One of the first mistakes I made as a new parent is run around my toddler to dress up. The first day it was totally fun, especially since it was a Saturday with no time commitments. We chased each other, laughed a lot and had so much fun and took only about 10 mins to put the top 😀
Obviously not so much fun on day2. I had to leave on time, and kiddo did not understand why chasing game was cut short and was upset and refused to wear and it ended up in meltdown and frustration for both of us.
Here is where the distinction between play and regular routine tasks helps. If you want to play chase, go out into grounds and chase each other to your hearts content. Or play during some other time of the day. The reason to avoid play during dressing time is kids tend to get excited and then forget and later get upset about getting dressed , since their mind is now on playing. And subsequent dressing time is always considered as play time leading to further confusion ‘Mom played yesterday, why she is not playing today? I thought this is catch-me game time?’
Having separation between routine tasks and play is very helpful to help set a sense of routine in your child. Never, ever, ever, ever, play catch me if you can
Okay all that is fine and understood, but what do you do when your kiddo wiggles away from you when dressing up? It is clearly an invite to play with you – more like hide and seek or catch me games.
- do not coax, do not do verbal encouragement, just say, you will wait for kid to come back to you. ‘hey, you forgot to put your top, alright, I will wait for you to come back’
- Definitely do not run behind, stay put in your seat or spot with cloth in your hand and wait patiently.
Surprise Surprise – your kiddo will come back slowly but surely in few mins.
- If not, give another reminder and do countdown – ‘hey I am going to wait till I count to 5.’ After that mention what work you need to do and go do that work. ‘hmm looks like you want to play now. Okay, let me go do my work and come back to dress you when you are ready’ and gently walk away.
Remember this is not a punishment but a natural consequence! Mom has work now, so if you want to play, you can play and we can do routine tasks together later. Avoid saying, ‘I waited so long, you did not come, now I cannot way anymore’. There is thin line between natural consequence and punishment, stick to natural consequence as much as possible.
- If possible, mention in some easy quick sentence that you will play same game later but not during dressing time. E.g. ‘Hey, if you want to play catch game, we can play after breakfast or in the evening’
This non-chasing routine combined with respective (Montessori) language works for other daily tasks as well – whether it is meal-time, or bath-time. Especially if your kid is already exposed to advance-notice method or countdown methods, things will start falling in place eventually and you can avoid meltdown caused by excitement of chasing and frustration of time constraints and confusion of cutting the play time short.
It is that simple – just stay put!