Tying shoes. A classic Skid/kid milestone. My Skid refused to tie his shoes for years so my bride went with Velcro closure shoes. Then he protested since those were "baby shoes". His teacher in Kindergarten refused to tie any shoes for her students (completely understandable IMHO) so the kids had to learn or have a friend tie the shoes for them. My Skid had the pretty girl in class tying his shoes until she finally told him to do it himself. That occurred at lunch one day and in frustration the Skid kicked his shoe across the lunch room. We had to got to meeting with the teacher, principal and lunch lady for that.

My bride had tried to teach him but he was stubborn and she was using the begging and pleading method so her efforts were an abject failure.

So, when we got back home from the flying shoe in the lunchroom meeting he and I sat on the sofa with one of of his shoes between each of our legs and practiced. He harrumphed and refused until I pulled out a paddle, sat in on the sofa between us and told him he either digs in and does the work to figure it out or I would paddle his ass every half an hour until he figured it out. He and I had him tying his shoes in 15mins flat. The next day we got a call from the school that SS was charging kids to tie their shoes. }:) That’s my boy!!!

As for gift lists. We generally do not use them for no other reason than our family tradition is to get people what we want to get for them rather than getting them what they want. My IL clan on the other hand does the gift lists thing. They each draw a list from a hat and that is the person they gift shop for for the rest of the year. The gifts are limited to $10. Of course my bride and I are not included in the list draw as the rich relatives the expectation is that we step up and go crazy on gifts. Oh, we get a list but is far different than the one that goes in the hat for drawing. Ours includes things penciled in on the top of the list like ... a new car, pay off our mortgage, pay off my school loans, etc........ We just buy off of the cheap end of their lists. My bride used to do the get then what she wants them to have thing that we do for our family but too many comments like "why did you get me an expensive coffee maker and a year of the coffee of the month club. I drink Folgers." broke my brides heart and shut down anything generous from us.

We had our version of the money/cash control struggles too. Not with the Skid and his classmates but with the Sperm Clan during the Skid's Sperm Land visitations. The toxic Dipshitiot and his parents (Sperm Grandma and Sperm Grandpa) would take the Skids money when they picked him up at the airport and would put gas in their cars, pay for lunch for everyone, etc.... As the Skid got older and would no longer give them his cash they would guilt him in to paying for things periodically throughout the visitation. We finaly went to the bank account/debit card solution. We would transfer money in and out of that account only when he was on an airplane. When they filled up with gas or wanted him to pay for an expensive lunch and his debit card was declined they would howl!!! }:) Exactly what I wanted to happen.

Try the paddle and shoes and sitting side by side on the sofa thing. A loud whack on the sofa cushions should motivate her to quit crying about it and figure it out.

It worked for my Skid. It may work for yours.