Hi beautiful people!
As an adult, getting ready is easy. As a 4 year old, 5 year old, 6 year old, 7 year old.... it can be soooooooo hard! This is prolly related to personality types and wills stronger than an ox! And, this is particularly hard for only children. They have noone to compete with. LOL
For over a year, our morning routine was "go brush your teeth", "go put your clothes on", "go put your shoes on", etc... Over and over and over and over....
Until one day, I was done repeating myself and keeping up with all the steps. One day this little person was going to be responsible for herself, and I was not helping her one bit by telling her exactly what she needed to do moment by moment by moment. The strong will dislikes being told what to do moment by moment by moment. And the super smart child will turn this into a game, and will win!!
Once I realized this, I handed back into her court. I had endurance to help her be sufficient and to keep encouraging her as long as it took. But, I was not going to lose my sanity anymore!
So, we did this.
I purchased some dry erase magnets and had a discussion with her (not the morning of, the night before when we were not rushing at all.). We came up with the musts in the morning to get ready for school and wrote them on the dry erase magnets. In the morning, when her alarm goes off she is to use this list to get ready.
Coincidently, the bedtime routine is the opposite. Convenient, right!
That's it.
Sometimes, she moved the magnets to random places on the fridge. Sometimes she had spots she required them to be. Sometimes, she made columns - one for not done and one for done - out of the other blank magnets.
When she would dilly dally, I would say "go get ready, you are leaving soon". I'd give her a time limit. If not reached by the time limit, there was a consequence. (Usually no play date after school with her neighbor bff. Thus, tragic!).
She would protest and say, "but I don't know what to do." "But, I need your help." etc......
All I said was, "use your magnets."
This saved my sanity. I had no time to be micromanaging anyone as I had enough of a hard time taking care of the things I had to do in the morning - me and her lunch, lol. An incredible feat if you have a very chatty, prone to entertain, prone to be excitable, prone to want to know every detail and nuance about a directive, and prone to disagree with semantics child:)
MOMS, I know you know what I am sayin'!
Immediately I got to take care of the things I needed to without interruption. It took about two years and some maturity for her to start to take full ownership by age 7 of her get ready and go to bed routine. But, now she does.
All kiddos are different. And, I love mine with all my hard. I am so very proud of her. I feel lucky to be her mommy. I am grateful to have encouraged gently because now I look back at the process and years with fondness and love.
I prolly could have been more intense about it, but that's just not me. I have to live with the memories I help to create. I choose compassion. After all, I think the world needs more of that. So, that's the direction I chose.
Hope this gives a mommy somewhere an idea to help with their munchkin or munchkins!
Lots of Love,
Lulu Wiggles
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