School age kids dawdling

[mrsg123]

Any tips to help with AM dawdling? My dd in k just will. Not. Get. Ready in the morning. I have tried changing what time she gets up to give her more time to sleep, and more time to get ready. She really needs to eat because is not eating her lunch while at school:( TIA.

[lurknomore]

What about a visual aid of the things that she has to accomplish before getting out the door in the morning? I think @domerjen is doing something similar for bedtime, at least. She made a checklist so that her kids can see each day what still needs to be done. Let me see if I can find her post from last week. It sounded like a great idea.

ETA:  It was @barefootbarista
pandce.proboards.com/thread/370741/domerjen-having-issues-bedtime

[DarcyLongfellow]

My kindergartener is the same way.

We've had some moderate success in the past week or so as she's getting into the routine (finally).

Also, she now has a sticker chart and if she doesn't have a tantrum in the morning and doesn't dawdle too much, she earns a sticker. That's been very motivating for her so far, but we'll see how long it lasts!

We pick out clothes the night before, get her backpack ready the night before, etc.

[mrsg123]

Thanks, all. We pick out clothes the night before as well. Hopefully mornings will get easier as the year progresses.

[MDmomof2]

I had to make a sticker chart for my 1st grader. If she does the 4 things on the list (get dressed, comb hair, brush teeth, get backpack) and is downstairs by 7:05 she gets a sticker than earns her 5 minutes of Kindle time. I don't give her any reminders, she can tell time. Her alarm goes off at 6:30 and she hits snooze once then gets up to go potty at 6:38. It's PLENTY of time and allows her to dawdle but still be responsible for getting downstairs on time.

[jeaniebueller]

I lay out his clothes on the couch in the living room the night before. We don't even turn on the TV in the morning, because I feel like he dawdles even more. I always prepare his breakfast before he gets up and have it sitting on the table, so we can go from clothes to breakfast quickly. And I usually ask him if he wants to bring a cereal bar or granola bar to eat in the car on the way to school.

[matildasun]

I bribe mine with TV (MOTY). She knows that she has to get dressed, eat breakfast, and be completely ready to go, before she can watch any TV. She gets ready and then if there is any time left she is able to watch Wild Kratts until we have to walk out the door.

[savan]

We give lots of time to get ready. Like an hour and a half. We occasionally have battles with DD over getting ready but, like matildasun said above, my kids know that they have to be dressed before they can come downstairs and have to eat before they can watch any tv. We are consistent with that every day.

[barefootcontessa]

I would keep trying but not be afraid to let her be tardy and have to deal with that. Maybe let the teacher know in advance where you are at in the process. I used to constantly get after my kids to get ready. Then one day I let them be tardy and now they are better about it.

[jena]

I made a picture checklist of what to do in the morning (I did it in powerpoint using clipart), but I can't say it really helped my dawdler. Because knowing what she needs to do isn't the problem, it's doing it quickly that is the problem and it always has been. Everything is ready the night before - backpack packed, lunch packed, clothes laid out. And while all those things are necessary to make our mornings not too crazy, it doesn't help with dawdling. Oh, and going potty is a HUGE time suck. I have to make sure that she goes to the bathroom earlier in her routine, not last thing because she is almost guaranteed to need to have the world's longest poop if we are already late.

My biggest incentive right now is that if she leaves by 8, she gets to walk with her BFF. Her friend has to leave at 8:05, so if DD is late, her friend will be gone. TV is also banned in the morning unless you are completely ready, shoes on, gone potty, backpack and lunch next to you and you're ready to spring out the door.

We have also learned (and it took us an embarrassingly long time to learn this) that raising our voices to DD will only slow her down (either yelling or just being loud coach-style encouraging her to go faster). She just shuts down. And when I get that we-are-going-to-be-late feeling it is so so so hard to not get loud. If the morning is going really badly, we woke late or she is already in tears or near tears, I will simply dress her and do it all for her and let her eat something as she walks to school or buy breakfast there. It's less than ideal since I have 3 kids to get ready, but it gets us out the door more gently and more quickly than anything.

[rootbeerfloat]

We played around with wake-up times last year and figured out that it's better for us to get DD up earlier than necessary, rather than letting her sleep until the last moment. We also pick out clothes the night before. Once she is dressed, she can watch a show while she eats.

[vanillacourage]

DS1 gets grumpy and needs time to wake up. So we lay out his clothes the night before (or he changes into them at bedtime and sleeps in them - flame away). I wake him up, make his breakfast while he pees and then he eats and watches TV for 20 minutes or so while the rest of us finish getting ready, at which point he's ready for human interaction again.

ETA - he knows if he takes too long to get up or get downstairs that his TV time is compressed, which motivates him to get a move on.

[6fsn]

This is the one time it's good to have early risers. They are up at 6, but the bus doesn't come until 8:30. We do milk and a graham cracker and 1 show right when they get up. Then it's time to get ready. Any time left after getting dressed is free play.

[savan]

Sept 23, 2014 11:54:30 GMT -5 barefootcontessa said:

I would keep trying but not be afraid to let her be tardy and have to deal with that. Maybe let the teacher know in advance where you are at in the process. I used to constantly get after my kids to get ready. Then one day I let them be tardy and now they are better about it.

One of my friends uses this method.  She tells her kids how long they have to get ready.  If they are not ready in time they have to go to the office, explain why they are late to school, and get the tardy slip.  

[Deleted]

I have spent years perfecting my system of getting kids out of the house in the morning. .

Now I wake them up at 645 every morning and tell them
It's time to get up and what the weather will be so they can pick appropriate clothes. Then I go downstairs and do what I need to do. I call up every so often to relay how
Much time until we leave. But that's it. If they aren't ready we are still leaving (and I've followed through on it so they know I'm serious). They only needed me to leave once
With them not completely ready to realize I was serious. I also put it on them to help is get out the door at 720. My third grader takes that very seriously. They like having some of the responsibility placed on them. And they take pride when we leave on time because I tell them
They did a great job.

[Deleted]

Oh and no TV or other screen time in the morning in
My house. That just makes it so much worse. They are welcome to play once everything is done and ready including shoes on and backpack by the door fully packed. But until then, no playing.

[dragonfly08]

Things that helped me/my girls...
* pick out clothes the night before
* no tv or other electronics in the morning (if they're done early, they can read or play)
* meal planning so I can have breakfast pretty much on the table when they came downstairs and they knew what to expect
* prep as much of their lunches as possible the night before, finish it off while they were dressing or eating (again, meal planning helped me a lot here so there were no surprises and I had everything I needed)
* chore chart so they had a reminder of everything the needed to do and could see if they were in danger of losing allowance or another privilege for not getting their jobs done
* back packs checked, packed and left by the front door the night before

[imojoebunny]

We get up at 6:45. DD showers on her own she is 8 and this is a new skill), and my 5 year old showers with me. I hate giving baths, and showering is fast. It also wakes my kids (and me) up. I pick out DS's clothes, or he sometimes does the night before. His clothes are in bins on the floor of his closet, so all he has to do is pick one thing from the shirt bin and one from the short/pant bin, and a pair of underwear and sock from those boxes. No drawers, which slow him down. His shoes go at the end of his bed at bedtime. We brush hair once they are downstairs and ready for breakfast. We have a lot of time line reminders. They know that being late means a death march pace to school.

I have a variety of breakfast choices that vary from week to week, but include homemade fruit muffins or "oatmeal cookies" with added protein, like a smear of cream cheese or peanut butter, sausage biscuits, oatmeal, waffle sandwiches, quesadillas, or Cheerios, all of which the kids can get and make themselves, while I pack lunches. I only give them two choices per week to reduce indecision and waste.

We are out the door a 7:30 to walk to school. If they get it all together Monday-Thursday, they get to drive to school on Friday (I spoil them so, but the "reward" works.)

We don't do TV or tablet games during the week, other than the occasional Property Brothers or Beach Front Bargain hunt after dinner because I like those shows.