Morning Routines
Kids thrive on routines. We see this clearly with infants and toddlers, but even as kids grow and begin school, they still need for predictability and order. Routines help everyone in the house feel good confident and calm, knowing “what comes next.” As the new school year begins, many parents are thinking that — after a summer of running wild — now is a good time to develop better routines for mornings, homework, and bedtimes.
Let’s talk about mornings. A lot of parents tell me that their mornings feel chaotic: trying to get themselves ready for work, getting kids ready for school, tripping over backpacks and lunch bags left in the hall, making sure everyone has their lunch and signed permission forms… It’s a crazy way to start the day, but this is what mornings look like for a lot of us.
If you’re tired of the daily morning frenzy you’ve been dealing with since becoming a parent, there are alternatives. The most important step in creating a new foundation for your mornings is involving your kids. Hopefully you’ve been using family meetings – but if not, now’s a great time to start! In the next week or so, sit down with your kids at your meeting and tell them that you’d like to work together to make mornings run a little smoother.
As a group, list everything that needs to happen before everyone leaves the house. If your kids can read, print the list with times or time limits for each task (for example, your list might say, get up, make bed, and get dressed before breakfast at 7.00am). For younger kids, go through some old magazines or look online for pictures that represent each action, and create a visual checklist.
Put the list on a large poster board and hang it somewhere easy for everyone to see—maybe on the fridge. Then it becomes each person’s responsibility to follow the list and get themselves organized and out the door.
Chat with your kids during your meeting about which jobs need to get done in the morning and which ones could be done the night before. It’s important to provide them with the opportunity to take on more responsibility for their own needs. This is a great time to add a new task to their list, like making their own lunch or packing their own school bag. Maybe your little one is too…well…little to manage some of these things on his own. That’s okay. Take time for training, and gradually hand over more responsibility as he grows more confident and capable. For example, maybe your kindergartener can’t make his own lunch, but he can choose one item from the “snack” basket and one item from the “fruit” basket, along with the “meal” you’ve prepared for him, then pack those along with the meal you’ve prepared. Celebrate and encourage each step your kids take toward independence—no matter how small.
Don’t nag about the morning chart, just allow it to become the “boss.” Instead of saying, “Have you brushed your teeth yet?” try asking “How are you doing on your chart this morning?” This is a learning process for your kids, and they may be used to you managing everything to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.
Trust that they can handle these tasks, and allow them to experience the natural consequences when they don’t. Unless you want to be overseeing their duties indefinitely, it’s never too early to start showing faith in them to handle their responsibilities…even if it means they miss lunch one day because they forgot it.
Follow through and encourage them. If you say you won’t deliver forgotten lunches or dig through their bags for assignments, stick to that—even when it’s hard. Your consistency and “saying what you mean” have a profound effect on their ability to learn. So does your encouragement. When you show confidence in their abilities and recognize their efforts, they’ll feel excited to take on new responsibilities. And your mornings will feel a lot calmer as a result.
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