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Sparky,

It's kinda like kids. Not everybody can, or should, slow down to the the kid's level. For those that do, both the kid and the parent benefit.

Working with a DIYer is teaching. The DIYer comes away with more skill, hopefully, and, in my experience, a greater appreciation of the steepness of the learning curve. Again, in my experience, the DIYer experiences this as valuable, and is willing to pay (within reason) for the teaching.

When I do this, I don't hold anything back. I offer the info as if this person is to be the most valuable employee I have, even though they are not employees. The skill / knowledge set that each DIYer brings to the session adds to the outcome.

I think of the experience as a great opportunity to revisit the basics of wiring and to hone my ability to describe the what an why of each part of the assembly being worked on. I also get to practice talking while keeping my hands busy on task (which is always valuable when the paying party needs to watch and talk, but not do any work ).

Al

I ran into situations like this a few times over the years. My advice to you is not to let them do any of the wiring. This will only open up a can of worms. They will definately screw something up, staple to hard, rip insulation, leave to short leads in box, etc.. And while your there they'll be asking you every 5 minutes how come, why, what about this, is this OK. And when you not there, your phone will be ringing off the hook, can I do this, what should I do here, etc... They chose to hire you to do the job at Time and material. I would do the job that you can both agree on, have the permit exact detail, have the inspector inspect exactly what you did. Then tell the homeowner if they want to add more wiring to do it on their own time. It is not worth it, besides, if something goes wrong, it's your license on the line, they didn't earn one.