Getting young children ready for school on time requires a special set of skills, whether it is one or more kids or different batch timings for kids of different ages, whether you’re a homemaker, someone who works from home or outside the home, the task isn’t easy for any one. There is ‘no one size fits all’ fool proof method, but with trial and error each family finds their own groove.
So, if you’re one of those parents struggling to get your late-rising kids to school on time, you might want to take a look at these handy tips-
- Set up a morning routine – Make a list of all the jobs that need to be done before going to school, then Figure out how much time each would take, and add an extra 15 to 30 minutes to the total time.
- Delegate – Remember you don’t have to do all the jobs yourself, allot some jobs for your children to do by themselves like brushing their teeth and dressing themselves, and some for your spouse to help out with like waking the kids up, supervising them doing their chores, helping them dress if required and putting on their shoes, while you get the breakfast and snack boxes ready.
- Prep the night before – keep their clothes, underwear, socks and shoes all laid out, bags and water bottles can be packed and filled and kept, and finally the prep work for the snack boxes and breakfast too can be done the night before. Get your child to help you keep their things ready, slowly they can begin to do this by themselves and you can check their work before going to bed. Children can even have their bath at night to save time in the morning.
- Keep your things ready- when preparing for the next day, we often think of the kids and forget about our needs. Keeping our clothes and bags ready the night before will definitely help reduce the stress whether it is for work or even getting ready to drop off the kids at school. Not being able to find the matching top or kurta, or getting fully ready only to realize that your shirt is badly crumpled or missing a button will add unnecessary stress to your day.
- Get the kids to bed early – Children and toddlers need between 12 to 14 hours sleep including daytime naps. So making sure they get to bed early, will ensure they rise up happy and fully energized.
- Set a few alarms in the morning – While it is easy to put your nearest alarm on snooze or switch it off when in sleep, the other alarms will ensure you are awake. Have one in the children’s room as well and they will soon learn to wake at the sound of the alarm ringing.
- Keep time for cuddles and snuggles- Children love it when they are woken up with a gentle touch of your hands by running your fingers through their hair or rubbing their backs. A few kisses and tickles don’t hurt either. If they wake up happy they are bound to move faster.
- Keep things simple – While having an elaborate breakfast spread is ideal and looks good on TV, it is hardly practical on a regular basis with everyone rushing to school or work. Keeping breakfast simple and healthy is the key. Children need the energy from breakfast to carry on the activities of the day. Some fruit, oats or cereal, a paratha, a sandwich, an egg, maybe a milkshake or a smoothie are some good options to consider. If you don’t have time to comb and plait your daughter’s hair, consider keeping it short at least for some time till things become easier.
- Ban morning screen time – Even if the children still have some time on their hands before they have to go to school, once engrossed in the screens, it becomes difficult for them to snap back into their daily routine and get going. Instead let them read a book or do some art and craft activity or even play with their toys before leaving for school.
- Make full use of the weekends – to plan the food and snack menu for the week ahead, this makes shopping easier and faster. Use the time to get a jump start on any school project or activity that needs to be done. Weekends are also a good time to finish getting the clothes and uniforms washed, ironed and repaired if required.
Here are a few fun ways to get your child to speed up in their morning tasks, these are especially good when teaching your child about how long they need to spend on each task.
- Play some upbeat music- just like when we exercise, an upbeat tempo helps us move faster so also is the case with children.
- Set timers for various activities – a two minute timer to brush their teeth or ten minutes to get dressed and come for breakfast. Setting a timer will help them stay focused and stay on target
- Make a to-do chart – Make a list of items your children have to do in the morning and stick a Velcro alongside each child’s name, then cut a small piece of the Velcro counterpart, one for each child and stick their photo on it, have them move their photo alongside each task as the finish one and go on to the next. Breaking up the tasks into smaller ones will help your child concentrate as well as give them a sense of accomplishment as they move from one job to the next.
Parents who work multiple shifts or have non-traditional work hours have a really difficult time trying to balance their schedules as well as that of their preschool children. There is the underlying remorse of rushing the kids off to school early in the morning even though the children are still groggy or are late risers, there is also the guilt of not having enough time to spend with them because their child’s preschool doesn’t have different batch timings for kids.
The sad reality is that most preschools are set in their ways of functioning and do not take into account the ever changing needs of today’s society. There is a whole demographic of parents who have multiple shift timings based on whether they are working in the US, UK, Singapore or any other country whose time zones differ from India and therefore their work timings differ from the conventional 9 to 5 or 10 to 6 timings.
These parents either have to work late nights or begin work really early in the morning, as a result the daily routine of the children is also affected. While the above mentioned strategies will definitely help get the child ready to school on time. The lack of different batches for kids doesn’t cater to the needs of this ever growing demographic.
At EuroKids, we prioritize the needs of the kids and parents and are happy to introduce different batches for kids, in the hopes of easing out some of the stress, after all we believe that when parents and kids are happy the school is happy too.
So whether you work multiple shifts, your child is a late riser, or you have different batch timings for your other kids, Click here to find the nearest EuroKids Center, pay us a visit and find a batch timing that is perfect for you. See you soon!
