A New Way To Handle Morning Routines With Strong-willed Kids
Sep 06, 2024
"Take a deep breath."
That’s so often the advice for managing a morning routine with a child that just doesn’t want to budge on anything.
Who won’t get out of bed.
Or get dressed.
Or eat breakfast, put on boots, get out the door.
Take a deep breath?
I give you full permission to just growl a little as you read those words over.
I see it all over parenting books and podcasts.
But if you are anything like me - a parent who is raising strong-willed kids, who find transitions and busyness hard - sometimes a breath isn’t going to cut it.
You just can't. And there’s a good reason for this, which I’lli’ll explain.
When Taking A Breath Doesn’t Help During Your Morning Routine
But first, an example.
This happened with one of the parents that I support last week. She came to me because she, too, was tired of hearing "just pause" because she couldn't do it.
Mornings were hard in their family.
There was always something threatening to knock them off-schedule.
She found herself tiptoeing around just hoping things would go smoothly.
On this morning, she was relieved. They were on their way out the door for an 8am start to school. It was 7:53am. School is a 5 minute walk from home. Whew, they'd make it just in time.
And it happened.
When she was zipping up her preschooler's jacket - yay! She was wearing a jacket! - her daughter looked up at her and said,
"Momma, I had an accident."
In the past, she'd have let out a disapproving sigh. (Not quite a breath!)
In the past, she'd have rushed her daughter through changing her clothes in an attempt to make that deadline.
In the past, her daughter would have bristled against the rush, and got upset.
They would end up stuck, rushed, panicked and in opposition.
Sound familiar?
Bringing A Different Energy To Morning Routines - and Any Tricky Transitions
It’s easy to wade into stand-offs during morning routines with strong-willed kids.
They find transitions - like getting out the door - incredibly tough.
You can do everything you can think of to try and prep them - but even with a routine that is consistent and well planned, some, or maybe most, mornings feel as difficult as that first time you got up, needed to get out the house, and the whole plan went pear-shaped.
Am I right?
Hands up if you’ve tried:
- Sticker charts
- Schedules
- Prepping clothes, toothbrush, bag the night before
- Waking up earlier
And yet, here you are reading this because you are still looking for a golden nugget of advice that will make things easier.
Now, here’s why “take a breath,” gets hard.
I believe that behind every action or behavior is a need.
Every parenting tip you read is in service of you trying to meet a need. Your need may be a way to stop sibling rivalry, have a smoother morning routine, or quit yelling.
There’s a real need for things to change when most of us get to the point of “take a breath.”
Usually it’s after a series of behaviors or actions that have threatened to send you off-track.
The advice to take a breath is supposed to give you a moment to re-ground and regulate so that you can move from reactivity to responsiveness.
It’s probably your intention too. Just to take a second where you can gather your thoughts - and your patience.
So why does it feel impossible?
Because often we have stuffed down many of our own needs by that point.
Think about a morning routine:
Since you woke up, you’ve been focused on getting out the door. There’s a need there.
And here’s just a small selection of events that might threaten to send you off-track:
- One kid refused to get dressed.
- Another ate breakfast at the speed of a sloth.
- Then you realized one kid forgot a book they needed and had to race to get it seconds before you were due to step out.
- In that time, the dog gobbled up one of the kid’s snacks.
- You finally make it out the door and you hear kids squabbling.
Those threats come thick and fast. And while you may have taken a few grounding breaths, they most likely felt like emergency measures.
Like, you were doing it to get through the next hurdle. Or, like you were taking your own oxygen mask off and sharing it with your child.
Actually, that’s not meeting the need to re-ground and regulate.
They’re merely pauses that didn’t manage to shift the reactivity.
So, what happens when your child looks up next and says, “I forgot my P.E. clothes!”
Waaaahhhhhhh!
We’re already at boiling point thinking, “I can’t take this anymore.”
Your body no longer wants to slow down and regulate. Stillness doesn’t feel good at that moment. Instead, it feels like another attempt to suppress your need.
What your body needs at this point is to shift the pent up energy you accumulated just trying to fend off each challenge and get out the door.
If you clench your fists, that’s your body doing the best it can to try and move.
If you yell, or make noise, that actually achieves a little shift too, just probably not in a way you’d feel proud about.
What can work better is to honor the need.
Let’s go back to that mom I mentioned earlier in this post.
She was on the cusp of leaving the house when her daughter had an accident.
She also was at boiling point, but she remembered a conversation we’d had about the morning routine during a coaching session.
In that session, I’d told her she didn’t have to take a breath. I’d shared a different response she could use.
Noticing and Honoring Conflicting Needs in the Morning Routine
I told her that instead of taking that breath, she could notice her need instead.
I call this practice a heart shift.
It is grounding and regulating.
To do it, put your hand on your heart and ask, “What do I need at this moment?”
That’s what she did.
And what came back surprised her.
She realized she had a need to get to school on time, which had something to do with a need to meet a societal expectation, and to appear respectful and a good parent.
It was a need for approval.
But she felt in conflict because she also wanted to meet her child’s need for warmth and connection. (And, to get to school with dry clothes).
When she replaced simply taking a breath with noticing her need, she could notice this dual need for approval and connection.
Now plenty of advice out there would be to let her need for approval go. But that’s stuffing her needs down once more.
So she instead gave herself approval to, on this morning, maintain a positive connection with her kiddo.
That way, she met her need for approval and her daughter’s need for connection.
She helped her to change her clothes.
And guess what? It all actually went more quickly than if she had rushed her daughter along.
They arrived two minutes late to school, but they arrived happy and connected.
In The Mornings, Prioritize Relationship As Much As Expectation
Why did this feel so different?
Mom got approval from within that they could change clothes calmly and be two minutes late. That it would be ok.
They all needed that because that is what allowed her family to remain connected. She got her need for approval, from herself, rather than externally too.
Don’t Take A Deep Breath In Your Morning Routine, Do This Instead
The next time you feel like you're going to lose it during the morning routine, don't simply take a deep breath.
Instead, notice your need.
If you have pent up energy, your initial need may be to move. That’s ok. Try shrugging your shoulders, hugging yourself, even a jumping jack. Or sing! “We really must goooooo.”
This may give you the space you need to go on.
However, I'd encourage you to check in often and early.
To stop, put your hand on your heart, and ask yourself what you really need in that moment and notice what comes up.
I bet you’ll notice conflicting needs.
Try to honor both, in whatever way you can.
When we choose to honor both our needs and our child's needs, we can shift from an energy of opposition to an energy of teamwork and connection.
That’s what happened with this mom. And that’s what I meant earlier when I said things can go better when you can bring better energy.
Notice Your Needs And Change The Energy
I want to let you know that you will see a positive difference when you tune in like this. And you’ll be noticing and meeting your needs in the process, which is what every parent deserves.
It’ll take a few tries because it’s new. And because of that you may feel tired, burned out and wishing that sticker chart would just work instead!
So, give yourself grace. Notice if you’re expecting perfection from yourself; when you are, shift from defining success as doing it perfectly to defining success as your commitment to the practice. And, the more you practice asking yourself what you need, the easier it will be to navigate the bumps that will inevitably pop up along the way.
