This is good. Also saw something on Facebook today where a person color coded the analog clock showing how long it should take for each activity. It was for after school but this person could do the same thing for the morning routine.

Anonymous wrote:They need to be dressed with teeth brushed before they can have breakfast. You can use the time that they are brushing and dressing to get breakfast on the table for everyone. Everyone needs to be at the door at 8:25 (or whenever) every morning. Sharp. Give a 5 minute, 3 minute, 1 minute warning. They will get in the car in whatever state they are in sharply at 8:25. If that means they didn't go to the bathroom, they will have to go at school. If someone's shoes aren't on, throw the shoes in the car and they can put them on in the car or at the bus stop or once they get to school. Don't be afraid to step in sometimes too. Your kids shouldn't expect you to find their shoes for them every day, but if you're in a hurry and the kids aren't focusing or are sluggish, it's okay to step in.

For those of you whose kids get dressed and then eat breakfast, do you allow peanut butter or other common allergens at breakfast? My son has peanut butter (as do I) almost everyday for breakfast and I get nervous that he will get peanut butter on his clothes and then cause some poor kid to have an allergic reaction. Same for my other kid who has dairy with breakfast and has a kid with a dairy allergy in his class. Or do you just switch to something like dry cereal for breakfast so that you don't have to deal with the allergy issue?

I just took a PEP class that touched on morning routines. here are a couple things I learned that may help (class was just a couple days ago so I am still trying these out myself)

1) no screens in the morning - for adults or kids.
2) when you have a request for your kid ("go get dressed" or "put cereal bowl in the sink"), walk over to them and get at eye level, touch them and may the request.
3) ask questions like "what else do you need to do to get ready"
4) save the fun stuff (reading, playing a non-electronic game) for after they are 100% ready for school

Good luck!!!

No screens in the morning.

Any time a kid isn't ready on time, that night there will be no screens and bed an hour early.

All kids have to get up 20 minutes earlier than you are currently waking them.

Don't scream. Hiss your displeasure.

I also like the teeth brushing in the powder room idea, if you have one.

Anonymous wrote:We do everything at night except basic personal bathroom needs and getting dressed. That means that everything is packed the night before. My child wears a school uniform, but if you set out clothing the night before it would still work. My mom helps us 4 mornings a week and she allows tv during breakfast. It bugs me, but I'm not the one who has to wash a skillet before getting a child to school so I let it happen.

This is us, too. The trick is to leave no decision making for the morning. Lunches packed, breakfast planned, coffee ready to go, clothes laid out for the kids and for me, and my handbag/ work supplies ready for work. I also get up well before the kids so my caffeine has kicked in and I'm chipper. If I don't do all of this religiously I am guaranteed to scream about something. It helps that I got to the point where I realized that I was the root of the problem and the source of the solution for all of these humans with different styles and things going on in the morning.

Wake up before them for fifteen min by yourself and a cup of coffee.

For us screens are the incentive-- if you are ready to go "early" (which really just means you didn't waste 5-10 minutes along the way) you can use whatever remaining time there til we go as screen time.

We do everything at night except basic personal bathroom needs and getting dressed. That means that everything is packed the night before. My child wears a school uniform, but if you set out clothing the night before it would still work. My mom helps us 4 mornings a week and she allows tv during breakfast. It bugs me, but I'm not the one who has to wash a skillet before getting a child to school so I let it happen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, we eat first, then get dressed, then do teeth & hair. Shoes are kept in the mud room next to the garage. Backpacks packed up the night before. No screens, but if caught with an iPad, the password changes. Usually runs like clockwork.

Not OP, but HOW? Share exactly how you got this to work like clockwork.

Just repetition - day after day of the exact same thing. The first week of school, I had to be firm with reminders like 'now you have to get up', 'eat your food' (one likes to talk), and remind them to stay on task, but things get done without yelling. Sometimes in the dark days of winter, they complain about wanting to stay in bed, but I just tell them that I'd like to be in bed too but we can't, school's your job and I have my job too.

Another thing that helped us: my son sleeps in the shirt he will wear the next day then just changes pants in the morning.

I have an envelope filled with Pokemon cards. For each"good morning " he can grab a new card and bring it to school. He is 8 and Pokemon is the only thing that works.

I have a dawdler in 1st. The thing that has worked the best to keep me from yelling and nagging is to get her up earlier to account for some dawdle time (and also means getting her to bed earlier too - earlier than her peers I think, but she needs a lot of sleep).

And like others said, strict routine so that she can do it on autopilot. Wake up, use the bathroom, get dressed, make bed, brush teeth (I hate doing this before breakfast too but she eats so slowly that I figure it's at least better than not brushing at all - thankfully good dental checkups so far), breakfast. She never tries to sneak any other activities in, but she does usually starts daydreaming at some point and then gets distracted from what she was doing and can turn a 10 second activity into 20 minutes if I don't nudge her. I have no idea how I ended up giving birth to Fancy Nancy, but there you go.

So in our case, tacking an extra 20 minutes on to the morning did the trick. She doesn't feel so rushed and is in a great mood as she tootles along eventually getting her things done and I feel tons better because of the 1. reduction in stress from constantly feeling like we were running late and 2. not feeling like a jerk for making my kid hate school mornings.

Must be dressed before breakfast. Including shoes.

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, we eat first, then get dressed, then do teeth & hair. Shoes are kept in the mud room next to the garage. Backpacks packed up the night before. No screens, but if caught with an iPad, the password changes. Usually runs like clockwork.

Not OP, but HOW? Share exactly how you got this to work like clockwork.

Some days time goes by faster than others, so I have an iPhone alarm go off every ten minutes so we are all tracking time and moving onto the next task.