Self help skills!

My almost 3 yo dck has no self help skills whatsoever! refuses to put on her own shoes, pull down her own pants to potty, use a utensil etc.! It boggles my mind, really. All my other dck rush to do things themselves, are so proud of their accomplishments and this girl just sits on the floor and whines until I help her. I have tried to encourage her, tried to show other kids doing it, tried incorporating fun song and game to see if she would attempt it, Ive even ignored her in hopes she would try. nothing. She is an only child and very babied at home, but this is really starting to grate my nerves...anyone else have a child like this?

wow, this is my new dcg! exact same thing and same situation at home. I leave her to it e.g. eating with a spoon as she'll figure it out when she gets hungry. I help her with the shoes but I teach her as I am doing it. I praise all the other kids like crazy as well.

torontokids- how old is your dcg? I have had others like this but they were much younger in age and not as stubborn haha

just turned 3. My 3 yo dcb was like this a little when he started but he just grew to understand what I expected of him. He still won't do things for his parents that he does for me.

Continue to teach the child how to do things and once you know she has the skills just not the desire start making it in her best interest to get it done - put shoes on after nap then come for snack - serve something good like a fancy cookie or fruit cut in funny shapes. Then serve the regular snack - if she misses out on the fancy too bad she at least has the mundane graham cracker everyone else has. Hopefully she will realize that she only gets the things the big kids get if she acts like one.

Sometimes it helps to let parents know that the child is missing out because she does not have the skills that her peers do so instead of getting the fancy shaped food she is getting you serving a dish of mush, etc. It will either spur them to action when they see what really is "normal" for her age or it will annoy them enough they pull her.

Im going to keep working with her, but it is getting frustrating. she is highly intelligent and more than capable, just refuses. Im just not seeing any progress and that makes it difficult. Other children that Ive had before atleast you could see some improvement happening, not with this girl.

I have one of those and they're 3 as well. It drives me crazy!! I have a 2 year old in my care and they put on their shoes (most times on the wrong feet), and they put on their jacket all on their own, but not the 3 yo. I know he can do it, just refuses to as I'm sure at home Mom & Dad do it for him, so I give him some tough love. There are times when he sits by the front door for up to 20 mins until he decides to take off his own shoes. Eventually he realizes that no one here is going to do it for him, so he takes them off and joins us.

This was me with my own son. He had just turned 2.5 and I got a job at a licensed centre. He was allowed to come to the daycare with me.
Within the first week I was amazed at what all these little ones were capable of that my own son wasn't. The other ECE's really made it a point to tell me how behind he was........but that is what I needed. I was a first time mom and obviously living in some sort of cloud. It took a lot of work at home to get him to be where he needed to be in daycare life.
I just wonder if the parents really know the severity of how far behind your dcg is? Because I needed someone to point blank tell me to suck it up and get on with it with my son!!!!!:laugh:
My second child........well he has much more self help skills........not making that mistake twice!!!!

Another reason why taking children as young as possible almost always works out better because they grow up doing what is expected at daycare.

I have this problem with a 27 month old in my care, but he is quite behind in most ways, so it is more a case of not having the skills at all...but at the same time his parents baby him, so it worsens. I am going to send out a little email to all of my parents tonight about working on these things at home as it is much harder for me to take the one-on-one time to teach how to take off shoes or put on boots etc...if they were practicing with one-on-one instruction from parents, it would go so much faster!

One of the reasons kids have issues with shoes is because parents insist on those silly robeez slippers and therefore they don't get the practice from an early age. I have 2 almost two year olds still wearing them and of course come outside time they have only had a handful of times to even see shoes since we didn't start wearing shoes outside till end of May - till then it was still boots.