Little Miss Independent
NikkiZ really enjoys helping me out with a various sort of activities. She likes to shake bottles for AndyZ after I mix the formula and water. She wants to stir anything cooking on the stove and she loves to dump cans of vegetables into the pots before I put them on the stove. None of these things I mind her helping me with as there’s really no “wrong” way for them to be done.
However…
She also likes to dust for me, and while I’m not anal about dusting (I don’t even move frames off shelves most of the time) I do like the dust to be removed from the shelf and touched lightly with a cloth. She takes the rag and just barely touches the shelf and then moves on. Leaving me to come behind her to do it properly. Which would be fine if she didn’t get so DAMN PISSY about it. She’ll watch me and put that hand on that hip and whine, “Moooom! I just did that shelf!” She considers it quite an insult when I go behind her. So, I find myself waiting until she’s not looking to re-dust my shelves. Which makes the whole process of dusting a lot more time-consuming than it should be.
NikkiZ has also decided that she should be in charge of dressing herself all the time. I’m slowly learning how to direct her to choosing outfits I pick out, but somedays she gets dressed before I can set stuff out for her to choose from. Those days she walks out in cotton striped shorts, a blousey floral top, hot-pink dora socks and navy blue Mary Janes. And that’s a good day. While I really don’t care too much about what she wears, I do like her to at least NOT STICK OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB. I mean, if her clothes don’t match…no big deal. But – if she’s wearing short shorts in the winter time? With sandals and a rain jacket? She tends to get noticed.
What tasks do your children feel qualified to take on themselves? What – of those tasks – do you actually let them do? Because I’m torn between wanting to make my life easier (Here’s the vacuum NikkiZ, have at it!) and getting things done as close to “right” as possible.
(And trust me when I say I have a very liberal definition of “right”. I let the dogs clean up spills in the kitchen…I’m not a picky woman.)
I am trying to set up a system with Anjali whereby she chooses the shirt and I choose the pants. I am even letting her choose Arun’s shirts because he could care less. So far, it is working, but who knows for how long?
Overall, I am facing similar challenges with Arun. I try to fake him out (like letting him shake/pour while I am also holding the container). I am not confident this will work for very long.
Dude, this momma NEVER dusts (well hardly ever). So if she needs more dusting experience that isn’t quite right, you can send her my way.
i’ve heard parents who have baskets, and their kids can pick whatever clothes they want out of the baskets. that way you can ensure there’s seasonally-appropriate clothes in there, and that they all match fairly well. it allows younger kids to be independant, while still ensuring they’re not in shortie shorts in January or wearing florals with stripes!
and it’s much less “contrived” than Granimals are. you could even have a few baskets, one for each day of the week or whatever, to give her more options in her mind.
My daughter went through a big jeans phase. That’s all she would wear. So even now, that’s what she has to choose for pants every day (during cool weather of course) We have quite a variety. Then she picks the shirt and we’re done and it matches.
I learned quickly though, after the seasons change, get in there and box up the shorts & short sleeves. Otherwise she’s the first grader wanting to wear a tank top and skort when there’s three inches of snow outside. If she can’t find it, she can’t wear it – that’s my theory.
For the other independence stuff, we let her attempt to do it within reason of course. Then when she’s in bed I would go back and do it the “right” way. But I’m not sure of what this dusting is you are referring to. It hasn’t been done in my house in….well, a long time.
Have you shown her how you like the dusting done? Maybe you could try making a game of it to teach her, like each of you dust a shelf and then run a clean white sock over it and see whose sock is cleanest. This may only work if she’s the competitive type.
As far as dressing herself, people pretty much can tell when a kid dresses herself and I, for one, think it’s pretty adorable even if the clothes match horribly (well, for someone her age). For being seasonably appropriate, that basket idea sounds good to me.
get her a feather duster, it’ll get more dust off – might be a happy compromise
as for the dressing, Audrey wanted to wear tights today. We have no skirts, so she’s wearing orange striped tights, denim shorts, and an orange shirt. Whatever, she’s been bathed in the last week. That’s what really counts, right? Right?
My now 9 year old is rather an eclectic dresser and it started when she wanted to dress herself. My only rule was that it had to be seasonal–no shorts in winter, etc. She is very free with color & pattern and has no inhibitions about what she is wearing and is extremely confident. Most days it is funny–other days, I’m glad I don’t have to look at her. I have made a slight effort to make sure that most of what she has coordinates or is reasonably close–not too much pattern. The latest “trend”, now picked up by most of the 4th grade is wearing two different socks. Sigh.
So I can’t exactly answer your question, since I don’t have kids yet, but I do let the dog clean up spills for me! Just curious…do you give NikkiZ an actual cloth, or do you do the old sock-mittens-as-dusters trick? Cuz somehow I think swiping dust with your hand covered in a sock is more fun than using a rag…and you could make it a competition to see who’s sock gets dirtier, and then do sock puppet stories! Or okay, maybe that’s just a little gross. But it worked on me when I was a kid…
Tasks? My kids are teenagers. I am tickled pink when they voluntarily do anything!
They’re actually not too bad about picking up their rooms, putting their own laundry away, and helping with a good bit of the yard work.
The Girl seems SO MUCH like NikkiZ – only a bit younger.
She INSISTS on picking out her clothing, most days it’s easy to persuade her if she’s REALLY off, but I won’t lie – there are days where she’s left wearing a l/s shirt (my comprimise) over a summer dress, pj pants and those crocs w/ the fuzzy inserts. or the PJs from teh night before becuase she IS my child and LURVES to wear her PJs. I’ve tried limiting her options, but she has this thing about loving to look in her drawers and pull out clothing. So now we’ve made the bottom 2 drawers in her dresser for her to choose from, and the top are still Pj’s and other clothes (used to be diapers and such, move that elsewhere) and as I do laundry I try to rotate things so she isn’t picking the same stuff every week, and so she acutally TRIES other shirts before deicding that, no, she ABSOLUTLY MUST were the “howl” (it’s an owl) shirt for the third time this week.
She also loves to help, but like Nikki she doesn’t always do the very “best” job, BUT I really liek that she asks to help and I hope that maybe if I jsut encourage it and thank her for being my helper that it will continue later (dilusional, I’m sure) so I just suck it up and go back after her when she’s asleep. And of course silently hope that she soon gains the arms strength to actually, like PUSH the vacuum.
oh how I wished the kids I babysat wanted to help with anything!! getting them to pick up toys at the end of the night is brutal.
I have such a hard time with this. R wants to help me with EVERYTHING from stirring pancake batter (oh God, the flour on my countertops!) to changing her own diaper (don’t get me started). I don’t want to squelch her independence, but I also don’t want to spend a extra five minutes cleaning up after her… but I usually end up letting her do whatever she wants, even if it creates more work for me. I’m hoping it’s teaching her how to be self-sufficient (and helpful) and not just creating meaningless extra work for myself.
Meghan’s getting to the age where she wants to help with everything. When I empty the bin the in kitchen, she wants to help me put a new liner in. She also wants to fasten herself in her booster seat when she’s about to have her breakfast/lunch/dinner. One thing she WON’T help with is cleaning up her toys. That’s mummy job. Obviously. Maybe you should assign her a new job, telling her you LOVE dusting and you really want to do it yourself. At least it will make it easier on you.
Independent…yes. Creative–I bet she’s amazing!
I don’t have any answers…maybe creatively ‘teaching’ how mommy dusts the shelves or why we dress for the weather. I have a thermometer that has a dude on it–cooler weather and he dons a long sleeved shirt–even cooler on goes a hat and scarf…if it’s really hot he’s in his swim trunks. Kinda fun to have around to help decide what should be worn.
: )
We are independent. Julie wants to blow her own nose, dress herself, go outside alone, she wants to know what everything tastes like when I am baking, and I let her try things. She now distinctly remembers not liking vanilla.
Even at almost 4 her “help” is not always very helpful, but if I dont encourage her then she wont learn to help others. Its a catch 22 really.
Wow, you dust? I’m unqualified to comment since a 3-year-old would do a much better job cleaning my house than I do. There are things I’m picky about, but I’d probably let dusting go, and dressing to some extent, although I’m with you on shorts and sandals in winter.
I’ve read that when you “re-do” it makes children feel that what they do is not good enough(even other things you didn’t re-do), and so maybe they aren’t good enough. We encouraged our boys to help in the kitchen ever since they were able. Keeping within the safety zone and not insisting, ever. Now I have an eleven-year-old who can cook simple dinners with minimum supervision and a nine-year-old who makes his own eggs & toast and is eager to learn more. Yay.
I have 3 kids that are grown and gone and one 10 year old stepdaughter in the house and I DO NOT let kids in the kitchen. Say what you want, blah blah they never learn to cook blah blah, but it makes me a FREAK if there are kids underfoot. No stirring, no dumping, nothing. Get out.
We do have a pretty strict chore system tho, and that started from w-a-y early, like 2 years old. Every kid always had SOME sort of chore. Now Emma (the 10 year old) does about 20-30 mins of chores a day and does all her own laundry.
At least your little girl enjoys wearing clothes. If mine had it their way they would never wear them. Jessi constanly asks me if she can take her clothes off- and that’s usually in public. You should imagine the looks I get…
Well, since you’re not doing this whole parenting thing right, I thought I’d leave you an eighteen paragraph comment about how I’d do it.
BWAHAHAHA.
Seriously, I think your daughter shines past her clothing. My plans in “enabling” my children involves stocking the bottom two shelves of the fridge with foods Tony can eat. The. End.
Hmmm, having input to what my daughter wears – I wish. On a good day I will get to add to the ensemble but that is about it. I have the girl who wears shorty shorts in the middle of winter she merely adds a pair of ‘loud’ tights, legwarmers and a faux fur lined jacket. I give up and instead take photos as a reminder of the dress tastes of the princess!
As for kids helping with chores, when the handle of my broom broke, it became the perfect kid-sized sweeping tool and for some reason both kids think sweeping is fun! I also get my kids to cook with me – if they help cooking they always eat the results, even if there are ingredients used they don’t like! Encourage any ‘help’ offered, I say live with the almost dusted rooms, they are only going to get dusty again anyway.
When my kids were NikkiZ’s age, I had their school outfits assembled on hangers complete down to the accessories (which makes me sound much more organized than I actually was) and before their feet hit the floor from the bed, I’d have two hangers with their choices. “This one? Or this one?” And then on weekends they could pick whatever they wanted from their “playclothes drawer.”
This doesn’t work for very long and it doesn’t work for every child. Now that my kids are older, I write a note at the beginning of the school year and send it in to their teacher. “I encourage Erin to explore her creativity by selecting her own clothes every day.” In other words, I’m not responsible for what they wear!
Hey! I’m in a hurry this morning, so I didn’t have time to read all of the comments. Please forgive me if this is a repeat hint! I had a very particular little guy and we would end up spending 20-30 minutes every morning waiting for him to decide what to wear. So I bought one of those hanging sweater things (http://www.organizedliving.com/product/special+products/sweater+storage/hanging+canvas+sweater+organizer.do). On Sunday we would choose 6 outfits and put one in each hole. Then every morning he would just grab one and go. It made things WAY less stressful. On Sundays (after church) he could wear whatever he wanted.
HA! I spelled my name wrong.
My children are both boys and neither of them can do anything for themselves. I pick out there clothes and put them in the same spot every morning. They put them on and they go on about their business. The times I’ve sent them to their room to get their own “anything”, they return swearing there is nothing of the such in their room. I mean, if you can’t look in the drawer and find the underwear that have been in the exact same spot for the last 3 years of your life, how are you expected to find a shirt and pair of pants in a closet that is over flowing?
Boys are easier in that they wear what I lay out, they are harder in that one is “3.75 years old and refuses to learn to use the potty”.
Mine doesn’t dress himself yet, but one day I put the shoes on the wrong feet, and later someone said “did he dress himself today”. I didn’t say much after that.