Tips for Easier School Day Mornings

The school year is coming up and for some of us parents we are dreading those hectic school day mornings. I have three going to school this year and a toddler that will be left at home. For two school years I have worked my way into a routine that works for us. Now don't get me wrong my morning are very hectic because my children will not cooperate with me at all. But here are the things that I have discovered over the last two school years that have taken some of the stress off those hectic mornings.

Breakfast:

Cooking breakfast seems to cut down on the time that I have to get everything done and that my children have to get ready for school. So last year I took use of the school breakfasts. I saved cooking breakfast for just me and the kids left at home. The other two children last year, I sent them to school for breakfast. This seemed to work better than the previous year when I had insisted on cooking my kids a home cooked breakfast.

So this year I will be sending the three school aged children off to school for their breakfast. Then I can wait to cook breakfast for just my toddler and I. If you have more than one child or find that things are really hectic in the morning then take use of the school offered breakfasts.

The Lost Shoe or Missing Homework:

I made this basically a thing of the past last year. For starters my kids have a specific area where they must take and line their shoes up each and every time their take their shoes off. This cuts down on the missing shoe problem. Homework is done the same way. Above the area where the shoes are lined up, I have a coat rack hung on the way. When the kids are done doing their homework they must place it back in their backpacks. Their backpacks are then hung up and ready to go the next morning.

The only down fall to this is that I must go on a shoe hunt before bed at night. The reason for the shoe hunt is not because my older children do not place them where they go, because they are really good about putting them where they go. The reason is that I have a toddler that just loves playing with shoes and will take off with any shoe he can get his little hands on. But as long as I get them and put them back before I go to bed, then the morning time is less hectic.

Multiple sinks, Multiple children:

I have found that when it comes time to brush their teeth, my children seem to have problems with getting this done in a timely manner. They fight over the sink and such. So I found that I could make use of the bathroom sink and the kitchen sink. This I discovered from my mother. She has one child use each sink and the boys get their teeth brushed in a decent time frame. So this seems to work at her house, so I will be using it at my home as well this school year.

So if you have multiple children use both sinks in your home to let them get their teeth brushed at the same time without having to wait.

School Clothes:

Does it seem like it takes forever for your child to get dressed in the morning? There is a way to fix this problem also for a less stressful school day morning. In my article that I wrote on "Organizing Your Child's Bedroom", I made mention of hanging clothes up into sets of outfits. By doing this your child already has a shirt and pants on one hanger. This will take out the guess work during the morning. Just grab a hanger and there you are a ready to go outfit.

Now you don't have to take the time to figure out what shirt to wear with what pants. The only screaming match you will have now is trying to get your child to put the darn things on in time to catch the bus.