Saturday, March 17, 2012

Parenting a "Slow" Child

One of our daughters is a slowpoke.  We have 5 daughters and I won't name the specific child :-).

When I say "slow", I don't mean intellectually slow. She's VERY bright, almost scary bright.

BUT she moves slowly, especially in the morning.  She hops up pretty well out of bed, but then sits at the table and s..l..o..w..l..y eats breakfast, all the while chattering away about whatever is on her mind.  After breakfast, she usually needs to use the bathroom and again, she spends an amazing amount of time "hanging out on the potty". On occasion, I have realized she's been sitting on the potty for 20+ minutes!  And no, there is nothing medical going on, she's just concerned about being thoroughly cleaned up to the point of obsessive.  And often a sibling sneaks in to chat, and that's fun too!

  All this is kind of cute, but I admit it is a struggle too. Mornings are incredibly busy around here. We have breakfast to eat and then a big chore time follows.  Often, one child's chores are dependent on another child finishing his/her chores.  When this child doesn't do her chores, it holds everyone else up.

  I am struggling to be patient, I admit it.  I know everyone is different and few people are as enthusiastic about mornings as I am.  But it really doesn't work well for our little girl to be still doing chores at 9 a.m. because the entire school schedule gets messed up.

All of this is very minor in the grand scheme of things, but I still need wisdom.  I know, of course, that I shouldn't get exasperated.  But what SHOULD I do?  Any suggestions?

1 comment:

Mama LD said...

I am having a similar struggle with my 5 year old. I get frustrated because I have a three year old and newborn to also take care of and dragging her feet is a huge burden on the rest of our routine. I considered using a timer but I don't want to stress her out or cause her future anxiety issues. Wonder if it is an age thing.