Changing Up Your Morning Routine Can Change Your Kid’s Whole Day

This morning before the sun rose, I woke to the infernal buzz of my alarm clock, stumbled out of bed, and blearily began going through the many motions that it takes to get two kids packed and dressed and showered and fed and ready to head off to two different schools on time. And I was hardly alone in this ritual. Across the country, millions of moms were doing the very same thing, at the very same time. The early morning rush to get everyone up, ready, and out of the house is a daily reality and for most of us, it’s just the first exhausting hurdle in a day filled to overflowing with appointments and deadlines and meetings and long ass to-do lists, and that’s not even counting the laundry/grocery shopping/toilet scrubbing/library book returning/school project planning/dinner cooking duties that somehow also have fallen to us in our role as ‘Mom.’

It’s easy to grow frantic in our busy-ness — and our harried demeanor definitely impacts our kids. I still remember the knots that twisted in my stomach each morning on my way to school– physical pain that resulted from the panic of waking to a blaring alarm clock, scarfing down breakfast, searching for a missing sock, counting out lunch money, loading up my backpack, and flying out the door as my mom instructed us to “Go! Go! GO!” in order to get to school on time. Our morning routine was nothing out of the ordinary, either then or now.

And yet.

Once I became the one shouting “Go! Go! GO!”…. it bothered me.

I didn’t like seeing that same anxiety on my own children’s faces. And I didn’t like the realization that those feelings of panic and worry and RUSH were potentially setting the tone for their entire day. It also occurred to me that most of the things I was stressing out about in my daily race to get things done don’t even matter-– not in the grand scheme of things. An occasional tardy, a deadline missed by an hour, an unmade bed, a forgotten appointment– Why was I letting myself get worked up about stuff I wouldn’t even remember a year from now? Seriously. Why?

And so, I made some changes in my morning routine.

I started getting up ten minutes earlier. Immediately, the panic of being late lessened. The morning routine got exponentially easier.

I also instituted a no television rule. It turned out that the screaming of Spongebob wasn’t conducive to peace and calm. WHO KNEW?

Most importantly, I started paying more attention to my kids in the mornings and their individual needs. Right now, my daughter loves having a few minutes in the morning to talk about “girl stuff” with me on our way to school. My son just needs a little extra attention of any kind, which seems simple enough, but it’s one of the first things to go when we’re in a hurry.

I felt like these things were making a difference, but it wasn’t until this morning that I knew the small changes I’d made were paying off. After dropping off my daughter at carpool, I came back home to find my son coloring at the kitchen table, a dejected look on his face. I would have noticed that look in the past, of course, but I probably wouldn’t have had more than thirty seconds to address it. This time, though, he was all ready for school with several minutes to spare. I sat down with him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“It’s just that I hate school,” he grumbled after a long moment of silence. This has been a common refrain for him lately, and it was the same when my daughter was his age. Third grade, it seems, is the year the fun at school ends and the real (real boring) work begins.

“What do you hate about it?” I asked.

“Everything. Math. Science. Spelling. Social Studies. And you get in trouble if you do anything.“

I sat down on the kitchen floor and motioned for him to sit in my lap. And then the dog got in his lap and we laughed. And then I hugged him for a long time and told him how much I loved him and reminded him of recess and an upcoming all-day field trip and a promised game of cards after school and Thanksgiving break and for several minutes, we just sat and talked. By the time my husband came downstairs to take him to school, he was happy and laughing again.

Five minutes was all it took to get him back on track for the day. But it was five minutes we wouldn’t have had a year ago.

I tell you this only because it took me years to figure all this out– It’s easy for us as parents to get stuck in a rut and believe it would take drastic measures to make changes. But often, small adjustments in our routines and habits can make a big difference in our family’s lives, as can the reminder that everything won’t completely fall apart if some of the stuff that fills our jam-packed schedules goes undone while we tend to the hearts of our loved ones instead.

So yeah. FINALLY, I’ve got mornings covered. Bedtime, on the other hand? Let’s just say that’s still a work in progress.

Header image via Bobbi Bowers/Flickr