Back to school
As the flurry of back to school continues with this week being the first week back after the loooooong summer holiday, and for others the first full week back, our thoughts and prayers are with all our children of school age. We want them to enjoy learning, build strong individual characters from the experience, make the right friends, finish the year with great results, make themselves and us proud. By God’s grace it will be so, and the examples we show and model for them, lessons we teach, and the positive influences around them from family, teachers, friends will all combine to bring this to pass.
I can’t fit shout
Hand on heart, the morning routine to get them out the door can be nightmarish.
“I can’t find my socks”.
“I can’t find Mr. Humpalump” (cue the tears, rolling on the floor, and refusal to get up until he’s found).
“I have a project on volcanoes to hand in today”, (and this is the first you’ve heard of said project from child).
“Tammi took my pencil, tell her to give it back!”
“Toby get out of the bathroom, I have to brush my teeth!” (yelled 10 minutes before you have to fly out of the front door).
We’ve all been there, and if you haven’t, don’t worry you’ve got a treat waiting for you. Your time will come.
I hope I’m not alone in this, otherwise that would make me a really bad mum. I think no matter how organised you are, at some point you will have an out of body experience where you see yourself shouting like a madwoman in the morning. So, as much as I’m praying for my children, I’m praying for me too. Lord knows I need help to get organised and stay calm. I don’t want to age before I have to, and I need that hair dye money to buy a never ending supply of socks. Seriously though, what is it with children and losing socks?
Tips to help your morning routine
I think these are common sense, but a reminder now and again never hurts. Also it’s amazing how in the busyness of our everyday lives (or when you’re up at 2am trying to build a volcano out of clay and straws), we forget to help ourselves.
- If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So so true. Do what you can in advance. E.g. iron a whole week’s worth of uniforms, make the packed lunches the night before, get the kids to find and lay out their school gear the night before etc.
- Check their bags. Always check preferably after school and definitely before they go to bed (so you can ask follow up questions if necessary). Check for dirty clothes stuffed in, homework or assignments due, school events coming up that are worthy of note. This will help you keep on top of things and hopefully catch things before it’s too late.
- Assign responsibilities, but don’t relinquish full control. The older they get our children need to take on responsibility for certain aspects of their routine. They need this training to help develop their independence and to realise that there is no fairy who magically puts everything in place just for them. Everyone’s got to help. The latter about relinquishing full control is particularly important for children of primary school age. Very few that age can be trusted to get themselves dressed, fed and ready completely on their own. So you have to keep checking, reminding and moving them along. Otherwise you might find wrong socks on, stained shirt etc. by the time you’re ready to head out the door. You’d be surprised how many 10 year olds don’t brush their teeth properly because they were left to it and entrusted with this task without the adequate checks.
- Make allowance for morning shenanigans. All those scenarios I gave earlier are from firsthand experience (and this is just two children), plus I have hundreds more if you have time to spare to read it. So invariably, no matter how organised you are, at some point similar occurrences will knock on your door. Make time allowance for it by building an extra 15 or 30 minutes into your morning routine to cater for these when they come up.
What are your memorable morning routine experiences? Have you got any tips to share or disagree with mine? Leave a comment and let us know. Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful start to the new school year.
Also, check out these tips from sis Shola, an Africanfinestmum, for help with setting and keeping to daily routines at Parents Get Organised handy planner
A well-compiled collection of quotes that will make the students learn the importance of studying and motivate them to focus on it henceforth. Todays children are the torchbearers for the future of humanity. It is important for them to get quality education so that they develop a scientific temper at a young age that can ignite their interest in Science and Technology that will shape our future.
Excellent collection of quotes to light that fire inside the students. Children are at an age where they can grasp things much more quickly and learn to apply them expeditiously compared to their elder counterparts. Hence it is crucial to provide them quality theoretical and practical knowledge at an early age so that they grow up to become the future Scientists & Innovators that the world will desperately need in a short interval.