Rules for your child - what is age appropriate?

[ryedalema]

I'm struggling with this one. Our eldest daughter is 3.75 (4 in July) and is on the whole quite well behaved. Part of this could be down to a lot of legwork by us in providing structure, things like:

- always having dinner together and she can't have anything sweet until she's finished her mains

- not eating with mouth full/playing at the table etc.

- not going downstairs in the morning until dressed

- tidy your toys away

- share with your sister

- shoes and coats off as soon as you get home etc.

How many rules is too many rules for a three (ish) year old?

I really don't want to stifle her free spirit - and am anxious that we're getting a bit strict. The ones we're having difficulty with right now are:

- getting dressed by yourself (always ends up in running around in the nuddy until I catch her and then tears)

- staying in bed until the clock goes green (which happens at 6.30) - she creeps into our bed at 6am ish and if we send her back to her bed she cries and wakes up her baby sister.

I've just had a loooonng chat with my OH about this (who is much more the disciplinarian than me). We're thinking of addressing these last two in consultation with her, so asking her what she thinks would be a fair waking up time and what she can do if she wakes up early (she's allowed to read or play with dolls in her own bed at the moment), and asking her what she finds hard about getting dressed (I think tights over toes and tops over heads are the key ones here).

Is she too young to be involved in her own rule setting?

Does anyone have any better ideas?

Are we expecting too much of her?

I'd really appreciate your advice/help.

xxxxx

[candj]

Doesn't seem too much considering she's almost four. I think it's good to set a few boundaries but also remember that they are just children and still very young. The ones we have in our house are:

-always washing hands after loo and before eating

-using please and thank you to everyone including younger siblings

-taking shoes off when coming inside or going inside anyone else's home

-not talking with mouth full for fear of choking as well as being unsightly

-covering mouth while coughing

My two 6 and almost 4 are pretty good at remembering most of them and I feel it becomes more habit than anything.

[ryedalema]

Ah - we have all of these too.

She's pretty good at remembering them too (sends us into the naughty corner if we contravene them - little Madam)!

[candj]

Sorry and just to add I think it's important to explain why we have rules - washing hands so we don't get sick, covering mouth so we don't make others sick with our cough, so on and so forth. Then they understand and can sort of follow the logic. My eldest once 'told' on a babysitter who didn't make her wash her hands after the loo ( which I kind of found amusing).

[new mother]

(sends us into the naughty corner if we contravene them - little Madam)!

Hilarious! Worth getting on video if you can..

re consultation, I will be very interested to hear what people say. My own upbringing and my automatic inclination is for zero consultation - What Mummy says goes, end of story. However, I wonder if nowadays that does dampen them down. Certainly when I started working life, I was very aware of the hierarchy of the firm and keen to respect it when my contemporaries, with much worse degrees than I had, had more confidence eg to speak as an equal to senior people etc.

What do others think?