“I DON’T WANT TO GO!” my usually happy child is rolling around on the floor screaming and kicking the wall while I try to stuff my gym shoes into my bag, braid my daughter’s hair and drink my now lukewarm tea.

Clearly this is not a good morning.

I am not a morning person, but for most of the time we did homeschool preschool they were one of my favorite parts of our routine. Our mornings were calm and creative.

Sure my son shoots out of a bed like a rocket and my children have a different understanding of “quiet morning” than I did in my pre-child life but we had adjusted.

Morning invitations were saving the wee hours.

Morning jobs were taught and re-negotiated.

Muffins were regularly baked and eaten.

Enter Kindergarten.

After a couple days of wahoo! we’re in kindergarten excitement my son’s mornings had dissolved into a puddle of tears and clothes on the floor.

Fixing Our Morning Routine for School

When we have a big problem – and him rolling around on the floor every morning when I suggested it was time to start getting ready was a BIG problem – my teacher mode kicks in.

Behaviors are usually able to be fixed by considering 3 things; The environment. The teaching. The child. In that order.

It would be easy to say that he is just difficult and strong willed and resistant to change. That wouldn’t fix the problem though.

It would be easy to say he hates school. I contemplated this, but for him, at this stage, this isn’t the issue.

So how do you fix this?

Issue 1: Added Routines

Getting dressed. Making lunches. Eating breakfast. Brushing teeth. Mornings have a lot of steps.

My kiddo does well with routines and visual schedules.

We hadn’t added much when we started Kindergarten, but remembering to get everything in his backpack was stressful for him.

A visual schedule (which we had and I had updated before school started) wasn’t enough.

Fix 1: What’s In Your Backpack Shrinky Dink Zipper Charms

My genius friend Dayna has this one in the Rockin’ Morning Routines to Start Your Day in an Awesome Mood chapter of her new book.

These cute, colorful charms are fun to make and have helped immensely.

Issue 2: Time Management + Rushing

Rushing is not my son’s thing and nagging does not help. I know this.

Every single time I urged him along with something intended to be helpful like “10 more minutes and you need to bus your dishes and go brush your teeth” his stress level would increase.

Clearly, my method (or teaching strategy) of getting him ready was not helping.

Fix 2: Timer

My son is fascinated with clocks and numbers right now, so setting a timer on the oven in sight of our table worked well for him.

There are a number of visual timers, like the awesome DIY one in the SuperKids Activity Guide that are super fun, but for my kid this one worked well.

Every morning when I got up, the first thing I did was set the oven timer to go off 15 minutes before we needed to leave. I knew it took him about 15 minutes to pack his backpack, brush his teeth and don a coat and shoes.

He understood the numbers and he found it interesting to watch them count down. He also moved with more urgency as it got closer to when we needed to leave.

Having the timer allowed him to independently get dressed, do his morning invitation, and eat breakfast. When the timer went off he knew it would be time to do his other 3 jobs.

Issue #3: Busy Mama

If I had to pick one issue to fix it would have been this one.

When kindergarten started our morning time from wake up to leave got cut in half. We practiced this a little beforehand, but adjusting myself to have less time was hard (see note about me NOT being a morning person).

While my kids were eating and rushing around brushing their teeth and packing their backpacks, I was also rushing around getting ready.

Me being distracted made me far less patient and helpful when they both really needed me to be present.

Fix 3: Making Myself Present

This is not where I tell you about how I now wake up at 5 am to sip my tea in quiet and center myself for the morning. I am truly jealous of people who can do this because it sounds awesome, but it is not me.

Instead, I get as much ready the night before as I can.

My kids already pack their lunches and lay out their clothes on the kitchen table before bed. This way they are able to just get dressed first thing in the morning and put their lunches in their bags.

I’m not sure why this wasn’t obvious to me before, but I now do the same.

I lay out my clothes the night before and pack up my bag for the next day.

In the morning all I have to do is do my neb (while they do their morning invitation), get dressed, and then I follow along with them while they eat and brush teeth.

Our Mornings Now

I wish I could share a story about our now perfect mornings. The ones where our faces all light up with smiles as we calmly greet the new day.

That doesn’t really happen.

What does happen is a somewhat chaotic, but mostly happy flurry of activity.

There aren’t muffins, except for on Saturdays.

I’m still a little grumpy until after I get in my gym time and shower post drop off.

But, the screaming and kicking the wall? That part is gone.

Our mornings now are a slightly busier, still creative, conversation filled work in progress with a shoe tying, zipper zipping, key and phone juggling, lukewarm tea sipping hurry as we head out the door.

I’ll take it.

My friend, Dayna, has written this incredible book that will not only help you fix your mornings, but also your night time and every other time in between.

I shared some of the awesome wisdom I gained for helping one of my kids have a super morning, but every kid is different and that is what this book understands so well. 

My daughter doesn’t need zipper charms and timers and visual schedules, but the Hello Mr. Sunshine Morning Stretches (also in the book, on page 27) and those Wizardly Worry Stones (yes please? Turn to pg 33) are 100% her morning speed.

Find what will work for you kid, whatever their super power, in this book!

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