I think I'm right but feel so wrong

amother

Blue

Sun, Jul 26 2015, 2:42 pm

4 yr old ds loves having things done for him. Dress fed played with cleaned up after... There r something's he can't do so do them for him. There r things he won't do so I do those for him. There r things he refuses to do that I won't do either. That just turns into a lot of yelling and tantruming. Today he refused to put on his underpants. So did I. It ruined my morning my sons morning and his 2 younger siblings morning. dh thinks I'm being a bigger baby than ds. Thoughts?

Dolly Welsh

Sun, Jul 26 2015, 2:56 pm

Ah, displaced kid thing.

Just do what he wants and wait. Around five, his father will take his hand and take him in hand.

Try, a little, to care for his siblings when he is somewhere ELSE. Not entirely. Just soft-pedal it a little. Dude is jealous. Anybody would be. The less he sees of you cuddling the daylights out of his adorable, helpless siblings, the less he will be tempted to attempt to impersonate a younger child.

The more you make of it the worse it will be, so just go along, and help him with things he might not really need help with. For now.

When they are all a little older, shoe them collectively out as, You Boys.

You might mention to him that you remember when HE was a little helpless baby like these people, and remark that they too will be big boys like him sometime. He may not quite realize that.

Also, honor his maturity. HE is a big, serious MAN PERSON, and they are just itty bitty silly babies, and don't know better, the helpless foolish little things. You are happy to have a genuine little man like him around, not just these little babies.

But keep it light. The mood must lighten. Must.

There is no cosmic importance to who does what, even if they could have done it themselves, but insisted on the attention.

I think these battles could get very bad; GIVE HIM what he wants.

He's only four. Sense comes later.

I do NOT think you want to teach "nobody takes care of me unless I screetch, so I will just screetch, without even waiting to see if they might take care of me, without it". Bad habit.

The above does not mean I think you are being a baby. No. Not at all. I only think you are being a bit literal-minded.

Indulge him a little. It hurts to be displaced.

oliveoil

Sun, Jul 26 2015, 4:20 pm

amother wrote:

He's 4 and he has 2 younger siblings, so yes, he probably NEEDS some of that "babying." Four is little and if he has two under him, chances are you are already expecting a lot from him. You are seeing him as a "big kid" because you have two more babies, but he is not far from babyhood himself.

When kids know that their parents/caregivers will help them as needed, they generally grab every opportunity for independence. This is healthy. So when a kid is refusing to take those steps to independence, you need to look at yourself and your relationship with that kid, and figure out how to fix it.

You got into a silly power struggle with a four year old which ruined your morning and the morning for all your children. There is something very wrong here.

yOungM0mmy

Sun, Jul 26 2015, 4:36 pm

Yes, at 4 I think he needs to be reassured that he can still be your baby.
Trust me, I had three under three, I know how hard it is to do EVERYTHING yourself, and I possibly did bend a little too far the other way and babied them a little more than I had to, but it was a concious thought process. Seeing the neighbours across the street whose youngest was the same age as my oldest, and he was being pushed in the stroller, while my "big boy" at the age of 3 had to walk because the other two were in the double carriage, reminded me that even though he is perfectly capable physically, emotionally he is still a baby, and although there is a happy medium, it was not his choice to be the oldest of three babies, and therefore he did not have to pay the price.
Probably, the times when he is insisting that you do it, is exactly the times when he needs more attention. If you want to motivate him, you can do a sticker chart for things which are age appropriate and he can manage, but keep the whole big boy vs baby discussion out of the equation.