Elizabeth Johnson Here we go again. It’s back to school for many of us, but all of us could use a little “easier” in our lives. So, I put together some of my favorite tips to help keep your morning routine simple.
After all, if you have multiple children to manage like me, then you feel pulled in 3 different directions in the morning. Often, I am playing referee, while the baby needs feeding, and the dog wants to go outside. Mornings can quickly become overwhelming.
So, I really made an effort last year to design a routine that would take the pressure off in the mornings and ease the tension.
It worked.
Find out my best tips for making your back to school morning routine more peaceful for everyone in your family.
1) Positive Attitude
How often do you fight your child to get up in the morning? It was happening for me with my daughter on the daily. She is not a morning person, but I knew her attitude could be better.
The first step to changing her behavior for back to school was adjusting my own attitude. I needed to not sweat-the-small-stuff.
After all, kids are observant of your mood and feed off of the negativity. I’m an adult. It is my job to control my emotions and to help her learn how to alter hers.
I began doing little things that would help brighten the mood, like play fun music to wake them up or at breakfast. And if that wasn’t a solution, sometimes my children just needed a one-on-one talk where you do more listening than talking.
I also like using essential oil blends to help lift our spirits. Add a few drops of peppermint essential oil and wild orange essential oil to a diffuser to fill the air with an energizing scent for back to school.
2) Set Alarms
I use my cellphone a lot for our back to school morning routine.
It’s an alarm for me. I use it as an alarm for my kids, and I even set it as a warning to get out to the car.
The alarms I set for the family include:
- Gentle Wakeup
- Wakeup
- Breakfast
- Time to Leave
There is a rule in our house that the children must be dressed and teeth brushed before coming down for breakfast. We have a two-story home, and I’ve found that once I had them down, I didn’t want them wandering off to go brush their teeth.
It may seem counter-intuitive to brush your teeth before eating, but for now, it works. I hope as the children get older; I will be able to let them go back up to brush their teeth without getting lost.
3) Gentle Wakeup
I mentioned above that I set a back to school alarm for “gentle wakeup.” It is a theory that you go into your child’s room 5 minutes before their alarm goes off to gently stir them.
This involves turning on a dim light, gently rubbing them awake with a quiet pleasant voice.
You warn your child that their alarm will be going off in a few minutes.
Then walk away.
It’s great. It eliminates the frustration of your child not waking as you are standing there. Simply let your child’s alarm do the rest of the work.
“But what if my child doesn’t get up with their alarm,” you say. Well, that is addressed in the next section.
4) Set Expectations
We have several expectations that I have set for the children with incentives attached. The first is that they need to get up from their alarm, get dressed, and brush their teeth.
I will not let them participate in breakfast if these steps aren’t taken. Hunger always prevails and they hurry back up the stairs to finish.
The second rule is the breakfast alarm. My children have two alarms set on their clock. The first to wake up, and the second to come down to breakfast.
In addition to being ready, I expect my children to be at breakfast on time. If they don’t make it to breakfast on time, they lose the option for a hot breakfast.
Eggs and toast, or something else hot, becomes a self-serve bowl of cereal. So, if they want my help making breakfast and something a little tastier, they will hurry themselves down for breakfast.
5) Prep the Night Before
Do this. I know a lot of people say this, but I mean really do this. Make sure your children have chosen their clothes the night before. I even have a drawer system my daughter uses to pick out her clothes for the entire week Sunday night.
I still picked out what my son wore last year, but I think he is becoming more independent and may want to choose his own outfits this year.
The second thing we prep the night before is meals. Making lunches is the most time consuming and stressful task for me in the morning. So, I began creating more ownership for my children by having them help pick out their lunch items and assemble.
A survey showed that 84 percent of children prefer to bring their lunch from home, but may be throwing out unwanted food. By giving my children some control over what they are eating has been helpful with getting them to eat more of their food.
Each night before bed we make sure they pack a lunch.
To make it easier I create a list chart that changes with the various groceries we have for that week. My child must have one item from each of the categories (and I limit it to only 3 choices in each category).
Here is a list of the categories and an example of what may be under each one:
Schoo Lunch Chart
- Protein
- Bananas and Peanut Butter
- Loose Lunch Meat
- Turkey Wrap
- Vegetable
- Carrots
- Spinach
- Cut Peppers
- Fruit
- Apple Squeeze
- Orange
- Fruit Salad
- Dairy
- String Cheese
- Yogurt
- Cheese Stick
- Grain
- Crackers
- Pretzels
- Nachos
- Special Snack (Optional)
I don’t always give my children a dessert, but I try to do it on Wednesdays as a special treat to help them make it through the week. This might be a cookie, a small piece of candy, or jello.
6) Design a Drop Zone
I totally believe in the philosophy that every item in your house should have a home. It’s sometimes easier said than done, but at least we can focus on organizing one area of our home for the purpose of an easier back to school morning routine.
I highly recommend having a command center or drop zone for back to school. I kind of don’t like the term “drop zone,” because it sounds messy. But basically, it’s an area where your children can “drop off” their backpacks, coats, and shoes after school.
Our command center is a large wall calendar where I put in all of our important dates and routines for the kids. This includes their chore chart. Below we have metal wall baskets for the important back to school paperwork and homework the kids bring home.
This allows it to be visible, not forgotten, but organized.
Your drop zone can be a nice hall tree or as simple as wall hooks, a shoe tray, or a decorative oversized basket for backpacks. It doesn’t have to be expensive.
And your imagination is your only limitation. But if you need inspiration you can find plenty of examples on Pinterest for drop zone ideas.
I always like to see what other people have done, but then make it work for me.
7) Create a Routine
This is almost along the lines of expectation, but it’s less of a demand and more of a flow for the morning. Kids thrive on routine. They like to know what to expect.
So, by using the tools of alarms and expectations we create a flow to our back to school mornings that they can expect to see every day.
Wake up, get dressed, brush your teeth, have breakfast, take care of your dishes, pack your bag, and get in the car.
These basic pillars are what the routine of our morning is built upon. Find what your most important aspects of the day are.
There are little things in the course of the morning that fit in between. But if you ever find your child off track, you can mention the next pillar to get them going again.
How you set up your home may affect your routine. For example, we make the kids put on their shoes before eating breakfast because we have found it to be that one drama we want to avoid when you are trying to get everyone to the car. But you may be really adamant about no shoes in the house, and that’s okay.
Just establish the routine that shoes go on right before going out the door.
Creating a routine can look different for everyone, but the point is to create a morning routine in the first place. This consistency will ease tensions while everyone knows what to expect as they go through their morning. It makes things flow much faster as the year goes on, and children no longer need to think about what to do.
Final Thoughts on our Back to School Morning Routine
I hope this back to school tips help your family create a morning routine that works for you. It takes a little effort now, but it is well worth it.
Momma, if you want your littles to get it together in the morning, it starts with you. Like it or not, you will set the tone.
If you have other great morning routine ideas please drop them below in the comments. This helps other moms as they read through the post.
And if you like this post, I think you may also find my post on How to Prevent the Flu for Families With Kids helpful. It’s something we all need to think about and be prepared for.
