Moms of 5/6 year olds....

[spedrunner]

what independent skills do you EXPECT from your children or think are important to start working on now?



for example, cleaning up the table after themselves, making bed, folding laundry, etc



At this age what are your goals/expectations?



Read more: pandce.proboards.com/thread/312959/moms-5-6-year-olds#ixzz2yle0fLDl

[cinnamoncox]

I'd say picking up after themselves is a big one to focus on.
When DS was little (he's 15), I never cleaned until he went to bed or was napping. We would play and then he would go to bed and I did all the cleaning.
He ended up just assuming I (or anyone but him, really) did all the cleaning, because that's all he knew.
And by the time I expected him to clean up, it was like teaching a toddler even though he was like 7, because he just had never had to clean.

With my toddlers now (they are almost four), since they were about three I've been making the rule that they clean up whatever they are doing before they move on to the next thing.

There have been times I've had to bag up whatever they left out and taken away so they know they need to do it.

It's working so far.

I wish I knew more about that age, when DS was 6 I was just trying to keep him from tearing my house apart in fits of tantrums

[KB]

Dressing/undressing, brushing teeth, making the bed, picking up toys, clearing dishes, helping load/unload dishwasher. Too much?

[litebright]

I really wish I could get her to wash independently. She still takes baths (which my pedi says is age-appropriate), but I always have to remind her to wash various parts of her body and no way could she handle washing her hair on her own. It's long and thick.

Bathtime is still primarily playtime for her and DD2, as far as she's concerned.

She has come a long way with toothbrushing. Appropriate pressure and scrubbing motion, although I always give her teeth a once-over after she's had a chance to do some of the brushing on her own.

[gnorah]

I think he was bathing/showering/washing his hair by himself, brushing his teeth, getting dressed, and tidying up his toys. I think he may have been helping to unload the dishwasher.

He didn't do any of it WELL. We still struggle with showers/washing hair/brushing teeth, although we've made some big progress with teeth brushing in the last couple of months. His dentist has been awesome!

(He also "helps" my husband shovel snow, but that's probably not what you're talking about!)

[imojoebunny]

My DD would not do any of those things at 5-6 years old. She is getting better about helping to clean, not making such a big mess, now that she is 7, almost 8. She started dressing herself the summer she turned 7. She can make her own oatmeal in the morning, and checks her backpack each day before school with a posted list. Reading helped her a lot. She can read the labels on bins now and knows what goes where. She has visual Processing problems, which makes organization and reading difficult for her, she is also small for her age, and notably lacks coordination (for example, she is not aware of where her body is in space all he time, so she will walk leaning against the wall to get the input from the wall), all things that play into cleaning and dressing herself. She washes her self, except for her hair now, but could not when she was 6.

She was good at gardening, so we encouraged her to have her own garden and be responsible for that to work on responsibility. I tried things like cleaning up one toy before getting out another, or losing the toy left out, but it was too much for her. She didn't want to lose her toys, but she could not figure out how to put them away on her own. It was confusing because in many ways she is smart and mature, but the functional aspect of somethings, she really struggled. We thought for a while she was defiant in preschool, then ADHD when she started full time school, but the visual processing seems to be the real problem. Working on that and learning work arounds for the limitations it presents has made all our lives much more pleasant.

[mividaloca]

Dd is 5 1/2. We are still working on using a fork or spoon. Potty training and have a pinching, biting, head hitting b.I.p. those are our goals right now.
Long term goals would be cleaning up toys and throwing away trash in the can. And self care skills like brushing teeth.