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With Your Rule
Children Go Slow in the Morning!
Dear Holly,
How do you get your children to get up and get going? They sleep through their alarm clocks and are so slow at doing anything in the morning even if they got to bed on time. Any ideas? Is this weird?
Labels: 4th P Parent
posted by Holly at 10:11 AM
1 Comments:
Have you noticed that the older children get, the more they sleep in? It's a wry twist of original sin, I think!
I am a firm believer in bedtimes as the way to ensure happy risers! If my children are not getting up on time and are unable to function in the morning at a reasonable pace, I usually cut bedtimes back by half an hour for those who are dragging. I tell them that they obviously need more sleep, and when their bodies adjust, I can put the bedtimes back to their normal spot. This is a great motivator! :-)
Secondly, I enlist the aid of Philip and the other children who DO wake up on time to get the others out of bed. Philip always does a "Wake up Call" before he comes downstairs, and then my littlest ones love to go jump on the beds of the older ones!
Thirdly - I ensure there is LOTS of time for the morning hygiene tasks, breakfast and kitchen clean up. Basically I give them between 7:30 and 9:00 every morning. In this time frame, if they finish early, they have up to 45 minutes of free time.
But if they are dragging on certain days, it's their free time they lose. Sometimes this doesn'tbother them in the least, and at other times it motivates. It leaves me more peaceful too as I don't have to argue with children or become a policewoman.
Lastly, if they drag to the point of not getting their chores completed, they must finish them before they go out for our 10:30 recess. I seldom have to enforce this, except occasionally with my teenager.
Hope these ideas help.
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