# How do you wake up your children in the mornings? > Are you one of those who shout and rush early in the morning because you never get to school on time, or are you one of those who prefer to get up early and take it easy? - **Author:** mireia-navarro-vera · **Category:** Infantil - **Published:** 2016-04-17 · **Updated:** 2016-04-23 - **URL:** https://elteuespai.com/en/how-do-you-wake-up-your-children-in-the-mornings/ - _Translation pending clinical review._ --- Are you **one of those who shout and rush early in the morning** because you never get to school on time, or are you one of those who prefer to get up early and **take it easy**? Have you ever stopped to think about **what you want your children to remember** from their childhood? I have done so many times, and I remember that **my mornings when I was little were among the stressful ones**. We were always running because we were late; I remember nerves, stress, and discomfort. And although **I was very clear that I didn't want that for my children**, there were mornings that looked a lot like it. So **one day I sat down and reflected** and resolved to change this. Today I want to share with you how I did it. **Do you want to stop running and shouting in the morning?** Then get to work and follow these steps: ### 1. Get up earlier Obvious, right? **You need more time to go calmly, and that is only achieved if you get up a little earlier,** sometimes it is **enough with 10 minutes**, but those 10 minutes will change the way you start your day. I decided to get up earlier and prepare breakfast; when I have it ready I start to wake everyone up. I get ahead with work and I have a time of morning calm, of being alone and in silence in the kitchen. I like the silence in the morning. ### 2. Wake your children up in a good mood **Starting the day with shouting and in a rush is not a good way to begin it.** It is better to do it in a good mood. For that, wake your children up with **2 minutes of margin** so that **it is a pleasant moment,** one day you can get into their bed and tickle them, another day you can sing them a funny song, another stroke their little face,… **Don't let bad temper come into your home early in the morning.** I remember that once I told him that I was the bed tester and that I had tried all the beds in the house and his was the best one, so I had decided to kick him out so I could lie down myself. He found it really funny and sometimes he reminds me of it. ### 3. You set the pace **Children have no notion of time**, they may know that a minute has 60 seconds and even handle a clock perfectly, and even so not be clear that **5 minutes fly by** and that if they get distracted playing they will be late. If it happens to us adults that when we are entertained time passes without us noticing, how is it not going to happen to children? Therefore, in the morning, **you must mark the timings very well**, now it's time to brush your teeth, now it's time to get dressed, **and keep an eye out so they don't get distracted and lose track of everything.** ### 4. Remember that the responsibility is yours If you are late it is because you have not done things well. **They cannot be responsible for that**, we cannot place upon their little backs **the weight of properly organizing a morning to arrive on time**. Their responsibility is to play, learn, be curious, and dream. If ever some parents come to me and say: my 8-year-old daughter sets her alarm clock, gets up, has breakfast, and gets dressed without anyone having to say anything to her, and waits for me punctually at the door with her backpack on, I will tell them without hesitation that something is going on; such a super-responsible girl is not appropriate at 8 years old. By this **I don't mean that they shouldn't have responsibilities, on the contrary, they should have the ones appropriate for them**. But not that of calculating the time to arrive on time. ### 5. They don't hear orders, they have selective deafness Children have a special attribute, which is **specific deafness for not listening to what does not interest them**, and I don't say it's bad; surely it's great, that way they don't waste time on nonsense like brushing their teeth or putting on their pajamas. **When I give an order, I must make it be carried out**. Sometimes, not to say always, our children don't pay attention to us the first time, nor the second, nor even the third. **Most of the time they haven't even listened to us** because they do hear, but listening is different. So when I tell them from the other end of the house to brush their teeth and I expect them to hear me and do it right away, I must have gone crazy because they never do that. #### What should I do then? **Give the orders from up close**, **making sure** they **pay us their attention**, **warn** up to **3 times**, and if they don't pay attention, go slowly without getting upset, **take them by the hand and lead them to do what I had told them**. But without getting angry, simply **making the order be carried out.** Because many times, when we don't manage to get them to pay attention to us, what usually happens is that the order we gave gets lost in oblivion and is not done, and that diminishes our authority every day. ### CONCLUSIONS **These were the steps I followed** and although I don't always succeed, **every day I try, and it would be enough for me to know that when they are older** and remember their childhood, **they think of the bed tester and the breakfast on the table** and erase those few, but bad, mornings on which we have had to run out of the house. And **if it ever happens to you and you have to run**, **invent a race**, to see who gets to school first. May **the memory** they keep **be that of a game** and not that of the stress of time.