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5 Ways to Help Make Your Child’s Morning Routine Run More Smoothly

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morning routine 300x198 5 Ways to Help Make Your Child’s Morning Routine Run More Smoothly

If you find yourself dragging your child out of bed, repeating yourself, or yelling at your child to get ready for school more mornings than not, here are some tips that you can use right away to make your mornings run more smoothly.

1. Waking up
Teach children to wake to an alarm clock instead of depending on you to wake them up. Waking up to an alarm clock is a skill that needs to be learned. When you feel your child is ready for it, getting him or her an alarm clock and teaching how to use it can give your child a sense of accomplishment. It helps to eliminate the need for repeated prompting to get out of bed or to complete certain tasks, and helps eliminate the conflict that often ensues when your child does not comply. It also helps children build valuable independent waking skills that they will need to use for the rest of their life.

2. Plan a schedule
Sit down with your child and together work out a realistic morning routine that he or she should follow, complete with expected times for completing needed activities. Make this a fun activity for you and your child. Write the morning schedule down on paper and post it in a visible location. If needed, turn the morning schedule into a colorful reward chart that your child can use to mark off days and activities when they are completed. Praise, special time spent with parents, ten extra minutes before bed, a healthy snack, etc. can all be used as rewards to help motivate your child to follow the schedule successfully.

When developing a morning schedule, tailor the times and activities to meet the needs of your child and family. Some children need more time to eat; others to clean up, others to get dressed. Some children prefer to get dressed before eating breakfast, others to eat breakfast first. Children like to, and should have, some control over their lives, so rather than strictly imposing your own idea of what the morning schedule should be, ask your child to help plan it. He or she will feel more invested in it and will feel more pride in accomplishing the tasks.

3. Lay things out
The night before: Teach children to decide upon and lay out clothing that they will need for school the next day. This will eliminate precious wasted time in the morning when they need to be moving along to get out the door for school.

4. Prepare ahead
The night before: If your child takes a lunch to school, either you or your child should pack and refrigerate it the night before. If your child buys lunch, ensure that he or she has lunch money or lunch ticket. It is also helpful, will save time, and make your child’s morning go smoother if you set out the cereal bowls, plates, cups, etc. that he or she will need for breakfast.

5. Final check
The night before: Check your child’s planner and homework to make sure that all homework has been completed. Do this early enough in the evening that your child will have time to complete any unfinished homework that may be found. Help your child to pack, or check, his or her backpack to make sure that it contains all books, homework, planner, excuses, notes, gym clothes, or supplies that are needed to be taken to school the next day.

Example morning schedule
6:25 am      Wake up
6:30 am      Breakfast
7:00 am      Wash face, brush hair, brush teeth
7:20 am      Get dressed, put on shoes
7:35 am      Get lunch and put it in the backpack. Put on jacket.
7:40 am      Out the door

Give these tips a try. I hope they will help you and your child to start off the day on a happier foot!

Do you have any tips to add? I would love to have you share them with us.

If you enjoyed this post, please help others to find it by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter, Google+ or Facebook. Thank you!
—Rebecca Williams, MEd, LPC, NCC

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Tips for Effective Parenting: Consistency

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The Need for Consistency

child family1 300x200 Tips for Effective Parenting: ConsistencyThe key to getting your child to follow the rules and behavior that you expect them to follow is to enforce your rules calmly and consistently.

How many times have you asked your child to do something, such as pick up his or her room or to get ready for school, and he or she has either ignored you, or answered, “I will” or “Ok,” but nothing happened? You give it a minute, repeat your request, and again…nothing. You ask or tell them a third time. No movement. You get upset and frustrated. Anger follows. You begin yelling the request at your child. A conflict, or perhaps shouting match, begins.

Children sometimes ignore directives or requests when they are absorbed in doing something else, particularly something that they enjoy doing. They also learn to ignore rules and requests that have not been enforced consistently. Avoid empty threats and nagging.This is the stuff that power struggles are made of.

The number one rule for ensuring that your child does what he or she is asked to do is to be consistent in enforcing your rules and requests and in ensuring that your child carries them out. Consistency is the number one key for effective parenting. When a reasonable rule or request is decided upon, it is important that you calmly and firmly enforce it each and every time.

It is often helpful to give a child a countdown warning a few minutes before the behavior that you would like to see to give them enough time to transition from their previous activity. Children will often test rules to see if you will enforce the rule, or to see if they can get away with not complying. Expect testing, so that you can deal with it calmly but firmly when it arises.

It is easy to give in to a child’s requests or repeated demands (“Aw Mom, I just need to finish this game”) when we are tired, stressed, unsure of our decisions, or simply when we want to please our children. Giving in to your child, however, will make it likely that he or she will test you, procrastinate, or refuse to comply with the request or rule in the future.

When a rule or request is first established, discuss it with your child and define your expectations clearly with them. Ask your child to help you decide on a realistic consequence that will follow if he or she does not comply. Allowing your child to have input into this decision gives him or her greater sense of control over the rule, and a greater sense of investment in it.

For example, if you decide that you are going to limit your child’s time spent playing video games to one hour per day, go to your child when an hour has passed and tell him or her that their time is up. Better yet, set a timer for one hour. Ensure that your child understands that he or she must stop playing when the time is up. If the child refuses to stop playing when the timer goes off, remind him or her of the consequence if he or she continues to play. If the child continues to play, calmly but firmly enforce the consequence.

Parents find that when they present rules and requests calmly, clearly, and consistently, with fair warning, children will learn to follow them.

Rebecca Williams, MEd, LPC, NCC

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10 Great Books for Counselors Working With Children

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child happy1 295x300 10 Great Books for Counselors Working With Children
In my work with children and adolescents with mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and National Certified Counselor (NCC), I have found these ten books to be useful in therapy. I have provided links to these books on Amazon, however I am sure that they can be purchased through Barnes & Noble and other bookstores easily.

1. The Child Psychotherapy Treatment Planner (Practice Planners)
Arthur E. Jongsma, Jr., L. Mark Peterson and Timothy J. Bruce, 2006
Indispensable for creating effective treatment plans, this book contains over 1,000 prewritten treatment goals, objectives, and evidence-based treatment interventions that can be used to address 34 main presenting problems experienced by children.

2. Creative Therapy with Children & Adolescents (Practical Therapist)
Angela Hobday and Kate Ollier,  1999
This great book contains over 100 creative activities that can be used in working with children, adolescents, and families. I use the “My World” activity regularly to build rapport with children when they begin participating in therapy.

3. Creative Interventions for Troubled Children & Youth
Liana Lowenstein, MSW, 1999
Ages 4-16. A collection of creative assessment and treatment techniques that can be used to help children identify feelings, learn coping strategies, enhance social skills, and elevate self-esteem.

4. Creative Interventions for Children of Divorce
Liana Lowenstein, MSW, 2006
This workbook contains numerous creative and play-based activities and parent hand-outs that can be used to help bereaved children express their feelings regarding the death of a family member or friend. It also presents guidelines for clinicians for providing effective grief counseling for children.

5. Books to Grow With: A Guide to Using the Best Children’s Fiction for Everyday Issues and Tough Challenges 
Cheryl Coon, 2004
This book is out of print, but can still be purchased online. It is a comprehensive guide to 500 children’s fiction books that portray more than 100 common issues kids face, from bullies, siblings, and fear of the dark to divorce, moving, and chronic illness. If you find fiction books to be helpful when working with children, you will like this guide. It is broken down into topics of social, emotional, and behavioral issues that many children face in their lives.

6. Therapeutic Exercises for Children: Guided Self-Discovery Using Cognitive-
Behavioral Techniques
Robert D. Friedberg, Barbara A. Friedberg, and Rebecca J. Friedberg, 2001 
Ages 8-11. A companion workbook to the authors’ manual, “Therapeutic Exercises For Children (Professional Guide),” this book provides activities that can be used with the author’s evidence-based cognitive-behavioral program for treating children with anxiety and depression. 

7. My Book Full of Feelings: How to Control and React to the Size of Your 
Emotions
Amy Jaffe and Luci Gardner, 2006
This interactive workbook for parents and professionals can be used to help teach children to identify, determine the intensity of, and respond appropriately to their emotions. It uses images of feelings and gradated colors to teach children how to deal effectively with gradated levels of emotions. It covers sad, angry, calm, frustrated, happy, and worried, and can be used with all children, including children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

8. When My Worries Get Too Big! A Relaxation Book for Children Who Live with Anxiety
Kari Dunn Buron, 2006
Ages 5-9. Published by the Autism Asperger Publishing Company, this book has cute illustrations that will help children develop their own self-calming strategies when feeling anxious.

9. Dude, That’s Rude!: (Get Some Manners) 
Pamela Espeland and Elizabeth Verdick, 2007
Ages 8 and up. This book teaches social skills in all kinds of situations in a funny and engaging manner. It includes many great topics that can be used to start needed discussions.

10. How to Take the Grrrr Out of Anger
Elizabeth Verdick and Marjorie Lisovskis, 2002
Ages 8 and up. This book teaches children how to recognize and deal with anger that they feel. It includes five steps to taming your temper, six steps to solving anger problems, clues to your “anger buttons,” the lowdown on calming down, tips for using your “anger radar,” things you can do when grown-ups get angry, and more.
Rebecca Williams, MEd, LPC, NCC