[Iveyrock]

Originally Posted by ArmsOfLove

when my children were younger I had to insert myself into the cleaning situation and oversee and direct as a group thing - I would give assignments that allowed me to help one at a time. so I might be helping someone do something that would be tough for them, but I might also need to repeatedly get someone else back on task. I just make sure enough people are doing things easy for them that they don't need me standing over them. If multiple children need lots of help then I have them all help me with something so I can be directing them all.

Wanting them to be independent did nothing but frustrate me and them I stopped for my own sake and then I saw it help them

---------- Post added at 10:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:38 AM ----------

I also had to let go of age as a determination of what they should be able to do and look at what they could do and just go with that. that was the reality

I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out - I want to let go of expectations that are too much, but it throws me when A) they are things that kids have been able to handle ok in the past and B) what does that mean for the rest of his life, if he can't handle age appropriate chores? Does he then get treated as age appropriate in other areas?

I am thinking through changing the timing of chores up - the thing is, it's been this way since.. .forever, and I'm processing the gains in switching things up with the routine and stability that the special needs kids also need.

I went and looked in his room, to make sure I was representing this correctly, and the stuff that he has to pick up for "tidy his room" The kids don't play in their room at all, so it's really only the stuff from over night. Today he has his blankets, which fall under making the bed, his stuffed animals, that get thrown up on the bed as part of making it, and the pile of library books he looked at last night that he needs to pick up and put with the other library books. I can see getting rid of his individual job, although as I've been typing this out I am realizing that's the thing he does the best with. I don't know if it's because by the time he gets to that point he's decided to function, or cause he likes it, or what...

The biggest problem, really, is the learned helplessness, and I don't know that anyone can help me with that. In the past, I have stayed with him the entire time that he did his chores. That resulted in going from being able to do his chores, but taking a long time to do them, to just literally turning his body off if I walked away to go pee or something, to believing that he couldn't do it without my help, to.... the more help I gave him, the more he believed he couldn't do. It's just super hard and frustrating to deal with. The big problem that happened today is that I tried to talk to him about the fact that he was acting crazy, instead of cleaning up - which results in him just turning his brain off. There's nothing functional I can DO with that, and it's just... frustrating.

As far as the 8 year old - she just likes things to be fun, and balks when they aren't. I feel like she needs things to be constantly mixed up, which is hard when other kids really need routine. I can work on that, though, that's fixable.