All working day morning are with busy schedules at all the houses. The annoyed, angry morning may spoil your whole day. Here are a few things to make mornings smoother and life easier with your young children.
Parents know that few things are harder with young kids than getting out of the door on time.
What can we do to make the mornings run a little smoother and make life easier for everyone as we’re getting out the door? (After you have said a morning prayer, of course.)
- Plan with Your Kids
Dr. Ross Greene’s book The Explosive Child and his “Plan B method” of including children in collaborative problem solving.
At a calm time, may be in a weekend, sit down with your child and discuss how you can work together to make mornings go more smoothly. Tell them all the expectations you have for your child and ask them what would make it easier to get all these things done in time.
Perhaps your child might appreciate a written or pictorial visual reminder chart to stay on task. Maybe using a time timer would help or setting up auditory reminders with a device in your home.
Talk to them and see what suggestions they have. They might surprise you with their ingenuity!
2 Do as Much as You can
Try to do as much preparation as we can the night before. Work together to pack backpacks and lunches the night before. Keep this printable list on the inside of the pantry door and tell your kids to choose (at minimum) a fruit, a vegetable, a grain, and a protein every day.
Ideally breakfast can be prepped ahead of time, either the night before or on the weekend, or you can choose from a few quick breakfast options that your kids like.
3. Extra Time for Yourself
Leave early if you are dropping your kids at school. Somehow it always takes forever to put on shoes, find that one errant water bottle, grab a jacket, and so on. So you should be out of house before the time.