Self-help skills - can do, sometimes can't? What's up?

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I found out something weird about my self-help skills just two days ago. Can anyone relate? Or explain?

At the age of 1-4 at my mom's I was supposedly normal, even advanced at dressing and other self-help.
Then at ages 6-14, incidentally not directly at my mom's, I was bad. Horrible. Something like that.
Then got normal again at ages 16-17 (ADHD impairments aside).

I'm like, huh?
There's certainly a difference between a toddler who's dressing themselves and a first grader who struggles to put on her jacket?

I've no idea how this came. I got masses better actually at social, perception and langauge at age 5-6.
Anyone experienced something similar with single skills?

you are looking for missed developmental milestones to diagnose your self. it's a doomed endeavor.

What are you talking about?
I'm not looking for missed milestones. I'm also diagnosed and validated several times.
You're not talking about what I'm talking about apparently.

k sry

Well Sora, I don't know -- but have some ideas, perhaps.

The brain is enormously malleable and changing throughout life.
We actually have more neurons before we are born.
Thereafter, some are trimmed away and removed while others sprout and connect. Like pruning a garden.
We do not even have a fully "adult" brain until about age 25.
Thereafter even, changes and remodeling continue throughout one's life.
The brain burns one-quarter of the body's basal metabolism.
It is hugely metabolically active.
This is why it is so suceptible to alterations in oxygen and glucose.

It would stand to reason, given all these changes and all this 'remodeling' then, that one's capabilities might change.
Language for example is generally best learned while young.
Mastering flight - the actual control of an aircraft in space - is best learned in youth.
But judgment comes with maturity.

Perhaps some environmental influence initiated a temporary 'setback' in physical dressing for a time.

I do not know. But given that the brain has this much activity - it does not surprise me, actually.

.

Well, from a parental perspective, this ability to do things at a very young age, followed by less ability from ages 6-14, then "normalizing" again is really unusual. I have no answers for you, but it is an interesting conundrum.

In my experience, my sons seem to have certain skills that they were really bad at (tying shoelaces comes to mind), but then at around 12 they were both very good at taking care of things for themselves. One was not good at learning how to ride a bike, and the other was really quite good.

I can't even imagine why there would be dips in ability with self-help skills at the 6-14 age, but it's great that you came out of those ages equipped with the skills you need!