Helping Kids Start the Day Right

TRANSCRIPTION

Helping Children Get Up and Go to School

We’re going to talk a little bit about children, specifically about the struggles they’re having, and more specifically about children not wanting to get up in the morning and go to school. And how we perceive that, as parents, especially when we, as adults, need to get up and go on with our own day, and then we’ve got the stresses of the tasks and responsibilities we have in the home, and our child is not playing the game. How does that work for you? What do you do about it as a parent?

There’s a definite lean for many parents toward a demand-based approach in the morning. Being there myself, it’s just: “You need to get up and go.” So you just pick up your kid, get them up, and get them going.

There’s a level of: “Well, then go to school without shoes,” or “I don’t care if you don’t brush your teeth — we just need you out the door and at school.” And that’s a reality, because if you’re a working parent, you need to get to work as well. If there’s load shedding or traffic jams, you’ve got to leave earlier. There’s a life demand in that.

Then you go and talk to professionals in my field, and we have this: “Take it slow with your kid, be accepting, find connection.” And the next morning, the same thing happens. All you really want to do is pick them up and put them in the car. That is a reality.

Do we get beyond that so we don’t harm the child or create more problems? Because the way we deal with our children can exacerbate things and just make life harder for us.

While the most important thing is the child’s development, in the process of getting there, it’s actually your own work as an adult — your own regulation. We assume that an adult is an adult and has greater control over themselves, more resources, and greater ability.

When your kid is not getting ready in the morning quickly enough, you need to get up half an hour earlier. When you can’t get them to eat their breakfast because you’re busy making lunches, you need to make lunches the night before. It’s about changing your own habits as an adult.

We can’t say, “Oh, it was somebody else that caused me to be late, or somebody else made me angry.” We’ve got to take it on ourselves. The first step is: can I take responsibility for my emotions? How do I feel about things? For the change, I need to go through?

It doesn’t matter whether you’re dealing with a child who won’t get up in the morning, a dog that won’t stop barking, or the pool that won’t turn blue. We do need space for the feeling that the world is harsh, that it is hard.

Be okay with putting some of that off our shoulders and placing it somewhere else. It’s got to come back down to who I am, what I’m doing, and what I want. The work is hard: making change, creating different outcomes.

It’s the same if you want to get fit, improve your health and diet, stop smoking, stop drinking, or go back to studying after years off. All these goals require preparation and consistent action. Parenting is no different.

Don’t rely on manuals — though books and guides are everywhere. The trick is figuring out for yourself what you want to do differently.

The fact that your child isn’t coping in the morning isn’t about what’s wrong with them. The start is: “What can I adjust — one little thing — that might make life easier for me and, in turn, easier for them?” That’s the starting point.

If I had to sit down and be pressed for a couple of things you can do, definitely, you have to wake up before your child and get some things done first. If you shower in the morning, you need to be showered before your kid wakes up. Otherwise, if you’re in the shower for 10 minutes, what is your child doing? At best, they fall back asleep; at worst, they cause havoc around the house. I would say you need to get up 30 minutes early and get yourself completely ready, because you also want to talk about role-modelling and helping your child brush their teeth, and you can do that with them.

It’s essential to make the lunches the night before, get uniforms ready, and pack bags. You don’t want to be scrambling around the house, and this can be difficult for adults as well, because we struggle with those things. So not only should you be better prepared and better planned, but you also need to be developing your own skills in planning, preparation, and organisation. That could be argued as more the actual first step or pre-step.

Other practical things would be: when you wake up your child in the morning, how are they waking up? Are they a morning person? That’s something to consider. If they’re not a morning person, do you really want to be blasting in there, pulling the duvet off them, and creating more chaos? Having said that, if you do it too gently, they may just never wake up.

You could think of ideas for your children about what’s going to happen next, because ultimately, this is all about change. You go from a sleep state to an awake state, from home to school, from pyjamas to uniform — all these little micro-changes. How do we prepare them for each of those things? In winter, put the uniform near a heater to warm it up. That simple thing could make a real difference, because it could be the thing your child is really struggling with. You won’t know until you try it.

It’s about being observant. Something I did as a parent, and do in my school community as well, is observe first, don’t assume. Make your changes for yourself, and then, in the context of those changes, notice what you see in your child. When are they struggling the most? Don’t assume the struggle; look around and see what in their environment might be causing it. If they put the TV on and can’t get away from the screen, hide the remote and just take that component out of the picture. They might protest at first, but eventually habits can be changed — for good or for bad.

James Clear spoke about this in Atomic Habits. He talked about stacking habits. Start a routine in the morning. We talk about sleep hygiene in the evening. We need a routine to help children go to sleep, and another to help them get up and going. It could be the same routine on weekends, holidays, and school days, stretched a little bit longer. A simple routine like this will be excellent for them as adults. If they build a beautiful morning habit, they will know what to do and what to expect.

If we don’t create these stacked habits and routines, children are left up to their own devices to develop their own routine. How does a nine-year-old know where to start? Even a 16-year-old may struggle. One big thing is: how do we create a step-by-step process — get in the car, get to school — so that on difficult mornings, the process carries them through and gives you time to handle any big emotions?

Of course, the next layer on top of that is connection. You don’t get your child in the car by being disconnected from them; they’ll resist more. Spend time with them. Brush your teeth together. Make jokes in the mirror. If the child responds well to challenges, make it fun: brush with the opposite hand, stand on one leg, do it with your head upside down. That becomes bonding time. Children respond better when they feel connected.

To sum it up: change your own habits, be available to your children in the morning, make a list of the routine, try it out, be very observant in the beginning, and seek connection all the way. See if those strategies make any difference.