Back last August, we had a discussion with our offspring to the effect that holding pants was not adequate to meet social expectations for answering the door. Today we had another, similar discussion as he stood in front of the open sliding glass door to encourage the cat to come in, about five minutes after we’d come home from swimming.
“Son, put on your underpants before you stand in front of the door!”
“But I’m holding underpants!”
“Just like pants, son. Holding them doesn’t count. Wearing them counts. Now put them on!”
And with much dramatic stamping, he went and sat down on the couch and did as he’d been told.
With my brother the concept of socially acceptable behavior existed for others but not for him. So one thing that would work sometimes was to say something like… That looks comfortable do you think I should…
Sometimes it worked. When it did it he complied with less drama than with the usual coercion/explanations/requests which were only moderately successful.
No, he understands it, and the drama was for effect. He was hamming it up to make me laugh…and it worked.