Make School Day Mornings Easy Peasy

It’s back to school time and all the moms rejoice in unison! Here are a few things we can all do to have easy peasy school day mornings.

In some of your cities, the big yellow bus is already cruising your street before the sun comes up and in the heat of the afternoon.

When the kiddos head back to school, every aspect of our lives shifts.

Our wake-up times change.

Our eating times change.

Our afternoon activities change.

Our bedtimes change.

Suddenly our lazy, slow-paced mornings become frantic and full of chaos!

None of us likes to start their days that way!

10 Things You Can Do To Have Easy Peasy School Day Mornings

You ready?

1 – Enforce a regular bedtime.

Mornings are often the worst part of our days during the school year.

Managing the exhausting school day plus the beginning of whatever fall activity our kids are doing wears us all out!

By enforcing a reasonable bedtime, we can do all we can to make sure our kids are well-rested day to day.

Grumpy kids make for miserable mornings!

2 – Prep at night for the next day.

Make your mornings easier by getting everything you possibly can do done the night before.

Pack lunches.

Select outfits.

Locate shoes.

Double-check backpack contents.

Know what the kids are going to eat for breakfast.

Sign any forms or permission slips and pay fees.

The less we have to think about in the mornings, the better our chances of smooth sailing!

3 – Designate a place for kids to drop their backpacks.

Train the children to put their backpacks in the exact same place – every. single. day.

It can be a hook or a basket or the corner of a bedroom.

Rid your life of the early morning scavenger hunt for backpacks and their contents!

4 – Acquire school-appropriate clothes.

The worst thing I can say to my daughters in the morning is that they need to change clothes because their shorts are too short or their shirt doesn’t cover their bottoms.

Consult the school dress code for what your district deems appropriate.

Then have a try-on session with your kids to make sure they have enough options.

It may even be beneficial to designate some clothes as school clothes and some as play-at-home clothes only!

5 – Have multiple pairs of school shoes – just in case.

If your kids are anything like mine, shoes provide lots of issues!

They leave them outside in the rain.

They lose one under the backseat of the car.

They leave them at a neighbor’s house.

We have yet to have a school year where some morning hasn’t been thrown off-kilter by shoes!

I have learned that my kids need to have multiple school shoe options – just in case!

One of them can be a $5 pair of slip-on canvas shoes from Walmart. Just have options!

6 – Let your kids pack their lunches.

One of our jobs as moms is to enable independence in our kids.

An easy way they can be independent is to give them the responsibility for packing their own lunches – the night before, of course!

Even if your kids are still young and don’t have the ability to make a sandwich, let them pack their sides and drink.

My 8-year old packs her own lunch every day!

Most days I don’t even know what she’s put in it, but she eats it, and that works for me!

Take one more thing off your plate and let your kids do their own lunch packing!

7 – Stick to the Morning Departure schedule.

Once the Back To School traffic has worn down, figure out the ideal time to leave the house is and stick to that schedule like clockwork!

One or two minutes later could mean a much longer drop-off commute.

You know what I’m talking about!

Know what time the bus riders need to walk out the front door to get to the bus and stick to it.

Unless, of course, your bus is super inconsistent and every morning is a guessing game!

8 – Wake up before your kids do.

There’s really not much worse than your child waking you up on a school day saying they’re going to be late for school!

Sheer and utter panic!

I’ve been there.

Get in the habit of waking up before your kids do.

Drink some coffee.

Gather your wits.

Think ahead to what could potentially send the whole morning into a tailspin!

Enjoy the quiet!

9 – Know the best time to get your kids up and stick to it.

Most moms know that kids with idle time get distracted!

Give your kids just the right amount of time they need to do the necessary tasks.

Breakfast.

Shower.

Get dressed.

Brush teeth.

Put on shoes.

Sit quietly.

Whatever their ideal morning routine is, give them just enough time to do it!

The more time kids have to piddle in the mornings, the more likely they are to get distracted by something that can throw the whole morning off.

10 – Give yourself and your kids truckloads of grace.

Mornings are hard, no matter how prepared we are.

Kids are kids, no matter how hard we try to make them more grown-up than their ages!

We all make mistakes.

We all get busy and forget to do this or that.

Our actions and attitudes in that first hour of the day will set the tone for the rest of their days – and ours!

Be sure they walk into their school building knowing they are loved no matter how big of a tantrum they threw over the insole of their shoe being wadded up inside their shoe! (I speak from experience!)

I hope you all have a fantastic school year full of new friends and experiences!