Somewhere between the middle of September and the end of October, the morning and evening routines started to get out of whack. The kids bedtime tended to drift further and further into the evening, and the chaos in the morning started to increase. From tired melt downs to kids who forgot their homework folders or lunch, it was time to get things back into a routine and do it right away.
Our family tends to be more on the creative side and less on the structured side. A house full of free spirits with no sense of time will ruin any schedule pretty quickly. But the results of that, as we have seen, can be a real problem. So, for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, Creative Mom has to turn into Sergeant Mom.
I started with bedtime, since that sets the pace for the whole next day. The kids knew they had to have their backpacks ready to go for the next day, their pjs on and teeth brushed before being allowed any free time. They didn’t believe me at first, but after a few days of going to bed without any book reading or videos, they knew I was serious, especially when I upped the ante. If they couldn’t get themselves to bed on time, bedtime would move up by 15 minutes.
The morning routine got strict as well. They needed to be dressed 45 minutes before the bus was due. If they wanted a leisurely breakfast in PJs, they needed to get up early enough to get it done before that time. If they got up late or couldn’t stop playing to get everything ready, they saw real world consequences, such as no time to even eat breakfast. Neither Mom nor Dad were going to drive them to school, and there would be no more “emergency organic toaster pastry” on the way out the door.
It wasn’t easy. I cringe to think about sending kids to school without breakfast, and it made me second guess myself. Or asking them to put away a really cool drawing because there was no time to look at it and gush about it was also hard.
But, the results are amazing. Having time to share thoughts about school over a morning hot chocolate, eliminating the email from the teacher about missing supplies, or knowing that getting the kids out of the door in the morning would no longer be a battle has all been worth it.
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