How do parents who work out of the home survive mornings?
Easy. Tough love and chores that keep the children busy
and out of each other’s hair.
I remember the year my four children were in four different
schools.
The first school bus arrived at 6:45, the second at 7:10,
the third at 7:30, and the last at 8:10.
Instead of turning each morning into a yelling, snapping,
“hurry up” catastrophe where Mom has to get
up at 5:30 to pull it all off, I decided to make the children
100 percent responsible for themselves.
With the aid of an alarm clock in every room, each child
was up between 6 and 6:30 a.m. I told the children that
if they missed their school bus, they’d have to
walk to school because I had to go to work and didn’t
have time to take them. Whoever invented that tough love
thing is a genius. The key, of course, is following through
if the little buggars mess up. Only once in all those
years did any of my children walk to or from school. My
youngest missed the school bus one time after school because
he was goofing off and yes, he walked home, all three-and-a-half
miles.
If walking to or from school isn’t practical or
safe, let them call a taxi company and pay for it with
their own money. Believe me, it only takes one episode
of having a kid walk to or from school or pay for a taxi
ride to cure them forever of alarm-clock abuse or dilly-dallying
after the bell rings in the afternoon.
Another way to avoid early-morning pandemonium is to give
them plenty to do. Besides getting themselves ready for
school, fixing their own breakfasts, eating, and gathering
their books, lunches, notes to the teacher and field trip
money, assign each child one chore to do every morning.
Make sure there are clean dishes to put away from the
night before. That job keeps him or her busy while number
two child is setting the table, getting the cereal and
milk out, and fixing toast for himself and the one putting
away the dishes.
Since two is company and three is a definite crowd in
the kitchen, be sure child number three (if you’re
lucky enough to have that many) takes music lessons so
he or she can spend those early morning minutes practicing.
At our house, my eldest hit the piano ivories each morning
for 30 minutes which kept her busy and out of the rest
of the family’s hair.
The next step in the morning survival guide is to tell
all your friends and relatives what great kids you have
and how every morning they get themselves up, fix their
own breakfasts, do their chores and never miss the bus.
If you say this often enough in the presence of the children
they’ll begin to believe it and amazingly, they’ll
instill para-military discipline into their own morning
routines in order to live up to their reputations.
It also helps if the television is kept off during the
mornings lest the little angels get sidetracked by the
heart-stopping adventures of old sitcoms and cartoons.
At our house while the kids were doing their thing in
the kitchen, I’d shower, get dressed, pack my lunch,
fix my own breakfast, and organize my day without many
interruptions from the children. That’s because
they were too engrossed in their own tasks to even notice
what I was up to. By the time the last bus arrived, I
was ready to walk out the door and face the world.
What happens, when, heaven forbid, a child tells you that
he or she needs a costume or a dozen cookies that day
and he forgot to tell you the night or week before? Once
again, why panic, when at 7:15 in the morning, you can’t
possibly do a thing about it?
Simply practice tough love again, teaching your child
the consequences of his or her actions. Hug your child
and say, “Oh honey, I’m so sorry you forgot
to tell me that you needed a shepherd costume this morning.
Your teacher will decide if we can work on it tonight
or if perhaps someone else will have to be the shepherd.”
Somehow I learned early in my career as a parent that
it was imperative to teach my children to be responsible
for themselves. Of course, in the mornings I was always
there to chat, answer questions, organize the carpooling
for the afternoon activities, and kiss them goodbye. But
the rest of the morning routine? They did it all, bless
their hearts … and we truly did survive mornings.
Of course I’ve never been quite sure if our morning
routines were easier or more difficult because there was
only one adult in our household, but for our family, at
least, tough love and letting them practice responsibility
worked like a charm.
(Lorenz, who also writes for “Daily Guideposts”
books and “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books,
is a speaker for many schools, churches and colleges.) |
