No Help Wanted

Tiny is fiercely independent these days. Sometimes this is a great thing. Other times it is not. I know that Tiny doing something “all by self” is going to take longer than if I were to do it, so I try to give her as much time as possible to complete her task. And it’s great when she’s able to do something herself. She is incredibly proud of her accomplishment, even if it is just throwing a tissue into the trash can inside the kitchen cabinet.

But when she’s working on something tricky- like getting dressed or putting on her shoes and socks- and time has run out, you’d think that my offer to help was really just a horrible threat in disguise. They way she screams, kicks, hits- it’s insane. And so far today, we’ve been through this twice. Once when she needed to get her shoes on to go out for a playdate (she had about 10 minutes to do so, and did manage to get one on during that time), and once when she wanted to peel a sticker off of it’s waxy paper just before nap time (she’d been working on it for about 5 minutes and refused to let me start it for her).

I’m all for raising independent kids, and I’m willing to allow extra time so that my kids can do something for themselves. But there are certainly times when we are up against time, and I need to teach Tiny that getting help is not a bad thing. Any suggestions?