immediate obedience

[Beth1231]

I break things into very manageable chunks. Walk down the hall. Open your closet door. Red shirt or blue shirt today? Etc. It feels more like a Simon Says type of game to my three year old when I do this.
My seven year old can handle larger chunks of instruction that encompass more steps.
The times that they must get dressed NOW (generally if we're running late on Sunday),I am apologetic and explain the situation as I'm dressing my son or handing my daughter her shoes/jacket etc. When the stakes are higher,I'm much more likely to start yelling if I don't see my kids moving fast enough. So in those times,I just make it happen and try to concentrate on our relationship than the details of the task (like what my daughter chooses to wear).

[mamacat]

Honestly if they are those ages and you are home would not get stressed about them even being dressed.We have our sleep and home clothing so instead of having PJs and then daytime clothes we wear soft and comfy clothes to bed that can just stay in the next day unless have to go out someplace and get dressed up more. Then it is just a matter of them brushing teeth and washing hands and faces.

[Soliloquy]

I really, really understand the strong desire to have them dress themselves and stay focused. It is rare for a child that age (especially with siblings) to stay focused on mundane things like getting dressed.

My advice is to tweak your morning so they are getting dressed with you in the room, preferable with you standing right there, with a big smile, keeping them on track.

A few ideas:

Pick out all their clothes the night before and take them to YOUR room. Have the kids come into your room in the morning and you supervise them getting dressed. At first, you will have to give it your full attention. In time, you will be able to multi-task.

Have them sleep in soft, cotton play clothes.

Use a timer and make it a game/challenge. "Can you get yourselves dressed before the timer goes off? If you can, we'll use the extra time to make pancakes!" This helps teach them that less dawdling means more time for other activities.

Also, keep in mind that dawdling is an important part of childhood. Yes, they need to learn to follow through and learn good, daily habits. But there's a lot of learning and growing going on when kids are "just" fooling around.

[RainbowDash]

and of course today was a day they both got dressed on their own, with no reminders. it's like they knew i posted about it.

i think the thing that bothers me, and really more my husband, is the attitude issues. like, if they just got distracted, but went back on task with a better attitude if we reminded them, i could handle it, even with multiple distractions/reminders. but when it's a bad attitude, a defiant attitude, it makes me crazy. my kidergartener especially can have a huge attitude about doing things.

[mamacat]

Yeah hes five.It helps not to take it personally and get engaged on that level if you can!

[LovingMummy]

Originally Posted by mamacat

Honestly if they are those ages and you are home would not get stressed about them even being dressed.We have our sleep and home clothing so instead of having PJs and then daytime clothes we wear soft and comfy clothes to bed that can just stay in the next day unless have to go out someplace and get dressed up more. Then it is just a matter of them brushing teeth and washing hands and faces.

We end up doing this a lot too. More because I don't feel like changing 3 children multiple times a day! DD is still in her (clean) dress from yesterday, I'll change her tonight. I was just reading about how in some cultures children still wear the same outfit days in a row (it was in Asia, can't remember exactly where)

[Soliloquy]

It wasn't that long ago that, in this country, people had TWO outfits. One for everyday, one for Sunday. Plus a nightgown.

[LovingMummy]

Yes- little house comes to mind!

[MegMarch]

FWIW, I've found that for my daughter she gets dressed way more easily if we do it right after she wakes up and is already undressing to pee. If we hang out in PJs for awhile, she's moved on from "getting ready mode" to "woohoo, I love playing with everything and eating and hey, Ma! mode" and it's a lot harder.

I've also found that if I am thinking "Kid! Stop playing around, let's just do this" it means I need to stop seriousing around and join the fun while getting her dressed. For us lately, it means we use magic to turn into something and roll with that. Example - tonight she was not ok with tooth brushing. So mad about it all but still jumping around being a weirdo. So I got her to poof me into a frog, who ate her finger which was a fly. Then I poofed her into my baby frog and the toothbrush was her fly. Done.

[mommychem]

Originally Posted by MegMarch

FWIW, I've found that for my daughter she gets dressed way more easily if we do it right after she wakes up and is already undressing to pee. If we hang out in PJs for awhile, she's moved on from "getting ready mode" to "woohoo, I love playing with everything and eating and hey, Ma! mode" and it's a lot harder.

I've also found that if I am thinking "Kid! Stop playing around, let's just do this" it means I need to stop seriousing around and join the fun while getting her dressed. For us lately, it means we use magic to turn into something and roll with that. Example - tonight she was not ok with tooth brushing. So mad about it all but still jumping around being a weirdo. So I got her to poof me into a frog, who ate her finger which was a fly. Then I poofed her into my baby frog and the toothbrush was her fly. Done.

Playful parenting for the win!!

[Stefanierose88]

RainbowDash, I'm sorry if I missed your intro but have you used spanking and required immediate obedience? I know that I read "Shepherding a Child's Heart" and many of those types insist on immediate, unquestioning, obedience. Its good to learn different expectations. I am very sensitive to attitude as well, and I always "script" my children to say "please mommy, thank you mommy"etc, so I get that. Its not about letting your children be rude, but having that set in stone "immediate, unquestioning" expectation is not realistic or necessary, I believe.

*Often when I am annoyed because my children aren't dressing fast enough or something similar, I take a deep breath and say a quick prayer and RELAX. When I am relaxed, I often see the situation as much less serious and I am able to help them with a good attitude towards them and less stress!

[milkmommy]

we learned a long time ago to stream line clothes for the kids especially. Cecilia was our stripper. She would not keep clothes on when at home EVER drove me batty.. Having a bunch of choices just gave her more time to fuss..
Margaret is my fashionista She'll spend 2 hours selecting the "perfect" outfit limiting her choices at the very least speeds her up a big.

We do a lot of "mix and match" types clothing basically where all pants go with Any shirt ect.. enough for a full week. I have no desire to have them where clothes over multiple days. But not much else and where any pant/shirt wil work with any top choice plus a few more dressy Church/concert/special occasion dresses which for Margaret I keep in my closet or she will try to wear them all the time.

[rjy9343]

I grew up getting punished for attitude and it is really hard for me to not come down on Ivy like a ton of bricks. When she says something that I would have gotten in trouble do saying or says it the wrong way, it seriously takes a lot out of me not to grab a switch and beat that attitude right out of her.
I have not done that only because I have been here long enough to understand that children that young are not rude and rebellious, but because they are still learning. They are often trying out what they saw somewhere and wondering what will happen when they use this tone or that name.
One thing we quickly realized when we started easing our screen time rules, is that there are certain shows that are supposedly for young children that are full of incredibly bad behavior that is shown as the norm. When we noticed that, we explained to her that x shows are not okay in our family because they show people being unkind as if it is normal and okay. Because of that, those shows are not allowed in our home.
Once we cut out the shows that depicted rude and unkind behavior, a lot her attitude was gone. If you allow screen time, it might be worth considering what is in the shows you allow. One thing we noticed is that most of the shows have a character hurting others for most of the show and only spend that last few minutes making it right and that was where Ivy was getting confused.
The other thing we realized is that until fairly recently, we were pretty sarcastic with each other. It was fun until Ivy started getting snarky with us. We had to change the way we speak to each other since she was picking up some of that from us. Oops.
Just what helped us, hope some of it helps you.

[Stefanierose88]

Originally Posted by rjy9343

I grew up getting punished for attitude and it is really hard for me to not come down on Ivy like a ton of bricks. When she says something that I would have gotten in trouble do saying or says it the wrong way, it seriously takes a lot out of me not to grab a switch and beat that attitude right out of her.
I have not done that only because I have been here long enough to understand that children that young are not rude and rebellious, but because they are still learning. They are often trying out what they saw somewhere and wondering what will happen when they use this tone or that name.
One thing we quickly realized when we started easing our screen time rules, is that there are certain shows that are supposedly for young children that are full of incredibly bad behavior that is shown as the norm. When we noticed that, we explained to her that x shows are not okay in our family because they show people being unkind as if it is normal and okay. Because of that, those shows are not allowed in our home.
Once we cut out the shows that depicted rude and unkind behavior, a lot her attitude was gone. If you allow screen time, it might be worth considering what is in the shows you allow. One thing we noticed is that most of the shows have a character hurting others for most of the show and only spend that last few minutes making it right and that was where Ivy was getting confused.
The other thing we realized is that until fairly recently, we were pretty sarcastic with each other. It was fun until Ivy started getting snarky with us. We had to change the way we speak to each other since she was picking up some of that from us. Oops.
Just what helped us, hope some of it helps you.

This is so true about the screen time! We don't have cable but we do have movies and a DVD player. Sometimes we have bought or rented a movie we thought was good but a character is very rude or mean or hurtful. Noemi has repeated exactly the same words/actions and I have had to explain why its not okay to imitate that and the movie got taken away.

[rjy9343]

We don't have a tv, but we do have Netflix. It is appalling to us what is passing for kids' entertainment.