School Days: Getting Through the Morning Rush

Trying to get kids woken up, cleaned up, dressed, fed, and out the door to school without forgetting their lunches and backpacks, can be a real challenge. If you are trying to get multiple children ready for school, the task can become downright overwhelming. Throw in a younger sibling that you must take with you as you walk or drive your children to school, and you can be in for a tremendously busy couple of hours. Every morning, five days a week!

Planning ahead is the key here. You can literally plan much of what you will need to do each school day morning, the night before. Checking to make sure homework is in backpacks and the next day's clothes are chosen and laid out, all the night before, can do wonders for simplifiying your morning. This in turn, reduces stress, and increases the likelihood that everyone will actually get out the door on time. Want to take it a step further? If your child tends to have a tough time deciding between breakfast food choices, have them choose the night before. One mom I know does this with her Kindergartener twins, and says it really helps to move their morning along. If your child takes his lunch to school, preparing and packing it the night before seems like less of a task when so many of us are in our kitchens cleaning up after dinner, anyway. If old enough, you could even have the child prepare and package their own lunch.

If sibling battles at the breakfast table are a consistent time-muncher in your home, rearrange your morning so that each child has their own designated time to eat their breakfast, i.e: while their sibling is showering or getting dressed. This is often a problem at our house, and this method clears it right up.

Another useful idea for helping everyone to stay focused on the tasks at hand, is to leave the television off while everyone is getting ready for school. Television is so distracting, and cartoons are nearly impossible for children to not pay attention to. We make it through our morning tasks far quicker if we leave the television viewing for another time.