3Yr Old Dawdling

First, I don't believe in taking away something like bedtime stories. That is a very special learning and bonding time and not to be used as part of discipline in my opinion.

He's 3. 3 year olds don't have the concept of time that adults do. You will need to minimize his distractions while he is on a task (no tv while he's getting dressed, that kind of thing) and give him reminders while he is on a task. Just keep using verbal cues to keep him on task. But you don't want to over do it because then he'll tune you out.

V.-
My first thought was..."Isn't dawdling what three year olds do best?"

I understand your frustration, but sometimes a kid is geared differently than the rest of us in our fast-paced lives. Just try to build the extra time into schedules, especially with the dressing. With the eating, it is very healthy to eat slowly. My son, now 11, still chews everything to utter mush before he swallows (exception: Big Macs) and it takes him forever to eat, but he is lean and there is no way I'm going to teach him my baaaaaad eating habits. It's okay if you're all done before him. He'll either speed up or eat half his meal by himself. He also might be at a developmental stage where he is exploring things he never noticed while eating and dressing before. My son takes forever to get dressed, because he has to check himself out in the mirror for 10 minutes to make sure he looks "just right".
S.

My 3 year old is a major dawdler too. My new stance is that if she can't get ready on time for storytime at the library in the morning, we aren't going (ie: we will not go in if they have already started). She gets an hour to an hour and a half to get ready w/ help from me. This only includes using the bathroom, getting dressed & brushing teeth & hair, eating breakfast and putting on coat & shoes. The major time waster is eating. After one bite, she just sort of zones out and sits there. It happens at most every meal. We try feeding her, we try having her feed herself, etc. It can take an hour for her to eat dinner too. I can't always sit and wait that long w/ a new baby to take care of. Once I leave the table, all eating seems to grind to a halt.

We don't take anything away, but we do mention that there is a lot less stuff we get to GO do in the day if we spend it all at the table. Naming specifics seems to help. Like: if we don't finish our breakfast quickly, we will miss out on the Easter storytime. Or if our lunch isn't eaten up, we'll be too hungry to go play at the park.

Been there, done that. This is totally normal behavior for your child. The only thing that I have found is to "time" them. Like, "I bet you can't get dressed in 20 seconds!" then count to 20. If he can't do it in that time, then step in and dress him. Tell him next time he can do it. Then do it again next time. I also like to do a "countdown" for when we are leaving or need to find something. They don't "win" unless they do it. You don't even need a prize. Just telling them they "won" usually does it.
As far as dinner, tell everyone up front that you will be eating dinner for x amount of time. Then give a heads up when it gets close to stop time. Then stop when time is up. No one will starve.
It's funny, because my husband gets really frustrated but I don't. I guess I just figured out that being frustrated or wanting them to do something faster didn't really help anyone, much less solve what I thought was a "problem". Now I don't see it as a problem so much as a fact of growing up that has to be dealt with, kind of like potty training.
Don't worry, pretty soon they won't even want to eat at home and will want to spend all their time with friends.

Children , especially 3 year olds dont have a great concept of time management.
My daughter did the whole dawdling thing so I understand how you feel.
Getting dressed- Make a game out of it. Help him too. Tell him you want to see how fast he can get dressed, Sing, chant cheer him on. I did this with my daughter and she loves seeing how fast she can get dressed. At times if I see she is dawdling I give her incentives to hurry.
Eating- You might want to try to have him sit next to you and you feed him. Although I get mixed emotions from people about this telling me daughter 'dont you eat your mac n cheese, dont you do it" seems to make her want to eat it more. May not be the best thing but it gets to job done.
I don't think taking away things will help either. With patience and motivation it can be done.

someone once suggested to me that boys love anything to do with competition. we started making things a "race". eating, getting dressed, even walking from the car to the house. "i'm gonna beat you, you better hurry up!" gets my 3 year old every time. :)

Good luck with this. My son is now 22 and still a major dawdler. He is a senior in college now and is a very responsible young man....gets to class, takes care of himself, etc. As a child he always took his time also. Telling him to hurry only made him go more slowly. He is very creative, which is why I think he always seemed slow to me. What helped my son rather than me constantly trying to get him to hurry was to make a poster for his room, kitchen, bathroom, etc. with the time frame that he had to get things done, ie brush teeth, get dressed, make bed, etc. I also put clocks in these areas so that he could physically see how much time he had. This not only helped him to learn to keep himself on track, but he learned to tell time at an early age since I didn't use digital clocks. Have fun with your son.....he is probably very creative and takes time to see things that we "hurriers" miss like seeing a dinasaur in the clouds or notice the beautiful shades of yellow on a birds wings.

You're not going to like my answer, but I promise you it works! My situation was similar: my 4 year old wouldn't be ready on time to go to Montessori School. The teacher suggested this: I took her clothes (everything) to school in a bag and put them into her cubby. The next day, when I was ready to leave but she wasn't, I picked her up just as she was (in her pajamas) and took her to school (remember, I KNEW she had clothes there but she didn't). I only had to do this once. From them on she was ready to go whenever I was.

Would this work for a 3 year old? Maybe not yet. But the idea is when you're ready, he needs to be ready, too. If you've finished eating, then he's finished eating, too. Simply clear the table, ALL OF THE TABLE, and whatever he leaves goes into the garbage.

Does this sound mean? Maybe. But it's effective and you won't have to do it for long. He'll get the picture and move on to something else!!

LOL I feel your pain. My son is 7 and is sometimes SO pokey I could scream!
Not sure if your son is too young for this, but my son likes it if I challenge him. I'll say "Let's see if you can get dressed in 5 minutes--GO!" I'll be reading your answers

We use a timer (digital, egg timer, hourglass...whatever's handy!) when our kids start slowing down in their routine. We set a certain amount of time for eating, then reset it for getting dressed, etc. For some reason, it's more fun to "beat the clock" than it is to listen to my reminders. :) We really don't even have to do this often, anymore, but it serves as a great visual reminder to my kids that they need to keep moving. Good luck with whatever method you choose! He'll figure it out. :)

My 4 yr old can be very pokey too, I feel your pain. For meal times, we went to Lakeshore learning store and got an hourglass sand timer. 10 mins. He gets to flip it once...so he gets 20 mins for dinner. When the timer is up, his food is removed. It didn't take long for him to figure out that when dinner is over, its over and he has to wait until the next meal. In fact, we rarely even use it anymore. Also, after dinner we usually get to watch a show (the only TV time for the day, very cherished). If others finish before him, we go and start the show...you'd be surprised how quickly he finishes up so as not to miss anything. Also, you'd be surprised how fast he can get in the car or get dressed with the phrase, "last one in the car is a rotten egg!" good luck!

My eight-year-old is the same way! It probably wouldn't have gotten to be as much of a problem as it is now, if I would have started dealing with it when he was 3! :) I don't know how helpful my ideas will be since my son is older....

We tried timing him with a stopwatch for a while. We talked with him about how long he thought it should take to do a certain task and then set a timer (we got a magnetic one that we could just stick on the refrigerator). It worked for a little while, but being kind of emotionally volatile, he would get very upset and frustrated with himself when the timer went off and he still wasn't done.

What is working now is a watch. He got to pick out a digital watch from Target. Ever since he got it, he has been reporting to me exactly how long it takes him to do things. He also knows what time he is supposed to take his shower and now runs out of his room a minute or so before so that he can be in the shower at the exact time he is supposed to.

Show him the results of his "dawdling". If he takes too long to get dressed, he missed his chance to go to the park. If he takes too long to eat, he misses out on dessert or bedtime story. This work with my 6 year old. He would take forever to get dressed in the morning. So I let him get dressed on his own time one Friday morning and he missed the bus. P.E. is on Friday and he was so upset. After he calmed down, I took him to school. It's a constant reminder to him about putting some fire under it. Good luck!

Sounds about right. My child is much older and still a slow eater. We would sometimes ( and sometimes still do) use a timer and put it where they can see how much time is left. Yes, it can be frustrating. Good luck.

I strongly recommend the wise techniques in How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk. You can learn how your children can propose their own solutions to dawdling and other classic family problems.

You can read part of this wonderful parent-workshop-between-covers here: http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/038081.... I think you'll be impressed with the possibilities.

The consequences you've been using are not directly connected with the dawdling, and are too far removed in time, so he's not making the connection. At best, rewards only work for a while, then you'll still need to find a way to get him internally motivated. Try the book and you might be able to skip all that fuss.