing. We have to stand beside him and make sue he does everything.

Other basic things like taking his lunch box or out of his school bag, bringing his dirty laundry downstairs, putting his dishes in the dishwasher. None of it happens without us reminding him 2,3,4 times.

At this age we feel he should also be doing more like setting/clearing the table, folding clean clothes etc but he acts completely outraged every time we ask him and whines endlessly.

I'm determined not to raise a son who things household chores are someone else's job and I really don't like threatening or lecturing the kids but my partner and I are losing our minds over the situation.

Has anyone had a anyone experience and if so, did you find anything that worked?

Sounds like a perfectly normal 9 year old to me. He doesn’t have a fully developed pre-frontal cortex (and won’t until approx 21 years old). He’s still very young. Also children develop at different rates so, of course there are children that are much more reliable/responsible than your son, but what you’re describing is perfectly normal for his age. He clearly needs a little more support and scaffolding which is fine

i also think we tend to expect a lot of the oldest child. He seems so grown up compared to a 5 year old. But when your 5 year old is 9 and he’s 13 you will still think of your youngest as “the baby”