How to Encourage a Slow Moving (Pokey) Child

My daughter is 8 and we struggle with her pokeyness as well. She moves slowly on EVERYTHING. It is not an issue of needing reminders for her, she is just soooooo laid back. One day I told her to pretend her bottom was on fire. It was hillarious to watch her hussle. I then told her how proud I was that she got things done quickly. Now when I ask her to do something she asks if I need her bottom on fire.

they have visual clocks in all child development catalogs - set the timer and you see the red film disappear as time goes by - when there's no more red - times up! Make a game out of it until it becomes routine

Since your question is about the pokiness, I'm going to try and not take the reading into consideration for my advice. My kids used to be pokey like CRAZY! Their bedtime is 8:00 sharp. At about 7:30 I usually have them go back and brush teeth/put pajamas on. If it takes them 10 minutes to do this, I don't care, because I gave them enough time. It makes it much easier. Now, for the timer situation, I bought one about two months ago....when it's important that they are ready for something particular, or need to clean their rooms or something, I tell them that I'll set the timer for 5 minutes. If they don't have ____done when it goes off, they will either lose whatever is left on the floor or I instill a punishment. It really depends on the reasoning for using the timer. For instance, when I first started using it, I would just say "okay, time to get ready for school. I need you ready in 20 minutes so I will set the timer." I always made sure they actually had "30" minutes though. If they weren't ready, they had to take everything that was left to do into their rooms and had to remain there until I was ready to walk out the door. You just have to figure out what works. By the way, them taking 10 minutes to put their pj's on and you having to repeat for them to get them on IS disobeying, so make them aware of that and make them hold themselves accountable.

We make it a race. For example "See if you can get your pajamas on by the time I count to 20." It usually works for us.

My 5 y/o daughter is the same way! What I have found that works with her is to see if she can do whatever the task is before I count to 10 or 20 depending on what the situation is. She is definitely a "do-it" herself kinda girl, so the extra time challenge is fun for her. I make sure that she can hear me counting out loud and it becomes a game for her. She is soooo proud of herself if she can "beat" me. Good luck!

Give them REASONS to stay focused & on task to get things done in a timely manner. If you can get your p.js on in the next 10 minutes.......I'll read an extra story (a LOT less time than taking 40 minutes to put on p.js) or you get to help mommy make brownies tomorrow or something that entices them. As they grow up, they need to realize that THIS IS PART OF LIFE! If you want to do it by yourself, you need to do it in the next 10 minutes, otherwise,I'll help you. This may take a time or two, but trust me on this one, the one that isn't getting help is going to scrambling to get hers on if you're helping the other one if it really means that much. You'll certainly be able to tell IF they really do want to do it by themselves. STICK TO IT! THEY HAVE TO TRUST WHAT YOU SAY. Otherwise, you set yourself up for other problems too.

Get a kitchen timer! It is a wonderful device for motivating kids. Mine included. When he was 4 we got just for him. I would say you have 5 minutes to play but when the bell dings I want your toys picked up. Bed time we would have a race to see who got done before their bell, ie - give them instructions, pjs, teeth brushed etc. If he was still playing around once the bell rang I would make him go to bed that much early. He got the hang of it real quick. My husband and I use it too. If we are working from home etc, and Grey needs one on one time, I set the clock to give us 10-15 minutes, he knows if he doesn't bother us for that time, once the bell rings, he gets our undivided attention.

I agree with the posts below-make it fun for them and turn it into a game. This worked great for me when I taught grades K-8. Before you know it, they will probably be looking forward to putting on their pj's and to see who can do it the fastest. Stick to your word as well-when it is time for bed, it is time for bed. If they dilly daddle for 20 minutes and before you know it it is bedtime, no story that night. They will catch on!! Good luck, J.!

I think your children need a bit of encouraging to get their pajamas on.I would lay out their pajamas earlier in the day and when you tell them to get them on go into the room and make sure they do it in a timely manner.As a child we always took a bath at bedtime so Pj's went in with us to redress before bed.When we were really good about our chores all week we got to go for a pajama ride to get a ice cream or some similar treat.We loved it. Now and then we got to go to the drive in movie in our PJ's .Thus if we fell asleep we were ready for bed and Mom and Dad just carried us in.
Your 40 minute wait is ridiculous. Of course the children don't think so but you need Mommy time too relax.I can not believe a Mom would wait so long with out becoming upset with her children.You really need to crack down on them. I have two nieces who are 4 and almost two who go put on their PJ's in about 5 minutes and their dirty clothes in the hamper as well.Then they get their bed time story and a glass of milk and maybe half a bananna each while my sister or her husband reads to them. Good Luck. If you don't nip it in the butt now you'll never do it.

Instead of taking reading time away completely, perhaps caution them that reading time will have to be shorter if they do not get ready for bed more quickly. Sometimes my daughter wants a long story, but she knows that is not an option if she has been too slow. Independance is great for them, but we still need to give them boundaries or who knows where their independance will take them in the future. Also, there is a fine line between pokey and stalling and I think children are much smarter than we give them credit for. If you are sitting right there and giving them verbal instruction and they aren't following through for ten minutes then it becomes a stalling or sometimes a defiance tactic. They know what they are supposed to do and you are reminding them and they still are doing it slowly, so perhaps they actually are stalling. If you leave the room and they get sidetracked, that makes sense for them to be pokey, but with you reminding them, they should get the picture. Hope this helps a little...

Set a timer and make it a game. "I bet you can't get dressed for bed before this timer dings!" Or say something like "who can put their shoes on faster? Susie, Sally, or Mommy?" Say things like "Oh I don't know, I think mommy is faster." You can bet they'll want to prove you wrong!

I know you don't want to take away the reading, but I can honestly bet that if you did it just once they would miss it and it would be incentive for them to 'hurry it up'. You don't "take away" the reading but you tell them this: "Reading and cuddling starts at 7:00 and ends at 7:20. We are still going to bed at 7:20. If you aren't ready by 7:00, you are choosing to be slow in getting ready to bed and cutting into your reading time."

In the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth, he uses a case study of one of his patients and parents who had a similar issue. The child would play and play and then be pokey joe when it came time to bed. One of the kid's favorite things to do was to cuddle and read with mommy at bedtime and they would literally sit and read for nearly an hour. Of course, the 'pokey-ness' pushed the reading time back farther and farther, resulting in the child going to bed later and later. The child had absolutely no incentive to get going at bedtime; she knew could poke around as long as she wanted because she knew she was getting all the reading time. Dr. Weissbluth suggested setting a timer for a period of time before bedtime, and when that timer went off it would be time to go to bed, no exceptions. He even suggested that the child set the timer. Think of how empowering this is for a young child, especially ones who want to be in control of everything! The child will know they have a set amount of time before bed, they set the timer, they choose the activities they will do before bed, so if they choose to take their sweet time then they choose to forgo the cuddling/reading time. If your kids aren't into the reading time and would rather waste their 'timer time', then you can always adjust it so that they have to be ready for bed by the timer goes off OR the next night, the timer gets set earlier, thereby building in an extra 30 minutes for the reading (the 30 minutes gets cut out of their play time...as soon as that bell rings it is time to get dressed and ready for bed).

Agree, Normal.

If your girls want to do it themselves, use it as a reward that they get to if they do so quickly. But, honestly, you don't have to give them everything that they want.

If they only put of doing what you say when they need to put on their pj's then you just have kids who are trying to put off going to bed. But if they continually do not do what you say, and this is what you mean by "pokey" then a quick and consistent jolt of consequences for not doing what you say the first time you ask is going to help them not be "pokey" anymore, for everything they do.

M.

Hi J.!
Rest assured your children *gasp* are NORMAL!! lol..
I go through this same thing with my 6 year old son. He is SUCH a procrastinator (shhh..but I think he really get it from me)
One thing I've found that works, I'm big on "warnings".
Example my kids go to bed at 9. So 8:30 I say "30 Minutes until bed time pause what you're doing and get your pj's on" Sometimes I get alot of grunting but mostly it's routine now. I tell them "The faster you get dressed the faster you get to come back and play before bed time." That seems to make them pick up speed a little.
Oh and they also hae to brush teeth at this time.
Then when it's 10 mins before bed I announce "10 more mins before bedtime" then when it's 5 mins till I say "Ok 5 mins before bedtime, time to clean up" and at first it was a struggle but if there is one thing I learned in parenting you have to have routine and no matter how annoying or a hassle it is to us we have to stick with it. Be consist that really is the key. Do it over and over and over and over again! Eventually it'll get smoother just keep at it. It's frustrating but it works.
S.

We have a "Chore Chart" posted. It has a list of chores that need to been done in order on it starting with the simple things, like wash face, get dressed, make bed, comb hair, etc. If the chores are done daily without me having to repeat it has to be done he earns a star, if I have to remind him it is a check mark, if I have to repeat the reminder it is an x and if it doesn't happen it is a 0. He earns allowance money for a star he gets a full penny, for a check he only gets 1/2 a cent and for an x he earns no allowance and a 0 costs him a penny. Out of $1.70 in just the normal chores last week he ended up with $.23.
I am not saying using money is good, it is just the method we use. A friend uses a special reward for a certain amount of stars earned. For 10 they get to pick out a special bedtime snack, for 20 a special movie to watch etc.

Hi J.!

I am sooo glad you asked this question! You have pokey little puppies, too? :) My daughter is 6 and having the same difficulties. With the warmth and wisdom of Mamasource members, can't wait to hear some great advice!

Blessings,
D.

A question I have is how do you handle transitions? Even though they may not completely understand the concept of time, saying "in 10/5/1 minutes we're going to put on our pj's" might help them prepare for the next event. "Transition songs" might help as well - just make up one of your own or see if you can find something on the internet (if you don't know what a transition song is, take a look at "Sid the Science Kid" - every day at school the teacher sings about "Rug Time" to get her class focused on sitting around the rug ready to listen - a fun way to inform the kids what's going on and what they need to do).

Just a thought...
Yes, reading time is important, and I understand why you wouldn't want to take that away. How about reading/cuddle time right after dinner? Then you can say that extra reading/cuddle time before bed is dependent upon whether or not the girls are ready at the appropriate time. I like the timer idea that some other moms mentioned too. Good luck!

Normal. I have a 5 almost 6 year old and we are still poky at times. Bedtime can take 15minutes (PJ's-Teeth-Book-Prayer-Bed) or it could take a hour and half (with much frusteration, and normally no book).
I have found sticky to a strick routine, and taking out the book/reading and cuddle time, helps the next night go much more smoothly.
Getting ready in the morning is the same way. We get up an hour and half before we need to leave the house for school. Really, one child, a boy at that, an hour and half to get ready. Some mornings we have so much time we dn't know what to do with it, others, I'm to the point of yelling and walking out the door without him to get him to move.
A lot of our problem is him wanting me to do it all for him, and him not do it himself. (As compared to you).
BUT if you get any good advice I will definitly be reading.
Best of luck!

I think it's so wonderful that you want your kids to be independent! I am the same with my kids and I know how they can take forever to complete a task. Many times I sit there reminding them to get dressed, just as you do! For the younger one, I would give her a certain amount of time to complete the task, maybe 10 minutes, and then just help her along. She's still pretty young and probably get distracted easily. As for the older one, she is making the choice not to get dressed, for example, so there needs to be a logical consequence to that. I DO NOT mean punishment. I don't punish or reward my kids. I certainly understand you not wanting to take away reading time, but you may need to tell her that the longer she chooses to take getting dressed the less time you'll have to read. It's not a punishment, it's just the way things have to go because you can't keep her up until midnight trying to do the whole bedtime routine. And the responsibility needs to lie with her. The book Redirecting children's Behavior by Kathryn Kvols is wonderful. I would highly recommend getting that because she shares your perspective, it would seem, yet she also has great suggestions for these types of issues! Good luck!

Just want you to know you are not alone... I have two girls 4 and almost 3 and they do the same thing. They are really bad in the mornings when we are trying to get out the door it seems the more I ask them to hurry the slower they get. I know mine are just pushing me though they know it upsets me so they do it more. I have to find ways to get what I want without them realizing it. I am running out of ideas so I will be watching this post for new ones. Good luck... the timer idea might work I have done that and it has helped some I also agree that shorting the reading time might give them a wake up call... I have had to not do stuff with mine before because they took too long...

Oh J.,
I don't know how you can encourage them to move along a lot quicker. I have 3 girls and my oldest is the one that takes her sweet time to do a lot of things. Especially eating. We would have dinner around 6pm or 6:30pm and she would still be eating at 7:30pm..if not later and the same thing that's on her plate. Or even when she's getting ready for school, I'd like for her to eat here at home, before going to school, that way I'd know that she wouldn't be hungry later. But she lollygags around until her bus gets here. So it drives me crazy. The only time that I've ever seen her be in a hurry was a day that the alarm didn't go off, and she had 15 minutes to get ready and be out at her bus stop. She was up and ready within 10 minutes. I had to make sure I freaked her out a little...lol...not cool, but that was the only way we could get her to move along. I'm glad she don't eat fast, but come on...1 hour longer if not a little longer than that. It is crazy. So good luck with that.

Hi J. - My son is especially pokey and my daughter is a whirlwind. Have you tried making it a game? Use an oven timer and tell them that the first one to get their pajamas on before the timer goes off gets to choose the story. If they start to get really speedy, read one for both. Melissa & Greg has a really great responsibility chart that includes getting ready for bed as a category. Use the game and let them use the reward chart so that after so many successful times getting ready quickly, they get a small reward, say, from the Appreciation Station (www.theappreciationstation.com)which is really cool. Before you know it, bedtime will go (excuse the pun) like clockwork! Good luck!

Bed time needs to be an unwinding time, this will allow the whole body clock to get ready for slumber. So separate the p.j. activity. 30 minutes (arbitrary number) before it is bed time have them get their p.j.'s; then it won't matter how pokey they are. Let them know that as soon as they have their p.j.'s they can return to the living room or whatever else they were doing. Perhaps cuddlilng with you and dad on the couch (that will encourage them to be in a hurry for their own agenda). Then when their p.j.'s are on them, and it is time for bed, accompany them to their rooms for story time.