son in tears this morning

balletshoes

OP I could have written your post almost word for word this time last year (my DD has just turned 11).

I more or less did (and still do) what Savvy Sue does in her post above.

I don't tell my DD more than once in the morning what to do, and I don't nag her or shout at her anymore. I wake her up 5 minutes before she needs to get up and get ready for school, so she can "come to". Then I call upstairs to her once to say its time to get up and get ready (and I tell her the time). If she's not dressed, bag packed and hair brushed by a certain time, she misses breakfast. So I call her at the time to tell her this. If she's still not ready, then I tell her to brush her teeth (once) because its time to go (and I tell her the time).

At 9 your son knows what he needs to do each morning before you have to leave for school, so leave him to it.
Apologise tonight to him for shouting at him, ask him to apologise to his sister for being rude, and then tell him he's growing up and from now on you won't shout at him, and you'll expect him to get everything he needs to do in the mornings in time for school.

kelpie35

julie8314dave wrote: »

My son is in bed at 8.30 pm every night, with a story, ten min chat about his day, eats healthy, drinks plenty, lots of freinds, gets up at 7.30 am on his own. as is a very happy chappie but it drives me mad in the morning,

we have everything ready the night before, but then he just walks out without his coat , bag, lunchbox. tried not saying anything about the morning things to do and nothing gets done, he wants to do things in his own time which means we would be leaving for school at 10.30 am in the morning. xx

My son used to be the same at that age.

I decided not to waste my breathe shouting so 1 day decided to leave him to his own devices.

Guess what.............. He arrived late to school, no gym kit and packed lunch.

The school phoned asking if I could hand them in.

Guess what............. I refused. Told the school to punish him for being late, not having equipment and he would just have to drink water for lunch.

Bet you all now think I am the worst parent on earth.

Well I can tell you he learnt his lesson and from that day on He was never late, never forgot his equipment for the day and never missed lunch. :j

He is now 22 yrs of age and he still mentions how cruel I was when he was a wee boy

fluffnutter

julie8314dave wrote: »

My son is in bed at 8.30 pm every night, with a story, ten min chat about his day, eats healthy, drinks plenty, lots of freinds, gets up at 7.30 am on his own. as is a very happy chappie but it drives me mad in the morning,

we have everything ready the night before, but then he just walks out without his coat , bag, lunchbox. tried not saying anything about the morning things to do and nothing gets done, he wants to do things in his own time which means we would be leaving for school at 10.30 am in the morning. xx

Not for long you wouldn't! At the moment there are no real consequences to his unfocussed behaviour in the mornings because mum sorts him out. If you're brave enough, try not sorting him out. It might be a hard lesson to learn but it would be a meaningful one.

Bear in mind as well that kids are pretty rubbish in the morning (and will get worse as they become teenagers) as their circadian rhythms shift and they become night owls. There's not an awful lot you can do about it really, you can't fight biology.

Also try to remember that, in the scheme of things, it doesn't really matter all that much. I know every morning will feel like a mini war but you've got a happy, cheerful kid and that's what's important. He won't always be like this.

McKneff

julie8314dave wrote: »

sorry to McKneff if it upsets you, i can assure you it hurts me more, i do not need to be made to feel worse by your comment, i suppose we cant all be perfect all the time, thanks to everybody else for your encouragement xx

I'm not at all trying to make you feel worse, It doesnt hurt you more, if it hurts you, stop doing it, how would you feel if your husband screamed and shouted at you becaues you hadnt cleaned the cooker and you he had asked you 10/20 times. Who do you think would feel worse, you being shouted at or him doing the shouting. I'm not perfect either, both my 'children' got shouted at at times. It's only with the wisdom of age that brings me to post. I was thinking of your son. That's all.

bestpud

My 20 year old was like that and I went through it again with my 10 year old! Eldest was no problem at all in the mornings - I think it's a personality thing.

I find it easier not to nag tbh.

With dd(20), nagging still is the worst thing to do - she just slows down! I eventually sat her down at about the age of 11 or 12 and told her I would stop going on at her if she managed to get herself sorted and she did! She preferred to sort herself out and all she needed me to do was hand over the responsibility.

With dd(10), I could see the warning signs, so nipped it in the bud earlier! She is home educated so we don't have school runs to worry about, but that also means I can't rely on her being motivated by a teacher telling her off!

When we have to be out the door by a certain time, I ask her the evening before how much time she needs and what time she would like to be woken up. When I wake her up, I tell her what the time is and what time we will be leaving the house.

If she is looking as though she will be way behind, I will casually remind her to keep an eye on the time, or remind her she still needs to eat breakfast or whatever.

I also prompt her to sort any bags out the night before and she has definitely learnt how much easier it is to have clothes set apart for things like Forest School, Guides or swimming, so she can just reach in and grab them. It took a few times of going without the proper kit or last minute panics and no help from me to get that one going!

We rarely argue in the mornings now, thank goodness!

It's frustrating, I know, but try and step back from it all. If he forgets something, let him get on with it. And maybe ask him if he'd prefer to be completely responsible for himself in the mornings - if he isn't a morning person he may like to just do things his own way.

You're not a bad parent BTW!

Spendless

I think what you've said is a common morning occurrance in many households. My 12yo son is not much different. I tried not telling him, thinking today he will learn - did he hell! My 9yo daughter, who isn't perfect but is a lot better at organising herself, which surprises me because by nature she is the more scatty.

How much can you pre-empt the morning situation? The school bag for example, can that be packed the night before and hung by the front door? I need to top up, but I started a 'breakfast basket'. It's a bread basket in which I have put individual breakfast items, eg the small boxes of cereal, indiviually wrapped croissants/waffles, cereal bars as well as having the loaf of bread, butter, jam on the table with a plastic small plate/bowl plus any cutlery. It means that the breakfast bowl can just be brought out of the cupboard where it lives and kids help themselves to an item (I made it clear it wasn't a buffet breakfast to be eaten in 1 go:D)

penguingirl

I'm reading this thread and sometimes I feel like this is what happens between me and my bf in the morning and we are both in our late twenties! This morning I was working from home and he had to shout at me to get out of bed. I'm going to suggest that if he incentivised me with a nice cup of coffee I'd be more inclined to not shout back at him.

PasturesNew

julie8314dave wrote: »

i would just like any views on this am i missing something, or do others have the same problem.

I saw one of those Nanny programmes once - breakdown in communication between the parents, child would get angry and throw things.

Nanny watched and identified that the kid was TOLD what to do, but then continually nagged to do it. Nanny said he had to told what he had to do - and by when - and then NO reminders at all. I can't remember the details, nor the episode though.

The problem came because the parents were almost stalking the kid, just to angrily remind him that he'd not done XYZ.

The parents were over-prompting, over-reminding. This was particularly noticeable in homework, where the kid wasn't doing it fast enough for the parent, so having asked the question, the kid had probably 10-15 seconds before the parent started asking the question again, which made the kid feel inadequate, so then they were focussing on that rather than solving the question/problem... and then the parent would chip in again... and again.

I didn't explain that very well.... but it might be something to try to read up about, whatever it is.

Mrs.W_2

kelpie35 wrote: »

My son used to be the same at that age.

I decided not to waste my breathe shouting so 1 day decided to leave him to his own devices.

Guess what.............. He arrived late to school, no gym kit and packed lunch.

The school phoned asking if I could hand them in.

Guess what............. I refused. Told the school to punish him for being late, not having equipment and he would just have to drink water for lunch.

Bet you all now think I am the worst parent on earth.

Well I can tell you he learnt his lesson and from that day on He was never late, never forgot his equipment for the day and never missed lunch. :j

He is now 22 yrs of age and he still mentions how cruel I was when he was a wee boy

Last month, having had enough of my 9yo needing to be 'carried' all the way through the morning, every morning, I did the same. DD went to school oblivious of her lunch and swimming bags left by the door at home.

She had to sit out of swimming, which was bad enough. But, for her, the ultimate horror was having to eat a school dinner.

Her teacher followed up, asking why I filled in DD's late slip with the reason 'zombie attack'.

fluffnutter

Embarrassment's a powerful tool and can work well to any parent's advantage. If kids get to school and realise they've forgotten something or are different in some other way, they'll soon sort themselves out of a morning.

I remember my brother having a battle with his little boy one morning when he (my nephew) completely refused to get dressed. My brother just took him to school in his pyjamas (with his clothes in a bag). My nephew soon begged for a change of clothing once all his mates starting laughing at him in the playground