A mother can bring calm to the chaos of mornings. Small interactions and reactions can change the way both we and our children start the day–for the better. Here is how.
It’s times like now that we realize what a bracha it is that we have our own children safe in our homes with us. We know that we should be so appreciative and only loving and kind towards our children that we are so blessed to have. Yet, we are not perfect people and raising children is still quite difficult even when we are aware of this.
In the zechut of the safe return of all of the hostages including the children among them, we can find a manageable amount of time in our day to be very mindful and to do our very best to be calm and caring with our children. We can have mindful mornings.
Mornings are a challenge. On most mornings, I get five kids up and ready and packed up and out the door. But it is a finite amount of time…soon they are walking up the bus steps, or dropped off at the school door. In this amount of time is a way to find a manageable way to wake our children up with love, to serve them with patience, to dress them with care. It takes a lot of work on our part, but we can go into our mornings with intention and focus.
Things to Keep in Mind Before We Get Started:
- Set ourselves up for success: One of the biggest indicators of a “bad” or “good” morning is not my children’s sleep. It is my sleep. When I get enough sleep I can manage and handle anything. When I wake up tired, I take out way too much of my exhaustion on my kids. Some nights it is just not possible to get enough sleep. The next morning all you need to give yourself is grace. Make it through. But on a night when we are able to ensure we get enough sleep, we can use that morning the next day to have a mindful morning. Make efforts to ensure we get the sleep we need.
- Manage expectations: Even if we set out to have a mindful morning, our kids most definitely are not! We need to manage our expectations on what we expect from our children. They may still wake up tired and be cranky and we all have some kids who are just not morning people. Expecting all of this will ensure we are not disappointed when we attempt a mindful morning.
- It is about us not them: After managing our expectations we must keep in mind that having a mindful morning with our kids is about us and not them. We can not control the actions of others, even our children, all we can control is our reactions. Being mindful in the morning with our children is a huge exercise in self control and a mother dealing with children is one of the people with the most self-growth. Every step we take to remain calm and in control should fill us with pride.
With those things in mind here are some practical tips to have a mindful morning with the kids! (I must preface all of this by saying that my kids are not angels. I am an imperfect mother. We are all just doing our very best.)
Practical Tips to Achieve Mindful Mornings
- Wake the kids with a smile, a kiss and a loving wake up. Let them start their morning feeling their mother’s love from the second they open their eyes. Even if they are running late and should have woken up on their own ten minutes ago:)
- Now is not the time to teach lessons–we need to get out the door. We want to do it in a way that minimizes tensions and fights. When a child insists you bring them their school uniform in bed, maybe now is not the best time to teach independence. It will benefit not only them but also us and our ability to move through the morning smoothly. After school when there is more time and everyone is wide awake is probably a better time to work on insisting a child do something for themself.
- Give them choices and options – I have my share of dealing with toddlers that just will not cooperate. Trying to remain calm and rationalize with a toddler can feel like an exercise in futility. One of the things that helps us is to offer choices- “Would you like to get dressed upstairs or downstairs?”, “Do you want to put your shoes on now or in two more minutes?” It helps the toddler to feel a little bit more in charge of their situation and can help a lot when they have some agency in the decisions.
- Positive reinforcements – I would say positive reinforcements and even a little positive challenge. “ Who is going to be my biggest helper and run down the stairs to breakfast so fast?” always gets my 4 and 6-year-old running down the stairs to exactly where I need them to be. Making a huge stink and clapping and praising the toddler who finally decided to put on her shoes. The kids really respond to this when we are able to keep ourselves from our instinct to critique and criticize.
- Use sweet names. Being mindful to use terms of endearment for the kids in the midst of the busy morning can help mold every statement we say into one with love. Calling them sweetie and cutie-pie, or whatever sweet names roll off our tongue will ensure they feel our love throughout the things that need to happen to get out the door.
- Add some music. The minute we walk downstairs I ask Alexa to play something. It can be jewish music or dance music. Whatever works for you, having music playing can create a much happier morning than one without.
- Take a deep breath. Despite our best intentions there can still be a lot of issues in our mornings with our kids. They will still fight with each other even with Shwekey playing in the background 🙂 Take a deep breath and tell yourself it is normal and it is OK. Your house is not the only one where siblings fight. Deal with those issues with calm and resolve and we will be mindful even in the midst of conflict.
- It’s not about you. When a child comes downstairs and is rude to you and speaks in an unkind way towards you it can be a sign of something deeper. Of course they need to be reminded to speak nicely and respectfully but we also may need to be reminded that they are dealing with something. They may be nervous about their test. They may have just struggled tying their shoes. Many of their frustrations, anxieties, and worries can be placed on us. We are their safe spaces and they can seem to be the most rude to the ones they love the most. It is helpful to remind ourselves that it is about them and not us.
- Keep calm and carry on. One of the biggest parts of having a mindful morning with my five kids is literally just about keeping calm. If I am calm in the storm of a harried morning it keeps it from being a hurricane. I have gotten to the point where I enjoy the challenge and in a weird way enjoy being tested to be mindful of keeping calm with the kids. The feeling of growth and self-pride after being tested is like no other. Be calm and be proud!
- Pat yourself on the back. On that note, whatever the efforts you took and whichever ones you were successful, give yourself a huge pat on the back. Don’t pay attention to the five minutes where you lost control when your son insisted his socks were pulled up too high past his ankle. Focus on the 30 other minutes that you maintained control of yourself.
- Leave it and let go. If you had some struggles in the morning and some moments that even if you were in control and calm but they still just felt hard, leave them and let go. Even while being mindful, there will be hard moments. Drop the kids at school and don’t hold it with you. You are your own person and deserve to have the day you desire. You can be in a car of kids literally pushing each other in the backseat but then drop them off and go smile at the cashier in the market because they may have been fighting and that is upsetting but you are happy and ready to have a great day.
We are so beyond blessed to be mothers.
this article is absolutely magnificent! thank you so much for sharing these profound yet practical insights with us! this is being printed to leave by my bed and read before I go to sleep/during an extra minute before getting out of bed! thank you so much!
Wow that’s extreme
You’re entitled to your opinions, meanwhile I can use all the chizuk I can get to give my kids a mindful morning 🙂
Kol Hakavod! Go for it- and do whatever you need to get you there!
I wasn’t saying it as a bad thing Im sorry if u miss understood it’s a good thing
I am so glad it resonated deeply with you. It was so amazing for me to write and really stop and consider all of these things that I want to achieve for myself in the mornings. Thank you for your comment it means the world to me to know my words have impact. Be calm and be proud!
So nice, thank you for sharing!
I love this! I also find that having a somewhat clean house really helps me stay calm and collected in the morning. It’s not about my kids having a clean space (obviously it’s nice for them too!) but it greatly affects my feeling that I got this.
Yes so true!!! A calm space is a clear mind!!
I love this article and like the first commenter wrote I would like to print it out so I can review. I marked it as a favorite post so I have it handy on the app. We forget sometimes how blessed we are when we’re rushing rushing to send the kids off to school, do homework, baths, brush teeth etc. we only have a few years to raise our children before they are adults and iy”H move out…. Thank you for such a great article with so many good ideas….
Thank you for your sweet comment- I love that it will be a favorite of yours!! I agree we can lose sight of it all sometimes and we all need the reminder what a bracha it is to have children to send off in the morning and we want to look back on the years and know we did our best!
This was a great article with specific tips and not just general advice to be mindful. Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for this great article!
Any ideas on how to get boys to wear coats when its cold outside? I don’t have 5 minutes every morning to make it into a discussion. and I also don’t want them leaving in morning in a sour mood because I made them take a coat…
Thanks!
I once heard about someone who hung a thermometer in a prominent place and had a rule, colder than X amount degrees, you must wear a coat, if it’s warmer than that it’s up to you. I like that idea because it (hopefully) takes the parent out of the enforcer role.
Thank you for that!
I will try my luck with it 🙂
This came at the best time for me. I’ve been really struggling lately to get my kids ready in the morning without getting frustrated while they keep trying to climb back into bed or just sit on the floor staring and not getting dressed! I will try your tips. Thank you!!
Before commenting, I gave these tips a try! How come it didn’t dawn on me to use sweet words in the morning (even for the 10th time “get out of bed”) it worked to keep me mindful, calm, and focused on the goal of the morning. And I think the kids got ready a drop faster because of it. I love the idea of printing this out – because we all need EXTREME changes right now if we want extreme changes in the world. Achdus starts at home with our family. And being nice to them in the morning is a genius way to start. Thank you thank you for taking the time to write a perfect post.
Ps. The comment about the jackets really validated me!! I thought my kids were the only ones who refuse to be warm!
Thank u!
Wonderful article with practical tips!
I like the idea of the music in the morning and calling kids sweet names. We r usually so in a rush in the morning that we forget to be kind to ourselves and our kids.
Thank u for a great reminder!
This is such a practical guide for all parents! Iy”h I plan on using it going forward. The idea that mornings aren’t teaching moments makes sense. This is a weakness of mine and I’m going to really work on it.
This is so profound and really resonated with me. I tend to forget that even though I have two toddlers who cannot get ready by themselves, my daughter is still little too..(even at 9). Giving her clothing in bed and helping her decide on a snack really doesn’t take much of my time. I’ll keep repeating this line to myself- “mornings are not teaching moments!”
Hashem just “randomly” sent me this article yesterday when we had a really hard morning. It just “happened” to show up at the top of between carpools right when I needed it. Thank you so much for writing this powerful and helpful article. I really appreciate it. I went through my morning routine of getting kids ready with the word ‘meaningful’ like a beat in the background of my mind this morning and it’s been great so far. Also a reminder to daven! If you couldn’t get to sleep on time (baby was up coughing) daven that Hashem make your sleep restful and you wake up rejuvenated and calm and you can feel like you got a solid sleep! Daven that your morning is calm and patient and the kids get off to school on a happy note. Hashem should send us all peace and calm.
Amen. What a great article and comments! So much to learn from them!
Great article with a lot of helpful tips!
I just want to comment on giving kids choices: “Would you like to get dressed upstairs or downstairs?”, “Do you want to put your shoes on now or in two more minutes?”
I have found that you need to be careful which types of choices you are giving them. A 3 year old feels much more secure when told where/when/how/what to do, rather than deciding on their own. They often don’t really care and they need to feel that the parent is in charge.
(My oldest was given these kinds of ‘choices’ and I find that it caused him to be 1)anxious, and 2)less willing to accept authority. I gave fewer choices to my younger children and they are more confident and willing to accept authority.)
I feel like choices should be reserved for matters of taste, ‘do you want Cheerios or Kix?’ or ‘which book do you want mommy to read?’ or ‘do you want the ketchup on top or side of your rice?’, which can help them get in touch with their likes and dislikes.
Really good point- I’ll keep it in mind.