Successful Morning: How To Prepare Your Child

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As a mom, one of our desires is to see our children succeed every day.

But did you know, you play a huge role in your child’s day?

It is possible to set your child up for success every day. It is also possible to help your child fail every day.

Help your child have a successful morning from the get go.

I know, it seems like a whole bunch of pressure on us moms, doesn’t it?

We have the ability and power to help our children succeed, not only today, but tomorrow, and the rest of their lives.

We can do this by giving our children tools they will use throughout their lives.

I do want to point out: every one has a bad day.

Those are not the days I am talking about.

Your child will have a bad day.

They will fail, just like you and me.

BUT as a moms we can give our children the tools they need each and everyday to try their best, be their best and have a wonderful day and also overcome the bad days.

If you have read 12 Habits of Immensely Peaceful Moms, then you know I believe the mom sets the tone for her home. What you do every single day matters.

How you react to each problem that arises matters.

How you treat your husband and children when you are not feeling well or when you are tired matters.

There are so many factors that go into our day and the day of our families.

Why leave it up to chance? Let’s take back control and help set our children up for success every single day.

Why making an effort to set our children up for a successful morning each day is important.

When you became a mother, you took on a job that is tiresome, demanding and often thankless. But this job is also rewarding in so many ways.

We are called to live outside of ourselves.

Having a selfish nature does not help our families in any way.

As a mom, we need to set our selfishness aside and figure out what is best for our families, then help those we love get succeed.

I do not mean a mom should never do something for herself.

Self-care is so important as a mom.

Here’s an example from my own live about setting aside our selfish nature: I am not a morning person.

When I started having children, I was still staying up late and waking up well past 7 o’clock. (I know 7 o clock may not seem late to you guys but I was working.) Basically, I was sleeping until I absolutely had to wake up.

It became clear to me early on that my children received their sleeping DNA from their father.

Early risers get the worm they say? My children are determined to be the first birds in line getting that worm.

I figured out I couldn’t offer my best for my children, especially in the mornings, if I continued neglecting my need to get rest, and sleeping past when they wake up.

I can be cranky before my coffee, I don’t like to be talked to before the first sip of magic. I need at least 10-20 minutes to myself to prepare for the day.

I realized quickly that I needed to put aside my selfish nature and do what I needed to do for my children so they could have a successful morning.

Get better quality sleep and wake up before them.

Right now I wake anywhere between 5 am and 6 am.

I do it for me yes, but I mainly do it for my children. Because they need me to do what I can to set them up for success every day. They need me to NOT be cranky when they wake up.

I cannot effectively set my children up for success if I am staying up too late, not giving my body the sleep it needs and waking after them.

This is my own story, your selfish nature may look different.

Regardless what it is, we all have one. We are human, born with a selfish nature, and it takes work to put it aside and do what we need to do for the people we love.

What you need to set your child up for a successful morning.

A cup of coffee or tea, good attitude and a ton of forgiveness. 🙂

12 tips to help your child have a successful morning.

Calm Morning: Feed your child breakfast.

I will be completely honest with you, I do not eat breakfast as often as I should. I fuel myself with caffeine.

My body is probably 80% coffee.

Here lately, I have been trying my hardest to make sure I eat breakfast in front of my kids.

But just because I don’t eat breakfast, doesn’t mean my kids don’t need to eat breakfast.

There is a reason the experts say breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Before your child goes to school, starts their work at home or even goes to daycare, it’s important to make sure they have something in their stomachs to help them concentrate better.

Have you ever tried to work with an empty stomach?

This will also help your child develop a healthy relationship with food, helping them understand food fuels our bodies and makes us strong and we need to eat it.

Great Morning: Lay your child’s clothes out the night before.

If we are rushing to figure out what to wear for work in the morning our day can start to feel chaotic.

Your children feel the same way.

Laying out your child’s clothes the day before will help your mornings go smoother so your child has enough time to get dressed, grab breakfast and not feel rushed.

If your child is older then train them on laying out their own clothes. Responsibility is good for everyone.

Calm Morning: Make sure your child is getting plenty of sleep.

Children need sleep. Adults need more sleep than most are getting.

Going on the notion that your child only needs as much sleep as you are getting, is not going to help them.

Children don’t like bedtime. It’s normal. I

didn’t like bedtime when I was a kid. But children don’t know what is best for them and if allowed they will take full advantage of you if you don’t set clear guidelines.

Set a bedtime for your kids that assures they are getting the amount of sleep they need.

If you are unsure how much sleep your child needs, here is a great resource.

If your child is not used to a set bedtime, be firm when setting expectations.

Remember, your child is not the adult, you are.

They don’t get to decide when they go to bed because they don’t know what’s best for them, YOU DO.

Making sure your child gets plenty of sleep the night before will help them feel rested and ready to take on the day ahead.

If they don’t have enough sleep it may lead to crankiness, lack of productivity, and power struggles, all of which can lead to a rough day for both you and your child.

Successful Morning: Prepare child’s backpack/work the night before.

If your child goes to public or private school, look over their backpack contents the night before, sign any papers that need to be signed and place their backpack by the door.

If they have Ipads, laptops or chargers to take to school, charge the electronics over night by the door.

In the morning you can grab and go, fully charged.

If you home school your child look over their work for the next day the night before.

Get out any craft items, papers, workbooks, etc. that you know your child will need the next day.

Doing these things will allow you to know where everything is and not waste valuable time.

Successful Morning: Give your child responsibilities.

This tip goes hand and hand with the previous tips.

If your child is old enough to start taking on their own responsibilities, give them the reigns.

Allow your child to lay out their own clothes, prepare their own backpacks, get themselves dressed, grab something for breakfast, etc.

Doing this will take some of the weight off of you and put it on your child. Children should learn responsibility early on. This skill will come in handy as they grow.

Successful Morning: Take a quick look at upcoming events on the calendar.

Invest in a fridge or wall calendar. A big one that you can write all the events for everyone in the family.

Then at the end of the day take a quick look at any upcoming events you or your children have on the calendar.

It takes only a few minutes to write and look at these events, and doing so can save you from forgetting something important, like a doctor’s appointment.

This is the calendar I use!

Successful Morning: Speak daily affirmations to your children.

Do you know what an affirmation is?

An affirmation is speaking something positive over yourself or your children and it goes right along with positive mindset.

Our children will thrive when we speak words of encouragement over them.

If you tell your child she is brave and an over comer she will start to feel braver than she did.

Negative words have the same affect on our children. It is our job as parents to make sure the words we are speaking over our children are positive and life giving not the other way around.

Every night before bed my husband and I speak affirmations to our children.

We also have them repeat after us. It goes something like this: Me: “I am brave, I am kind, I am a leader.” Child: “I am brave, I am kind, I am a leader.”

You may believe your child knows these facts about themselves but it’s quite possible they don’t.

These affirmations can be spoken any time of the day and whenever you see fit.

If I see my daughter needs encouragement when she’s up against a challenge, speaking an affirmation like “you become more confident when you challenge yourself” or “You can do hard things and prevail.” can help.

These may just be the words your child needs to hear from YOU to turn a bad or challenging day around.

Successful Morning: Create a solid routine for your child.

Do children really thrive on routine? This is a common question.

The truth is, EVERYONE thrives on a routine.

When your child knows what to expect, especially when it comes to meals and sleep, they will feel more confident.

When a child feels confident in knowing what to expect there will be less power struggles and tantrums.

Create for your child a great routine for your weekday and weekends.

I’m not saying you need to keep to this routine strictly, but having it in the forefront of your mind and your child’s will bring about smoother days.

We have a routine chart sitting in our kitchen.

The visual aid helps my children see what comes next and feel confident in knowing what mommy now expects.

Do you need more convincing? Read: Why children really need routines.

Do you need help figuring out how to create a routine? Read: How to create a routine that works for your family.

Here are the routine cards we use from Natural Beach Living and we display it with this pocket chart.

Successful Morning: Set clear expectations (habit building).

If you have been around my blog for a while, you know that I am a home school mom.

Most of my family’s home school philosophies come from a woman named Charlotte Mason.

She was an educator in the 1800s and she has an excellent quote that I repeat to myself when my days are rough:

“The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children.”

Charlotte Mason

The definition of pains in this case is: “careful effort; great care or trouble.”

Great care or trouble. It is trouble for me to have my wild child sit at the table and finish a meal, especially if the wild child is acting in a defiant manner.

It is great trouble for me to reinforce politeness or tidiness.

It means I have to get out of where I am comfortable; the deep conversation I am having, the text I am writing to my mom, the game I am playing on my phone, my spot on the comfortable couch, and actively take careful effort to make sure my child is forming a good habit not a bad one.

Charlotte Mason speaks a great deal about habits.

If you want to read more on habits you can go here.

To put it short and sweet, your child is forever forming a habit. (So are we.)

If you are not taking great pains to instill in your child GOOD habits but instead expect those habits to just take care of themselves, you are sorely mistaken.

Instead what you will have is a child who has formed a bad habit 10 years later, and you will have a “life of endless friction with your child.”

It’s tempting to just let the kids leave their room messy, plate untouched, speak harshly to their sibling (or you) or allow them to brush pass the elderly lady in the grocery store without saying excuse me.

All of these small acts may seem harmless in themselves but what you will have as your child grows, is one who doesn’t know or care how to clean up after themselves.

A child who is disrespectful to someone who took great effort to cook a delicious meal for them, by huffing or refusing to try it.

A child or young adult who says hurtful words to you or their siblings with no regard of their feelings.

Or a now grown child who doesn’t know how to show respect to an elderly person.

Habit forming is important. Take those great pains, because we only have so much time to help shape our children.

I don’t know about you but I would love to have smooth and easy days ahead of me, not endless friction. Take the pains to instill good habits in your children otherwise the bad ones will form before your eyes.

Successful Morning: Ask if they want to start over after a bad morning.

Here’s the truth, your child and you will not have a great morning every single morning.

It is okay to take a step back after a rough morning and ask your child if they want to start over.

I have apologized to my child before, apologizing to your child is healthy.

It teaches them that even adults are wrong and saying sorry is not beneath anyone.

If your child or you have a rough day, take that step back and ask her or him if they want to start the day again? It’s never to late for a fresh start.

Successful Morning: Get up earlier than your child.

I know you just cringed reading those words.

But here’s the thing, if you want your child to have a good, successful morning, you need to show them what a good, successful morning looks like.

It also helps to be prepared to greet your children.

Starting your day before theirs is only helpful.

I don’t know about you, but my children are jabber boxes.

How a little girl can talk so much without caffeine is beyond me, but she does.

I need to prepare myself with at least one cup of coffee!

Successful Morning: Offer your child plenty of grace and forgiveness.

Our children will learn how to show grace and forgiveness from us.

If we have trouble showing them and our spouse grace, they won’t offer it easily to others.

The same goes for forgiveness.

The fact remains, we are all only human.

Even our children.

They have real emotions and problems just like adults.

We have to give them room to mess up, to have a bad day, and when they do, offer them the same grace and forgiveness that God offers all of his children, including us.

Setting your child up for a successful morning does not have to be hard.

But it is important we take great efforts to set our child up for success each and every day.

The days will become smoother and your child will have more great days than bad. Isn’t that what we all want as moms?

How do you set your child up for a successful morning?

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