Too much, too quickly?

We were all talking about things we like, foods, activities, etc., and Toby said, "You know what else I like?" I asked, "Hazel?" sort of joking. And much to my surprise and delight, he said, "Of course I like Hazel!" I didn't know there was any "of course" about it. What a wonderful feeling, that my child feels it is a given that he likes his sister.

Another interesting conversation with Dan about this whole process. He thinks Toby is overwhelmed with so much family work to do, and is not able to do the things he wants to do (like computer time, for example). That he is having trouble focusing and completing tasks because there are so many of them. Dan seems skeptical that this is a positive process for Toby, it feels to me like he thinks I am pushing him out of his childhood prematurely. During DNSN week, I asked Toby how he felt about it, and he was positive. He hasn't complained to me about having too much work to do, or about running out of time for play activities. There have been nights where he gets too tired to do anything, before everything is done. And there have been times when he ran out of time for play. But - all of these situations were caused by his using literally hours for play and entertainment, both before and after dinner, before attending to his responsibilities. I just realized that Toby usually finally gets around to his checklist at about 7:30, just when Dan is getting home from work. So that is all Dan sees, from his perspective the whole evening is spent doing one job after another. I have had a couple of conversations with Toby about managing his time so he isn't working for an hour or two straight every evening, rushing to get to bed. He did say that he planned to do some of his checklist before dinner a couple of days ago, but that hasn't happened. Time management is the underlying skill he needs to develop to make everything else fall into place.

After writing this all out, my crisis of faith has calmed. I agree that Toby has been given a lot of new expectations over the past month or two, and he is having a hard time keeping up with them. I don't think I'm asking him to do any particular thing that is too much for him, but maybe cumulatively it was too much too quickly. I don't want to backtrack on any of these expectations because I do think they are realistic overall. Dan and I agreed that I won't introduce any new responsibilities for Toby until he seems to be getting a good handle on his current list.

Also, permission from Vicki to clean up as I feel necessary makes everything much less pressured! In that case, I can wait months for Toby to internalize putting his dishes in the dishwasher. As long as we're moving forward toward goals, however slowly.