Sunday, May 04, 2008

A Normal Question


"Can he put on his shoes?" Pretty normal question right? Can your three year old boy put on his shoes? It was followed by can he dress himself? With a glazed over look, I answered "No, he can't?" I didn't know that my three year old was suppose to be able to put on his shoes. I didn't know he should be able to pull his shirt over his head or pull up his pants. The question was asked by a social worker at our first evaluation with the PET program. I felt so uninformed. The team that day told me that putting on shoes and clothes is tied into his gross and fine motor skills, two areas he's struggled with. They also shared with me that kids should be putting on their shoes and clothes around 2 years old. I had no idea but I'm never one to back down from a fight or a struggle so I was gonna work on him getting those shoes and clothes on. That question was asked about 3 months ago and I'm happy to report that Sebastian can put his shoes and clothes on all by himself. It took a lot of tears, screams, pleads and encouraging words but he can do it. This post is a part of the Scribbit Write-away contest. You can check it out here.

3 comments:

Scribbit said...

I had a similar thing happen at the doctor's office with our youngest. They asked her, "What do you do when you're hungry?" Expecting, of course that she'd say she eats. But she was confused and said, "I set the table?"

I was pleased but the nurse docked her points :) Cracked me up.

Unknown said...

This is a great post. It is such a simple things for us mom's to learn to teach our kids to be independent. Something we could all do better at for sure.

Daisy said...

My youngest had a lot of trouble with shoes and dressing because of his blindness and his weak fine-motor skills. We buy him track pants and easy-on shoes so that he can do it himself -- even now, in high school.