Self-help skills for children are not an external substance that parents pour into children's heads with a funnel. Children have a natural inclination to learn, and they will learn even in the absence of intentional training by adults. Children begin to imitate adults even before they become autonomously mobile. In most cases, observant parents will see the child attempting to perform a self-help task at some point, albeit clumsily. This is the ideal time for parents to engage the child in the learning process.
Attempting to push children into self-help skills too early can frustrate child and parent and lead to mutual antagonism. Children are extremely sensitive to the actual emotional states of parents, and they can detect frustration through the parent's attempts to conceal it, as well as spot manipulative over-praising. Parents can gently assist and offer reassurance and praise during the development of children's self-help skills. Parents need to develop a high level of acceptance for the messiness of early skill acquisition and patience in the face of the child's need for a lot of repetition.
The reason self-help skills can be pursued by parents too early is that children are only able to understand and perform certain tasks when their bodies and brains reach a specific stage of development. There are guidelines that suggest a range of ages within which most children reach various stages in that development, and even children who are outside these averages are not necessarily disabled. Few children can tie their shoes before they are five years old. Most one-year-olds can eat finger food. The majority of children learn to use the potty between the ages of 24 and 40 months.
One of the main responsibilities of parents during the child's acquisition of self-help skills is safety. Very young children can choke on certain kinds of food. Kids can burn themselves with hot water when trying to wash their hands. They can become submersed or fall in bathtubs. They will attempt to plug things into wall sockets as they imitate you. They will try to eat toothpaste. Monitor them closely without interfering constantly. This means structuring the child's environment so that most hazards are inaccessible.