For many of us, we have to have a program for everything we teach our children. They need to be walked through skills step by step.

Teaching backward is a method you can use to teach your children how to do a multi-step task. What you do is you break this goal down into individual tasks and list them on the chart, then you start at the bottom and work your way up until your child can complete the whole task.Why start at the bottom? The last step is generally the easiest step to complete.

Let’s say we want to teach our children how to put on their pants in the morning.

Step One: orient the pants the correct way
Step Two: put one foot in
Step Three: put the second foot in
Step Four: start to pull the pants up
Step Five: pull the pants up to the waist.

In this example, the parent would help guide the child through the first four steps and let them complete the fifth step on their own. When you guide your child, always talk through what you are doing and warn them before you start hand over hand. Once they have mastered step 5, move up to step 4. Work your way up the process until your child has mastered that skill.