Hi Krista — I’m not sure what “coaching” would look like, but what I recommend is allowing, even encouraging her to share her fear. Most of us have the tendency to want to make it better and that can make her anxiousness continue. So I’d suggest really hearing her without any “it’s okay” or “you can do it,” etc. “Ugh, that hurt so much and it makes you frightened of having that feeling again, right?” Letting those feelings be.

Same boat here. My daughter had a painful bowel movement after being constipated many months ago, and it has made her fearful ever since. It’s stalled toilet training because, it seems, she doesn’t trust that it won’t hurt (even though we’ve made dietary changes and she’s had mostly smooth sailing—physically, but not emotionally— in that department ever since.) I feel unsure about coaching her (or not) through her anticipatory anxiety. She’s almost 3.5.

What is the difference/line between too much help and nurturing? I don’t want to offer too much help as my son learns to dress himself but I also want to be nurturing…How would you teach a child to dress/undress themselves when they always say “mommy do it”?

You suggest avoiding phrases such as…why don’t you give it a try?…whilst also encouraging us not to help to much. But if a child doesn’t give it a go because they ‘believe’ they can’t do it, when you know they probably can if they just gave it a go, what would you suggest saying? E.g. tearing open a biscuit wrapper. I know my 3.5yo daughter can open a biscuit wrapper herself. But she’ll tell me she can’t. Encourage her to give it a go and she succeeds. Or train her on how to do it and she succeeds. So, encourage her to try or not?

My 2.5 year old has started to say ‘I can’t do anything’ for example when she tried to ride a scooter this morning. I was very insecure as a child and my self esteem problems carried on until my twenties. My mother expectations of us were very high and still are. I feel like I’m very aware of my own issues as a child and trying to avoid my daughter being like this. Am I over compensating my over praising or is my mother’s way of brining us up the only way I know and am I behaving the same?
I’m not sure where I am going wrong.

I am very much in this same boat with my three year old son. Toilet learning advice for “older” (relatively) children would be so appreciated. ❤️

In a way, it’s really great that he has a vision and can see how his abilities don’t match his vision. He is noticing the gap in mastery. It’s a normal step in becoming good at something. So my first impression is that his feelings are normal and part of any creative pursuit when one really cares about the art – though they might manifest differently in an adult. Maybe explain that, say that everyone is still learning drawing/writing in his class, and notice how practice is the only way to improve. There will always be people who are better, worse and just different at activities. Especially drawing. So many drawing styles are available! Who’s to say line art is worse than watercolours?

Does this usually come up with fine motor skills like writing/drawing? And do you also notice he is struggling with the actual activity and not only the emotional side? Maybe the bones and muscles in his hands are still developing and that’s actually physically slowing him down. That would be frustrating! And in that sense, maybe less practice, or a different type of practising is what’s needed! Maybe there are other things he can excel in and get that sense of mastery, or games to improve fine motor skills without the pressure.

For me, if I felt like joining in I’d say ‘Okay,’ and go ahead and do it, realising that the ‘mommy do it’ perspective is a phase. If I didn’t feel like joining in I’d say ‘No thanks, I don’t feel like it at the moment.’ And see how that goes! It might mean she drops the project, but that’s okay because she maybe wasn’t in the mood for it?

Just wanted to say that I was this little girl! I struggled a lot with executive function my whole life. All adults around me always complained that I moved too slowly. It would take me hours and hours to do homework. I could never clean my room without help. I was in advanced classes but by the time I was in high school I was so depressed and had no confidence, and was easily frustrated by any slight failure. I dropped out of high school. Well, at 29 years old I finally received a diagnosis of ADHD. Turns out that so many girls are never diagnosed because they display symptoms in such different ways than boys do. I see that someone also mentioned sensory processing disorder, and that’s along the same lines too, there’s a lot of overlap, even with ASD too. If anyone else is dealing with something similar, it may be something to look into talking to a professional about, so that you can learn to better support your child and have more realistic expectations of them. I am still trying to recover from all the self-hate and unrealistic expectations and perfectionism that I developed as coping mechanisms. I really wish I had known I had ADHD and had more support when I was a child, instead of always thinking that all my problems were some kind of personality moral failing.

My son started kindergarten having just turned 5 a fews weeks prior to the start of school in the midst of a pandemic. It has been more or less a disaster. He refuses to do most of the work, which we are fine with but his teacher is not okay with him not doing lessons. The number of assignments and lessons and desk time is a whole other issue I don’t agree with but there’s not too much we can do about that. I’m thinking he’s pushing back about doing the work by saying he can’t or it’s too hard because he’s being heavily pressured by us (until a few months ago) and his teacher to get his work done. She tries rewards, consequences, guilt, pressure, etc to get him to cooperate and do the work. I know she’s frustrated and my son is anxious, feeling the pressure and digging his heels in.
The work might be hard for him though he is bright and has shown he can do the work; he just doesn’t want to or says he can’t. I’ve told his teacher that he will do the work when he’s ready but she can’t allow him to not do anything. She wants us to “make a plan to make him care”. Sigh. We obviously can’t do that and I would love to “drop the rope” and let him try to find the joy in kindergarten but that’s also outside of my control. Any tips on how to get him excited about learning despite the external pressures he’s facing at school?