Own It, Work It, Own It

The other day after lunch in town, my first-grade daughter found a vertical pole to spin around.  In her innocent fun, she really got into it.  I mean, really got into it and…yeah.  It was disturbing.  Anyway…I’m going to continue on in a totally different vein.   But her little, uh, performance, will tie in.  I promise.

What is more frustrating, time-consuming and stressful than potty-training the kids?  Getting them ready for school and out-the-door (hereby known as “OTD”) is a top contender in my book.  I think I’ve sprouted more gray hairs with the latter than the former.  It is a literal three-ring (are those rings brass by chance?) circus every school morning in my house.  I have one child singing while using the bathroom (100 percent toilet-trained, I may add), another contending that a frothy dress with spaghetti straps is perfect for ten-degree weather, and yet a third trying to locate his socks (sitting on the table in front of him).  And I must remind each of my three at least as many times to clear their breakfast dishes and brush their teeth.

Sound familiar?

And of course, there is the mathematical postulate associated with getting ready for school:   the amount of time it takes to put on coats, hats and backpacks is directly and exponentially proportional to the number of children needing to don said gear.

Then let’s not forget the relativity theory specific to the issue at hand:  the final ten minutes before heading OTD moves at a pace of a mere two minutes.  Einstein could take that one to the bank, let me tell you.

Most parents I know find the before-school ritual mentally and physically exhausting.  No matter how prepared we are with lunches made the night before and homework done and placed in school folders, snafus abound in the hour or so we have before going OTD.  Absolutely no fun.  And the hardest part?  The more we press our kids to complete each stepwise task, the slower they move.  Another one of those enigmas of physical science with which we are familiar, but what other options do we have to get everyone moving in the right direction?

My oldest is especially exceptional at the slow mo’ maneuver.  Poor kid.  I don’t know if it’s the stress in my voice, the before-school-jitters or an urge to be contrary but he cannot get moving.  This has been a morning issue since he was approximately age three.  I tried singing him into submission (and motion, of course!) and the ability to distract a three-year-old with a terrible rendition of “Whistle While You Work” seemed to do the trick with getting him to preschool.  This tactic probably helped keep me sane more than anything.(It’s hard to lose your cool while singing Disney tunes.)  However by the time he reached kindergarten, he was like, “MOM, STOPPITT with the SINGING…it’s EMBARRASSING!”

So that put the kibosh on my clever little plan and it was back to the chainsaw-like quality of my nag-nag-nag nagging to get my son, who led his brother and sister in his example, ready for school.  I was so frustrated.  And of course defeated.  Why couldn’t my trio, after how many school mornings, figure out the ritual of getting ready?  Why, oh WHY, did I find myself commanding at high decibels what they needed to do and when and how in order to be OTD?  Then I did a childish thing:  my own version of if-you-don’t-do-it-my-way-i’m-taking-my-ball-and-going-home.

And to my shameful surprise, it worked.

One morning, I threw up my hands and told my kids, fine.  I set a timer to go off three minutes before we needed to be OTD (allowing a fair amount of time to put on coats and shoes).  And I said, go.  I wasn’t going to nag.  I wasn’t going to remind.  They knew what their morning responsibilities were and those tasks needed to be done before the timer beeped.  Or those things wouldn’t get done.  If homework or lunches were forgotten, I wouldn’t be bringing them to their classrooms.  If stinky breath happened, so be it.  If breakfast dishes were left on the table, they could be cleared after school.  My kids  would have to roll with the consequences.  So.  There.

I have stuck to my guns with the plan for several mornings and my kids have lived up to the challenge.  A time or two some molars didn’t get brushed and no one died because of that oversight.  But the task was remembered the next day.  Giving the kids some ownership of their morning routine seemed to be what they needed;  they worked the challenge well.  And I’m quite proud of them.  Perhaps it’s not the nagging the kids have a backlash against, it is the message being sent by it:  you don’t trust me.  Yikes.  That could have worse repercussions than forgetting to brush every now and then.

So I am looking for other ways to help my kids own it and work it (brass poles and similar excepted).  Perhaps there are other ways to disprove kids’ laws of math and physics, too.

Stay tuned.