CALM MORNINGS
If mornings are stressful, keep the demands low and strip back to essentials. Some children are motivated with a reward, some find TV a useful distraction, some need focus. Know your children and create a routine that works best for you and your child. This might look different for siblings based on need, school start time, appetite, sensory sensitivities, time management.
As the caregiver it is important to keep controlled and calm in the mornings, no matter how frustrating you are finding the pressures of getting everyone out of the house. If your children struggle to meet your expectations, or struggle to read your body language/social cues that you are feeling time stressed, communicate your feelings in words.
“Mummy/Daddy is feeling stressed as we need to be in the car in 20 minutes, so far no one is dressed and water bottles still need to be done. Let's all brush our teeth together before I become an exploding volcano”. Avoid shouting at them or getting panicked, it will only create a cycle of distress. Mirror the behaviours you would like to see.
A low demand approach will help the regulation of the whole house if anyone struggles with demands or feels anxious about the expectations of the day or otherwise fatigued. Pinpointing who is feeling what here will help reduce your own stress and reflect in the children's ability to strive in the mornings. Removing demands will feel tricky, it takes more mental capacity to rephrase requests to choices or options “shall we put right or left shoe on first?” but will quickly gain traction. Once safety is felt, you will be able to add small demands back in over time.
Create races and work together “can you get your socks on before me?”, also visually mirroring the tasks that need to be done each day.
To hold the regiment of daily tasks, find the compromise, add time, colours, options and flexibility. Think outside of the box and make the rules follow your family's needs.
Understanding who needs support, scaffolding or prompting will also help you manage your own expectations of everyone you are trying to get ready. No matter how many times you ask a goldfish to climb a tree they will be unable to do so. Work out who needs physical hands on support (lifting them out of bed, getting them dressed, putting shoes on). This isn’t about being physically able to do the task, but the executive function to actually make the choices and create time anchors. Often those who are task avoidant will agree to your requests, but fail in actioning them -
“Yes, I will”
“Okay”
“In a moment”
“Let me just…”
Those who need scaffolding will need less of a hands-on approach but are not able to get ready completely independently either. Calling them for breakfast, leaving shoes out, having bags packed - this will likely depend on their coordination (zips, tying laces) and any learning difficulties they may have (finding items, organisation, memory, buttons).
Those who just need prompts could transition to an audio or visual. Exchange your verbal prompts one by one to their preferred communication style. i.e. wake them up in person, but leave a visual on the fridge with breakfast options. Or an alarm to wake them up but eat breakfast together. This will depend on the age and the stage of the child but we want to maintain connection but gently reduce the mental load for you.
Be okay with big feelings, start addressing the unpredictable or hard to navigate events that might be coming up (pe, a themed day, change of teacher etc) at home whilst the child is in a safe space will help reduce the impact of them finding this out later on. Reassure them that you are not afraid of their emotions.
Preparation
This can cover everything from ordering food, storage, laundry and visuals.
Create a regular time to order lunchboxes from a regular shop or schedule a task to order meals/milk for school lunches.
Create space in the kitchen for lunchbox items, storage tubs, the boxes and the water bottles. Make up lunches the night before if it helps (ADHD time might need the deadline of making this in the morning. This is okay, but allow the time on either side).
Storage of school shoes, bags and coats - drawers and hooks at child height, close to the front door if possible.
If possible, have enough uniform that it can be washed and folded away over the weekend, all in an accessible place (visible and child height).
Hanging uniform on a hanger with a picture of them in eyesight on each school day (alternating to weekend/event/club clothes) is a passive tool to show that tomorrow is a school day and allow the processing time to cope with that.
If visuals help, create photographs/visual diary around the tasks that need completing in the mornings.
Hygiene
Sensory aversions can often cause the most stress in the morning. It will take some time to work out the best tricks here. Minimise everything that is non-essential.
Keep the bathroom as clear as possible, with containers or trays to organise equipment. Colour code items if possible/ use of stickers to identify ownership etc.
Soap - select scented or non scented to best fit need. Experiment with solid, liquid and foam soaps. A solid soap with a toy inside can be a good motivator.
Large sink for room to move.
A stool to reach the sink.
An obvious fluffy hand towel to dry hands.
Experiment with different toothbrushes and toothpastes - U-shape, patterned, coloured, electronic, non flavoured, non minty *Hismile has lots of different flavours.
Bring the toothbrush to the child if coming to the bathroom is too much, a small bowl or container to spit into will help build the sensory resilience needed and a low demand approach to creating a rhythm.
Use of ‘rewards’ after a tricky task, use of colouring in sheets (colour a section in each day), fill a ‘tetris’ grid in, 5 star jumps, stickers, high 5, accrue time in etc.
Timers and time
Especially problematic for ADHD brains - allowing ourselves time to switch off and getting enough sleep, to be able to achieve our tasks we need to in the morning.
Start by timing tasks so you have an accurate starting point. Allow for snoozes, processing time, task switching, dopamine searching. Once you have the times, set your alarm to match from the time you need to leave.
Utilise alarms or reminders to keep on track, work out and prioritise anchor points (by 7:15 both children need to be up).
If you still find yourself 5-10 minutes late, set your clocks 5-10 minutes faster.
If your children have an anxious disposition, allow downtime in your morning routine, this may sound counter intuitive but will create a regulation buffer to help stabilise the morning. This could look like:
10 minute cuddle in bed before getting up
Big movement/heavy work
Long breakfast
Massage (may help hair/teeth brushing)
Reading a book
Breathwork
These activities increase connection, support our nervous system and our sensory feedback.
Make your rules
Find what works best for you and your family unit. Bring your kids breakfast in bed, sleep in a clean school uniform/get dressed in bed, whatever works to ensure you are all regulated leaving the door. Switch up screen time for those it helps and remove it for those it hinders. Watching a channel like Cbeebies with regular shows might work well creating anchor points of when to get ready, when to leave for school. Use of technology like Alexas for reminders and drop ins, so you are not shouting across the house, texts if your child has a mobile. They might not be classed as traditional methods, but if it suits, use it.
