"I Can't"

My son's favorite phrase lately is "I Can't" even with stuff he normally does - I don't know if its a ploy for attention or a phase...anyone else's nearly 3 year olds have an attack of the can't do's?

 

My kids just turned 3 and I have heard that a lot!! When they say it, I just tell them, Yes you can, you know you can. They usually smile and do whatever it was they said they couldnt do.

They just stopped doing it one day and it wasnt until days later I realized that they had stopped!!

 

Not yet, ours is "you get it" or "you do it"

 

I know my girls are younger than your kiddos, but we've already started that here <_< Drives.me.nuts. It's mainly Ellie, and definitely things she can already do and Searra seems to be picking it up also. I'm trying to ignore it if I can and alternately encourage her to do the things I *know* she can do.

 

YES! Bea still does it. She likes to act totally helpless and either not try, or give a half-you know what try. Then she whines and says "You do it!"

 

L&M haven't started this yet. They are still in the "I do it" stage. :hug:

 

Oh man!! I know!!! My kids got "I give up" from somewhere (TV?) and that's going to be the END OF ME!! They still say "I can't" and that makes me insane as well!!!

I just tell them if they don't try, they won't ever be able to and hope it sticks at some point. I also say it's "not acceptable to NOT TRY" :hug:

 

My girls went through that. I don't remember at what age or for how long anymore.

But I did feel like it was a time when they wanted reassurance that we were there taking care of them. First they went through an "I do it" phase of wanting to do everything themselves, no matter how long it took, then came the "I can't" phase sort of looking to reattach themselves to mama and papa a little bit.

 

When mine were going through that phase of "I can't" all the time I'd often tell them "You can try and I will help you if you get stuck" and then talk them through it if necessary. Sometimes (if they were saying it about something they could do really easily/had done a lot) I'd say "Yes you can, remember how you did it before when insert example of last time they did said thing". Either way I'd always praise them when they completed the thing they "couldn't" do.

 

ugh! total pet peeve of mine. That is a totally normal phase.

How we address it is to talk to them about "yes, you can" and it's okay to ask for help! "I'm having trouble..." or "can you help me" or something similar. It's okay to need help but never say "I can't."

 

Yep. Going through it as well. It doesn't drive me too nuts...yet but I have been constantly reminding them that they are not aloud to say I can't. I tell them that they can say it's hard but they are not aloud to say can't (especially when it's something I know they can do or that they just need to invest a little more time or thought into).

 

Oh, yeah. Doesn't matter what I ask ds to do, all I hear all day is "I can't!" I tell him "Just try & tell me if you need help." He won't even try before the "I can't" starts.

Luckily, dd hasn't really started this yet. Although last night I was folding laundry & gave her a stack of panties to put in her drawer......which she normally loves to do. She just looked at me & said "No, you're the laundry lady!"