Suburbanmummyuk's Blog

Eliza is turning 4 soon and while she has always, ALWAYS been frightfully independent she has lately decided to be come also incredibly lazy.

She’ll quite happily admit that is it’s because “mum will do it anyway” and I guess I do with some things, others like putting your dirty clothes in the basket at the end of the day, NO. You have to do that.

I’ve always had a drawer or a cupboard with their plates & cups etc in I know kids like to play in the kitchen cupboards, so I’ve made sure there is one safe one. But in my kitchen I have some open shelving next to their table where they eat. I placed all their things (except beakers) on this shelf. Now they are totally in control of laying their table & helping themselves to the cutlery.

Things I expect

Put your toys away before bath time.

Put all toys next to the shed in the garden for me to put away

Put your dirty clothes in the basket

Put your clean socks/vests/pants in your drawers in the right place.

Take your cups to the kitchen & your dirty plates.

Eliza & Jerry are both pretty good on this. They love putting their clean clothes away & are very polite I get lots of thank you’s for washing & ironing.

I do have to constantly ask for them to tidy up, I always help them & make a game of it, “I bet I’m the quickest” which means the highly competitive Eliza must win & she works very fast.

I also moved Eliza’s clothes to a lower hanging wardrobe so she can reach her clothes and get dressed herself, she still has a lot of trouble getting dressed, but she loves the independence of picking her clothes for the day. All the nice stuff party dresses, expensive clothes are in another wardrobe where she can’t reach.

All training for September when she starts school and I will then have a new baby and a toddler and her to all get out the door in time for the school bell!

What have you done/doing to help your child gain independence?