Independence

It was gently suggested to me that I need to make Gus do more things for himself. I know that I should, but when I try to it usually ends up in frustration, annoyance and all-around negativity for both of us. So perhaps I'm a bad parent for taking the easy way out, but I'm trying to fix it. This is what it sounded like this morning as we were waiting for the school bus:

"Okay, now we have to put on socks and sneakers." I hand Gus his socks. "Put your socks on, please." He holds his socks and starts reading a book. I take the book and tell him he can have it when he's done getting ready.

"Put your socks on." He drops them on the stairs and goes for a sticker book.

"Put your socks on." He places a sticker in his sticker book. I take the sticker book and place it away from him on the table.

"Gus, please put your socks on, then you can have the book." He takes the sticker book back and ignores me.

I guide him back to the stairs and hand him the socks. "Put. Your. Socks. On." He picks up a sock and stares off into space. I greatly desire to slam my head into the wall several times.

This is a truncated version of what we went through for each article of clothing this morning. I can have him dressed and ready for school in 10 minutes. It took us about half an hour. I must have repeated myself at least fifty times.

I will try going back to the schedule posted, but with having him do more things on his own and having to break down each step, that will be a lot of little tags for he schedule board. The school aides readily admitted that it would take a lot of redirection (holy cow, what an understatement) but that he was capable of doing things for himself. I know he is and at six and a half, I should really be making him less dependent on me. The question is, am I capable of keeping my head from slamming through the wall every morning?