Every parent is familiar with the dreaded weekday morning problem, namely that there’s a million things to be done in the early hours of the day but only so much time to do them. Juggling your household chores with the responsibilities you have to get your children fed and on the bus with their lunches packed is never easy. Luckily, there are a number of tips you can keep in mind to help solve the weekday morning problem.
Here’s how you can get more done during the limited hours of the early morning, and some key tips you’ll want to be aware of when it comes to preparing your kids for the day ahead.
Set realistic goals
First and foremost, you need to learn the importance of setting goals, and realistic ones at that. Far too many people like to wing it in the morning and tackle their problems one at a time as they surface. If you’re trying to juggle responsibilities like childcare with others like needing to feed and clothe yourself, however, you’ll need to do some planning to make sure everything’s running smoothly in the AM. You probably can’t knock twenty chores off the list every morning, but if you plan realistically, you could always take care of a few important task before the day even begins.
Learning how to get your stubborn kids out of bed in the morning is one of the first places you should start. Far too many parents, especially new ones, waste too much time here by only haphazardly waking up their kids, only to find themselves forced to march back to their rooms in a few minutes and wake them up again because they never got out of bed. Once you master the art of getting stubborn kids up and about in the morning, you’ll find it much easier to focus on other pressing matters.
Next, you should consider having breakfast pre-planned when you wake up, so that you can immediately get to work cooking or preparing the day’s lunches. For parents juggling multiple kids at once, making sure that they all get amply fed is never easy. Thus, having some pre-sliced portions of fruit or other ready-to-go foods in the fridge in the morning can help alleviate some stress of the AM rush and give you enough time to get that med spa treatment you’d booked for the morning. You can even take this a step further and have your kids prepare their own breakfast the night before, which will help them get a head start on cooking and taking care of their own meals when they’re older.
Many parents also worry about the transportation their kids will be taking to school, and for good reasons. Talking to your child about such things as school bus safety is imperative if you hope for them to be able to get to and from your house and their school with ease and safety. Younger children in particular those attending private schools, will need to be briefed well ahead of time about life on a school bus, as springing it on them in the morning for the first time can cause them to panic and refuse to leave home.
It’s worth creating a list
Many kids struggle to stay focused in the morning, essentially demanding that their parents grow a second attention span and take care of their problems for them. Creating a list of the things your child needs to accomplish before heading out to school is an easy way to avoid this problem and will help you get a head start on teaching them to become sound and savvy planners themselves one day. Parents of children with such things as ADD in particular may find these schedule samples to be a real life saver in the morning.
Above all else, parents need to recognize that solving the weekday morning problem can’t be done alone. Even when you’re trying your hardest, you’re still only one person with so many hands. Enlisting the help of your children in the morning is by far the most effective way to get them up and moving, and ensures that you’re not single-handedly expected to deal with every household chore under the sun. Similarly, the earlier in the day your child starts thinking and getting physically active, the easier a time they’ll have of warming up to school and opening their minds to new information. Parents trying to solve the morning weekday problem should immediately embrace the power of scheduling, consider knocking out such things as breakfast and school lunches the night before, and shouldn’t be afraid to put their foot down with their kids when necessary. The AM drag can be a nightmare to endure, especially for new moms and dads, but the earlier you get a schedule ironed out and working the sooner you’ll see positive results when it comes to your mornings.