Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Won't be long and he'll be making me dinner




B is 4 ½ now and quite independent. He does have some responsibilities around meal time like emptying any leftover food off of his plate (yes, a couple of times the plate has fallen in – after having to retrieve it out of the “muck” a couple of times, he quickly learned to hang on tight). Once he is done this, he puts his plate and utensils in the dishwasher. 

Up until now, we’ve been reminding him to ask nicely for what he would like i.e. “May I please have a glass of juice?” rather than “I’m thirsty” or “can I have a drink?”. If he starts with the latter examples then we usually respond with “pardon me” or “what’s that?” to which he responds with the appropriate more polite line. For the most part, all of his requests these days are polite. However, at this point, the demands sometime wear on me. Some of these demands include: preparing a snack or drink, putting a movie on, getting out his art supplies, and so on.

So on the weekend when he asked for a jam sandwich, I told him he could make his own. I got the bread, jam, and butter knife (yes I said knife) out for him, along with a plate and away he went happily jamming his slice of bread. Despite having a little more jam on the bread than what I would find to be appealing, there was no damage done and no mess left behind. Even better, he was so proud of himself and actually enjoyed making the food for himself. Hmph.. wonder how many jam sandwiches I made for him when he was perfectly capable of making his own. 

The next night, DH and I were sitting on the couch and he came in the living room and, again, asked for a jam sandwich. This time I told him he could go and get the fixings and make it himself. I fully expected to hear him ask for help to get something but he didn’t. After some rustling in the kitchen he came back into the living room with his piece of bread which was loaded with jam and had some goldfish crackers scattered atop. DH was impressed. However, more critical than I, he remarked – “Yes, but did you clean up after yourself?” Without hesitation, B proclaimed that he had. He told us that he had put the bread away, and put the jam in the fridge, and put the knife in the dishwasher. Sure enough, he had!

Rest assured this little boy is well on his way to being able to feed himself when he leaves home. I actually had a roommate in university that couldn’t even make a pot of Kraft Dinner since they never had to prepare a meal at home. 

2 comments:

Mo said...

I'm impressed! Getting it all out, making it, and putting it all away without being asked. Good job little guy! We also give our son a few responsibilities he loves to set the table at dinner time, and he will often get everything from the fridge at snack time. I too knew people in University that couldn't do anything on their own, lol, don't want that to be my kids!

I love kids with good manners. We are always reminding our 3yo to be polite and use his manners and ask nicely for things. He does about 75% of the time, which I think is pretty awesome for a 3 year old!

Kristy said...

That's awesome that he uses his manners most of the time and has a few responsibilities around the house. Sometimes I think B is better than I am with the manners. I think it is so so important to teach your kids that everyone needs to contribute to running the household.