How to establish a healthy morning routine with a pre-teen

 

How do I establish a healthy morning routine with my preteen? They are sleeping in later, harder to wake up, and they don’t want to go to school. 

Some of you may be at your wits end. Tethering on a thin line of gentle parenting or screaming your head off to get them to do what they are supposed to. 

And this is completely understandable. 

I’m not promising that you will never ever raise your voice again at your ‘baby’ in the morning. But, I am offering simple solutions to help navigate your way around it. 

These are steps that I found very simple to add to my daily morning routine and helped tremendously.

Are you modeling the behavior you want to see?

Yes, you need to ask yourself this question. kids are more inclined to follow suit rather than doing what they are told. 

If children see you following a healthy morning routine. They will model that behavior.

I started taking showers every single morning at 4:45 am as part of my Morning routine. My 9 year old immediately started to do the same thing every morning when he woke up. (The bathroom is right next to their bedroom so they hear me in the shower.)

He mimicked my behavior. 

Once I realized this, I stopped telling him to do certain things and started to do them myself. 

In hopes that he would pick the behavior up on his own. 

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Some of the things he picked up from watching me:

• • Setting an alarm to wake up on their own in the mornings

• • Waking up earlier

• • Taking a shower without being told

• • Making their own breakfast and sometimes helping his younger siblings with their breakfast. 

• • Being aware of what time we needed to leave the house to make it to school on time and being fully prepared.

• • What day they need to bring their clarinet to school and have it packed in their backpack.

• • Getting things prepared the night before. 

• • The things I loved the most is picking up their Bible 

when he would have a hard day at school. He would go to the Bible for answers. 

I relieved so much stress off of myself by doing these things. Of course not everything I did he picked up and that’s okay. I didn’t expect that at all.

It still resulted in  calmer mornings because of the things he was able to do on his own. 

Listen to them when they come to you

I was so caught up rushing in the morning that if my child came to me I shooed them off. Hurried them to do other things because we needed to get going. 

Why was getting my child to school on time more important than listening to them when they came to me with a concern?

Simply by having conversations with my child in the morning Ied to them being more receptive to me and my request in the morning. Not to mention they had better days at school.

They come to you with things that bother them or needing reassurance and guidance. Giving that to them in the morning before they head out almost guarantees that they will have a great day. 

And if not a great day they will know how to navigate their day.

Listening to my child allows them to unload their thoughts unto me and create a fresh new day for them, establishing a healthy morning routine.

That leads to more successful days. And if they ask for my input I lead them to Bible verses and scriptures that will help them. 

By listening to my child I seen a change in:

• • How happy he was to wake up in the morning and get their day started

• • He was able to come to me for help or a listening ear 

• • Spoke positively to themselves 

• • They were able to solve small problems on their own 

• • Less frustration and more patience with themselves. 

• • They could make their own responsible decisions 

Setting Expectations for the Morning

Do they have an idea of what needs to be done in the mornings? Have you given them a guideline?

This goes beyond the point of demonstrating and modeling the behavior for them. They see you do these things now they also have a verbal confirmation of the things being done and why.

They are able to wake up earlier on their own because they see you do it, but why should they. 

This needs to be explained to them, the benefits of what they are doing.

Set these expectations for them clearly without taking away from their independence.

I do this by setting very open expectations that allow them to still model my behavior. 

Then based on what they choose to do, I explain the benefits. 

Ex. My child wakes up earlier on his own by setting an alarm clock. 

• • My expectation: I love that you wake up early on your own, we are able to take our time getting ready in the morning and get out of the house on time.

• • The benefit: By waking up earlier it gives you time to start a healthy morning routine that prepares you for the day. You’re able to eat a healthier breakfast, do your stretches and read your bible. All of these things lead to an overall more positive day. 

Using positive reinforcement while setting expectations is  proven very beneficial for children and development. Take a look at this article I found on Positive reinforcement. It goes further in depth of the benefits of positive reinforcements for children.

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Being patient while establishing healthy routines

Everything is going great for a while. Then BOOM! You wake up with a frustrated moody pre-teen. 

What do you do?

Are we just going to undo all the months of building this routine by also getting frustrated.

Or 

Can we sympathize, control our emotions, and be patient with our children? 

I choose the latter, I will always choose the latter. Number one being I serve a just God and he is always patient with me, his child. Therefore, I choose to be patient with my child.

Giving grace and space to my child to have days where he is frustrated allows me to deepen his relationship with God. To be able to go to his Father in heaven and ask for guidance.

I look at moody days as days I am able to help my child improve in certain aspects of his life. Days where I can listen more intently to my child and offer comfort and connections. 

Moody days are not always ideal, but the better we become at dealing with them the less frequent they become. This will also become a behavior that your child we learn to mimic. 

Flexibility

Are you flexible? If the day does not go as planned, do you freak out and lose it. 

Or do you adjust?

I learned very early on that being flexible with children is a super power. Some of us have this skill already. Some of us need to develop this skill.

Whenever something does not go according to my plan, I first and foremost tell myself things go according to the LORD’S plan. 

Just this one positive thought alleviates so much stress that I do not have to carry on my own. In return it gives me strength to go about the day as he sees fit. 

It is that simple. 

Ex. Your child wakes up with a 101 degree fever. 

Do we stress about calling out of work, not being able to do certain tasks for the day, and our check being short because we missed a day.

OR

Do we thank the lord for allowing us to stay home, rest, and restore our child’s health. And trust that he will still provide for us. 

Once again I choose the latter. Thinking like this allows me to be flexible when things don’t go as ‘I’ have planned them to go. 

All in all

We all have something to contribute to creating a healthy morning routine with our pre-teens. All of the steps above allowed for me to contribute to my daily gratitude routine as well. 

I want you to take all that you can from this post and also start the journey towards creating healthy routines for your child. That will lead them to success in their lives. 

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