Getting Your Kids on Board With No Rush School Mornings

Do you feel like you’ve been rushing through your morning every school day?

Getting caught up in the rush out the door can be stressful.

Sometimes as hard as we try as moms it’s hard to get the kids on board with your morning routine.

My son just started school this Monday and the week before we were prepping to avoid a morning rush.

I wanted our first week of getting ready for school to be relaxing and easy. Setting the tone for the rest of the year, hopefully!

Starting a new school year can be stressful enough for kids. Getting in the groove of a new teacher, homework policy, long school days, and maybe even finding some new friends.

Making the best of our time at home is important to me. Part of that is having a stress free morning.

But, half of that battle is making sure the whole family, including the kids are part of the routine!

Here are some of my secrets to getting the kids on board during the rush out of our school mornings!

Top Secrets For a No Rush School Morning

Setting Screen Time Limits

We live in the 21st century. Which means that screen time is part of most kids lives.

YouTube and Netflix are both things my son loves. But, he doesn’t always agree with the limits.

Part of our bedtime and morning routine only works if we set limits on our screen time. We allow our son to watch 15 minutes of his YouTube videos before story time at night and use screen time as an incentive in the mornings. (I’ll tell you about that below!)

Getting used to these screen time rules is hard for him. But, I find that when we are consistent with the rules, the complaining stops.
Getting Enough Rest at Night

This one is important! Planning an early bedtime for your kids will make it easier for you to wake them up early the next day.

Mom can I stay up a little bit later? I’m sure you’ve heard this before, as have I many many times!

Just like screen time our son always gets into his early bedtime routine when we stick to it.

Your kids will have more energy to put into getting ready if they got the proper amount of sleep the night before.

We begin our bedtime routine at 7pm. This may seem early, but it’s worth it to have less grumpy kids in the morning.
Easy On The Go Lunches Everyone Loves

Lunch is definitely an area where you can save time in the mornings. I love having quick things to grab for lunches, especially for mornings where we are running short on time. (Nobody is perfect!)

Lunchables are great for these types of mornings! I have fond memories of having Lunchables pizza in my packed lunches and my kids love them too.

I feel good packing them because they just came out with. They are USDA certified organic and free of artificial preservatives, flavors or colors.*These pizza’s are so much fun for kids to make. Our son has a blast putting them together and loves packing them in his lunch box. Plus they are pretty tasty!
Get Ready For School Incentives

I love using positive reinforcement with my kids. It’s a great way to get them on board to get ready quickly in the mornings.

Our incentive is that if our son can wake up on time, eat breakfast, and get ready without any complaints he gets 20 minutes of screen time before school. This makes our mornings fun and gives him a reason to get up on time and get ready so we aren’t rushing.
Extra Time in the Mornings

If you are sticking to an early bedtime and wake-up time you can easily fit in extra time in the morning!

Having at least 30 extra minutes than what you need to get ready allows for mishaps. Running slow and you can definitely use this time.

When you are raising kids literally anything can happen. Spilled juice, food on school clothes, can’t find the shoes. I can’t tell you how many times we needed that extra time because my baby needed a diaper and/or clothes change.

Extra time is also needed for our incentives we have. This extra time is used for giving a screen time reward for getting ready, just like I discussed above.