What are your weekday mornings like with a Middle Schooler?

[Anonymous]

7th and 8th grade girls - I wake them. They dress (uniforms) and assemble their backpacks and get their own breakfast (alternating -one eats while one does hair/bathroom and vice versa to avoid drama). Sometimes I make lunch, sometimes they do their own the night before or morning of, sometimes they have lunch at school. They fill their own water bottles and get a morning snack to bring. I drive them to school and both know to be ready at 7:50 or I will leave them behind. (They could walk and be late and that would be their problem)

[Anonymous]

I wake mine up if he is still asleep. He comes down and gets himself cereal. I still have to watch the clock for him and send him upstairs to get dressed if he gets too into his reading while he eats (he loses track of time).

[Anonymous]

Mom of a 6th grade boy (ADHD for the parent that asked).

He wakes himself up, gets dressed (clothes for the week are laid out on Sunday), goes to the bathroom and brushes teeth. He'll check his backpack, but it's usually packed the night before.

But that's it. If I don't make breakfast he won't eat, and if I don't pack lunch he won't eat. He's a slow eater and the middle school cafeteria is so crowded that if he waited in line to buy lunch he'd never have time to eat it. He's got some pretty significant blood sugar issues, so it's not something we can just let go so he learns to do it. Our solution is for him to lay out the non-perishable things the night before on his way to bed and I finish making the lunch and the breakfast in the morning.

[Anonymous]

OP - these all seem amazing but they aren't - both of my kids do it. You just need to one thing at a time. My 5th grader has a alarm and he is in charge of getting up and gets dressed before he comes down. One of my tricks is that there is no screen time until you are ready for school. So my 5th grader gets up, gets dressed, eats a bowl of cereal and brushes his teeth in about 20 minutes so he can have 20 minutes watching videos before he goes to school. His choice and I'm fine with it.

My 8th grader likes to meander so he gets up an hour early. But prepares everything himself.

Work on getting up with alarm first, getting dressed before you come downstairs and then add the next thing, breakfast.

But, in my house, lunch is decided the night before - either buying or packing your own after dinner - that's a lot to ask in the morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD (8th grade) sometimes gets up on her own...other days, she will sleep to 10 if she could. I get her up at 6:05. She goes and gets her breakfast ready, and gets dressed. I shower and get ready for work. I drop her off at the bus stop on my way in. If the weather is bad, I will wait with her.

PP here. This morning, I overslept. I woke up a 7 and DD was out of the house. No where to be seen. I called her Cell; she was on the bus. She got up, made her self breakfast, got to the bus on time...

[Anonymous]

My first grader gets herself ready while I get ready and we eat breakfast together. I think your 6th grader will be able to handle it.

[Anonymous]

I wake up early and make the lunches for my children. I'm a morning person and have a dog, so I have to get up anyway. I wake up my middle schooler and she gets ready for school on her own. I barely see her some mornings. She showers at night, though, not in the morning. I don't supervise at all. She is sort of a morning person, too, though. I have a high schooler who has more of a struggle getting up. I sometimes have to wake that child multiple times!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD (8th grade) sometimes gets up on her own...other days, she will sleep to 10 if she could. I get her up at 6:05. She goes and gets her breakfast ready, and gets dressed. I shower and get ready for work. I drop her off at the bus stop on my way in. If the weather is bad, I will wait with her.

PP here. This morning, I overslept. I woke up a 7 and DD was out of the house. No where to be seen. I called her Cell; she was on the bus. She got up, made her self breakfast, got to the bus on time...

My mom was a SAHM who was never awake when we left for school. We had to leave her a note saying what we were wearing.

[Anonymous]

My eighth grader just spend a whole lot of time staring at a wall with one shoe on this morning, forgot to pack himself s lunch, and nearly missed the bus. At least he showered.

[Anonymous]

You can definitely start working towards this independence early. My kids have been getting their own breakfasts (generally cereal or toasting a waffle) since early elementary. Around 1-3rd grade we had charts for them to go through their morning responsibilities -- dress, wash, feed pets, make bed, brush hair, etc. They are in 5th and 7th now and it's been years since we had to do anything in the a.m. other than review what they have completed.

If they bring lunch, that gets discussed/packed the night before with me, but mostly they prefer to buy at school so the lunch packing is more a summer camp thing.

[Anonymous]

I have an 8th grader with ADHD.

DH wakes her up an hour before bus pick up and gives her her iphone (that we keep in our bedroom at night).
DD gets ready, puts on her makeup while DH makes her breakfast and packs her lunch. Then he goes back to bed when I'm on my way down.
I sit with my DD while she eats her breakfast and we talk about stuff that she will be working on at school.
I send her out the door 3 minutes before bus pick up. Give her a hug, tell her I love her. She walks to the front of the subdivision.
Then I wait for her to text me to confirm that she made it to the bus.

I have to see my kids off in the morning.

After the middle schooler leaves, then I prep the breakfast and lunches for the 5th grader.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have twin boys in 6th grade. I have to pry them out of bed, tell them to get themselves dressed 6 or 7 times, tell them to eat something several times, and make their lunches.

Some kids are much more capable than mine and I think girls this age are usually more mature and self-directing.

+1 (except I have 1, not twins).

[Anonymous]

DH wakes 6th grade DS at 7:45am, then DH leaves to drop off ES DS (DH handles mornings). Middle school don dresses, brushes teeth/hair etc, makes himself breakfast and is out the door at 8:25 for the bus. He does have an alarm on his phone that goes off at 8:25am in case he is distracted. He's done a great job this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can definitely start working towards this independence early. My kids have been getting their own breakfasts (generally cereal or toasting a waffle) since early elementary. Around 1-3rd grade we had charts for them to go through their morning responsibilities -- dress, wash, feed pets, make bed, brush hair, etc. They are in 5th and 7th now and it's been years since we had to do anything in the a.m. other than review what they have completed.

If they bring lunch, that gets discussed/packed the night before with me, but mostly they prefer to buy at school so the lunch packing is more a summer camp thing.

My issue is that I want my kids to have a big, healthy breakfast... so that means I am stuck cooking the oats, making the pancake/waffle batter, frying the eggs and sausages, dishing out the yogurt and granola. If I gave them the choice to make their own breakfasts, they would just eat a bowl of plain cereal and milk every. single. morning. Luckily, I don't have to leave for work until 8:30, so it is easy for me to make breakfast and pack lunches. Everything else, the kids can do on their own... they know they have to be downstairs and ready for breakfast around 8am. Once we finish up, I leave for work at 8:30, and they go outside and shoot baskets or something for about 15 minutes before heading off to school on their bikes at 8:45.

They are in 4th and 5th grade (both boys).

[Anonymous]

If they eat breakfast last, the need for #2 is a triggered reflex. Have them eat breakfast first. The need to poo will happen earlier.