The Negotiator and Dawdler

Vincent is a morning person, but he doesn’t move fast in the morning.  He is a dawdler and is unaware of time or time constraints.  I spend a lot of my time in the morning keeping all the kids on task so they can get on the bus or to school on time.  It is not my favorite part of the day.  I do my best not to yell at them but I still end up yelling some mornings.  The other morning Vincent literally took 12 minutes to put his clothes on.  I already picked them out he just had to put them on.  He was distracted many times!

I told him in a stern voice that he was moving slowly.  He replied “What, like a snail?!”  I said “Yes”.  He retorted “well I think you are moving like a snail mommy!”  I told him that I was running around looking for his homework that was missing.  He said again that I was moving like a snail, so I told him he was losing a coin for back talking.  He didn’t seem to care and instead started to negotiate ways to get more coins “How about every day I am at school I get a coin?”  I told him I was not discussing new ways to earn coins because we needed to get ready to school.  I kept on his case about getting ready because we were becoming dangerously close to being late for school.  So for the next 5 minutes I was on his case about getting his coat and shoes on and getting his backpack.  We seemed to go even slower.  Monday thru Friday it is the same routine, with his coat and shoes and backpack all kept in the same areas, we do things in the same order, this should not be difficult.

As I was telling him that he had to put his shoes on quickly he turned to me and said “You are ruining my day.”  I was taken back and told him that I was not ruining his day or his morning but I was probably driving him a little crazy.  He agreed.  On the way to school I explained that if he needed more time in the morning to get ready he would have to wake up earlier.  He said ok but that he would need a Spiderman alarm clock and Spiderman underwear to make that happen.  I pointed out that underwear wouldn’t help wake him up and we have perfectly good alarm clocks he could use.  He wasn’t impressed.  Then we discussed where his homework could possibly be.  He was convinced that a secret agent snuck in the house and took his homework out of his backpack.  He wasn’t even trying to be funny or cute or just give a funny excuse he really thought that was a legitimate reason his homework was missing.  We got to school just as the door was getting closed and locked, which is later than usual.  Usually we are there 2 minutes before the door gets locked.

Part of me wants to let him be late for school and see if that would make a difference in his morning dawdling, but he loves walking through the school and seeing the older kids on the way to his classroom so I doubt it would help.  Our new plan is that if he is dressed and ready to go by the time Joel’s bus gets to our house he can play on my phone.  So far it is helping and we have a lot less dawdling in the morning.  I hope it lasts!