Teaching practical skills - what resources are there and what should my DS be able to do?

[mrsgboring]

I am possibly the least practical person I know and feel all at sea about helping DS with learning dressing, eating etc. Is my DS, at 3.4 roughly on track or behind?

He can dress himself in t-shirt, trousers, socks and velcro shoes but can't do his coat (and I am mystified as to how to teach him)

He's very resistant to potty training, although perfectly capable of being dry in the day, he has minimal/no bowel control (or none that he's prepared to admit to) so obviously can't wipe his own bottom.

Can use a spoon, fork and knife but only one at a time, never together. Again, I don't know how to teach him or encourage him to try.

I know it sounds stupid, but does anyone know of books/websites that will help me with this stuff, particularly a foolproof method for coat putting on? Everything DS can do at the moment he's fairly much worked out himself, but he's very resistant to trying to do more, and if I fluff around saying, "You put your arm in here - oh no you're better off putting it down and... ummmmmm turn it round, see if that works. Oh no, that's back to front..." it's of course just going to put him off more.

I work with children of this age and I have taught them all to put on their coats and eat with a knife and fork
They can all wipe their own bottom and wash and dry their hands
They can pour out their own drinks froma jug and use a dustpan and brush

Here is how to teach them to put on their coat
Put the hood on their head and they just need to put their arms in! It really works. It just takes patience and me telling them that they can't go out to play until they have put their coats on.
Having lots of dressing up clothes helps too
As for using a knife and fork, children learn best by adults modelling the correct way to use them. We don't use spoons as children should be able to use a knife and fork at this age, and we use small child size proper cutlery, none of that plastic rubbish.
The trick is to have high expectations abd not to do everything for them!

hay you sound like you are doing just fine..
keep giving him a knife and folk
keep going with the potty training saying things like your a big bouy and big boys go on the toilet.
Encourage him to wipe his bum by saying now you have had a poo we need to wipe your bum.

Get him to wipe it at the end.
If he wont even do that practice taking his teady to the loo and getting him to go through what we do on the toilet.

On sparklebox.co.uk you will find sighns on how to put your coat on in three steps it might be useful to print that off.

hope that helps

Thank you both for these. He is so resistant to attempting new things at the moment. Hope it's just a phase....

Also for putting coat on - Put on the floor with the outside on the ground. Stand at the top, put arms in sleeves and flip arms and coat over head!!!

I hope that makes sense

Message withdrawn

Thanks Yurtgirl and Bloss - the coat putting on explanations have helped a lot. (Have seen others do this but it didn't happen in slow enough motion for me to work out what on earth they were up to)