Mornings

[misty]

unicorn-tiff'smom.............Thread Started on Dec 11, 2006, 4:55pm


Is it me or how many other people can't get their child moving and out the door in the morning? I am a morning person so it makes it harder for me to understand why I can't her to move in the morning. Any of the factors don't seem to help too much. If she goes to bed early the night before or late, no change. If she gets up early or the last minute, no time difference. If I get her to put out clothes and make sure everything is in the backpack, so all we have is lunch in the morning, we leave at the same time.
I turn on the light in her room, I have pulled her out of bed onto the floor, squirted her with a spray water bottle (yes mean), asked her nicely, taken away privileges.

What do you do to get them moving?


misty

Well, I'm not a morning person at all. I hit my snooze SEVERAL times before getting up, no matter how many hours I've slept. My daughter used to be sluggish in the morning. Then she discovered the internet & wanted to go online in the mornings. Of course, she has to be all ready for school before shes allowed so she started getting up earlier & earlier until she arrived at her current schedule: She gets herself up at 5 AM, gets ready, eats breakfast & then goes online until I get up. When I get up I have her brush her teeth & do a few chores like feed the pets & make her bed & then its time to go.



notellin

Mornings used to be a nightmare.

I used the marble system and gave him marbles for getting out of bed in 10 minutes, getting dressed before leaving the room, etc. He came up with the rewards. I also started giving him Melatonin.

I stopped the marble system after 1-2 months and he has not regressed back to his previous morning behavior. I think it's been a year now.



lisacap

I have the total opposite, I have 2 who are up and getting dressed , eating breakfast , watching a show, from 7 to when Christian gets up, he will get up anywhere between 7 and 7:30 and it is always the same drill, yelling where are my clothes, is my lunch in my back pack, give me my meds, and by 7:45 he is in the car waiting, then we all are rushing out the door for school which we live appoxiamiatly 3 minutes from by car, so that he is still in a good mood for when school does start. School doesn't start till 8:15, , but the first bell rings for Kindergaretn at 8:10, the second bell rings at 8:15, and the 6, 7 and 8th grades don't go in til 8:20, so we are the first ones there every morning, and he is the last out of my 3 to go in,,,so the little ones and I sit in the car until there bells ring, it is too cold here now to stand in the school yard and god forbid it rains and they can't go in the school yard, he has to be there at 8 on the button because that is when the door opens and you are allowed in.....but I did have a lot of problems with him last year, not getting up and ready, for every morning that he got ready he got a quarter, but for every morning that he didn't he lost the quarter, he was trying to earn 10 dollars worth of quarters to go out to the movies, at first it was easy he was getting right up and ready because he wanted the quarter, but then he went back to his old ways, and started losing them, he didn't like to lose any of his money so it changed, and he started to get up again. We only did one round of 10 dollars, he became so use to getting up that he just did it on his own. Plus I didn't really agree with paying him to do what is expected of him, in life he is going to have to deal with getting up, dressed, brushing his teeth etc...and noone is going to pay him to do that.

[misty]

bugsmom

Uni...I really don't have any good advice for you. Sorry...It sounds like your doing all the right things...planning the night before, going to bed early, ect...It's so hard when your a morning person and your childs the opposite. I'm more like Misty...I snooze to the last min! Josh is a morning person and can get up easily, but he's moody. I actually don't talk to him for a full thirty mins after he gets up. It works out perfectly (although I know it sounds terrible). He gets up, watches a half hour of PBS and then I know I can start talking to him about his day ahead. If I even try to converse with him before those 30 mins, I get a very nasty and grumpy kid. He sits down with his breakfast, watches his TV, and then we're good to go with all the rest of the morning routine. I guess we all have our way of getting out the door. ;D



Charlie Girl

Uni, My life is much like yours when my son has to get to school. He gets up ok usually but he will drag his feet and find 1000 different ways to keep from getting out of the house on time. He can be totally ready and only need to slip his jacket on and still make himself late somehow.

Now that I am homeschooling, he is finding all kinds of excuses to not get started when he should, in spite of being able to sleep a bit later and go to school in his pj's. Today was better. Hopefully tomorrow will be even better, but only a fool would expect him to just get at it, whatever it is, unless its something he is eager to do.

I keep praying for a miracle.


Rae70

yes my son is like your child uni. Except with a small spin on it.

he has to be dragged out of bed and made to get ready and we are yelling at him the whole way - its a traumatic time of the day for all of us.

but on holidays he is up at 5:30am, showered and playing outside which wakes us up!

he is a right royal pain in the butt in the mornings!



lillian

We have to spend twenty minutes waking my son up, then he takes a shower and usually falls asleep in the shower. We wake him up, by pounding on the bathroom door. He comes downstairs and falls asleep on the couch. We wake him up to eat breakfast. He falls asleep after breakfast, and we wake him up to brush his teeth and get out the door. He rides his bike to school, and, so far, he hasn't fallen asleep on his bike ;D. When we lived further from school, and we drove him there every morning, he also would sleep on the way to school.

[misty]

unicorn-tiff'smom

Thanks for all of your tales, I know I am not alone. It just makes me so sick to my stomach by the time we leave inthe morning, no wonder I never eat until I am at work.

This morning was awful again. Tiff had such a mouth
She wouldn't get out of bed, then when she did and I asked her to just review some vocabulary words for a test today (she got them right last night), she threw the flash cards all over the room. She threw her pill across the room (that was fun to try to find). A lot of fighting and loud, raised voices. Then forgiveness and hugs in front of the school.



bugsmom


Oh Lillian...this cracked me up! I know its not funny to you...but I just had a riot picturing this happening. You gave me the laugh of the day! The bike riding comment almost had me falling out of my chair! Thanks for the smile!



puzzled

lillian

That was a riot! It makes me feel better about mornings around here...

Chase is a very slow riser...me (and the cat) come in and I have tried shaking, tapping rubbing him on his back (the cat tries too...LOL) and singing to him....each one works some of the time,none all of the time..and we have the same problem..doesn't matter what time he goes to bed, he hates getting up, EXCEPT on weekends, when he is up and attem at 7 sharp!

After I finally get him out of his room, he tries to lay down on the carpet in front of the corn burner, which puts off a lot of heat, and I have to put a stop to that or he would fall asleep. I can't give him his med til we are walking out the door, because it has been wearing off the last hour of school, by giving it to him then, it lasts the whole school day at least. We have a dr appointment on monday to tweak meds..

Each article of clothing takes at least 5 minutes to actually make it on the appropriate body part, and shoes take twice as long...

The only thing he does relatively fast is eat, and brush his teeth.

Funny thing is, the morning my mom had spent the night, he wanted to have time to play gin rummy with her before school, so he was up, fed, dressed, and ready to go by 7!!!! So I know he can do it with the right motivation...



jj

Lillian, I had no idea you went through that with your son. And I'm afraid I'm laughing my fool head off too even knowing it isn't funny.

I've seen my neice in action....or should I say inaction in the mornings. I never knew anyone could stall that much getting ready for something she doesn't want to go to.

I feel for you all but darn, I'm still laughing.


lillian

Yes, that is what happens every morning, Monday thru Friday. He's started this new thing, where he doesn't want my husband to wake him up because my husband will keep saying, "Get up," over and over and over. One day last week, my son came stomping down the stairs in his boxer shorts, hair tossled, eyes puffy, hands on his hips, scowl on his face and announced, "I don't want HIM," pointing at my husband, who was standing at the top of the stairs, "ever waking me up again. 'Get up, get up, get up, get up,' every two seconds. Who wants to be annoyed first thing in the morning?"

Gee, I can't imagine who does? Surely not his father and I, who are the ones spending every morning continually waking him up. Nooooo. Of course, I decided not to discuss this with him. I learned a long time ago not to talk to him in the morning. It's useless.

You know, I should take pictures of him falling asleep, while he's eating his breakfast, head back, fork in hand, and post them here. I'm getting a new camera for the trip, so I'll do that after school begins in January.

[misty]

jj


Lillian, Your killing me here! I can just picture how your son looked when he came down the stairs.

Hey, now you have some leverage here. You can tell your son when you are trying to wake him up that if he doesn't get up your going to send your husband up. [image]



annem

UGH MORNINGS !! ... THat's ME talking ... not so much my dh or my son ...

DH (who is add) has noooo problems WHATSOEVER getting up at a very early hour to travel to London to work .... Sam (my 18 year old son) is about an hour later and has to be at work by 7:15 a.m. and (although not QUITE so up and about as dh) he gets up with little effort ...

ME (the only NON add'er in the house) am the one that has the most problem ... I HATE GETTING UP !! ... I am fine once I AM up ... but getting up is to me a personal nightmare!! I doooo



misty

I agree with Anne! My ADDer gets her self up at 5 AM...a full 2 HOURS early than she has to get up! My ADD hubby gets up around the same time give or take a half hour. Its ME...the non-ADDer that hits the snooze 5 times before dragging myself out of the warm covers. I'm so glad I can sleep in the next week & a half!


Linda

You don't want to be around me in the mornings either! [image] [image] I am a bear! On the other hand dh and Paul(ADHD) ARE UP AND CHEERFUL!



lostmyshoe

Hello Uni and everyone,

I know this thread has been going on for a while but I just wanted to let you know that you are not the only one. I have an absolutely horrible time with my daughter in the morning. It's gotten to the point where I actually dread the mornings coming. Not only do I have trouble getting her to get out of bed, but she is just plain nasty and rude. This past week it got so bad that I had to call the family counselor and we moved up our appointment date. I'm hoping he can help us out. I'm not really a morning person myself but have always managed to get up when I am suppose to, but not my daughter. I'm just having such a rough time with her lately. She is becoming a different person and I feel like I am losing her sometimes. If I get some good advice from our family conselor I'll be glad to share it. In the mean time I am thankful that I have a break for a week from those brutal mornings.