Make Mornings Easier with Family Routines

As the kids have grown and we are now fully into the elementary school years, our mornings haven’t lost any of the insanity. Before the pandemic, I still worked outside the home and still needed to gather all the kid things (library books, projects, homework, forms to turn back in). It felt like herding cats every morning and most mornings we forgot at least one thing.  Finally, I knew something had to change, and I knew I needed to create some structure for my kids and myself to get us out the door in a more peaceful, organized manner. 

Since I am a big on lists, I knew we needed a list to help me get to all the morning tasks we needed to do. I decided to create a list to post on the mudroom door so that we could see the list immediately before we head out the door to the garage and the car. Included on this list were the items I would need along with items that my husband and kids need.  

For example, I include “Library books” on that list along with the day of the week that that child has library. I do the same for “HE shoes”.  This way, we can scan the list and if it’s library day, we know we need to make sure we have the library books in backpacks. 

The items we have on the kids’ lists are:  

Shoes 

Coat 

Backpack 

Library books 

Show & Tell 

Teacher papers (reminder for anything mom needed to sign) 

Mask (thankfully no longer needed) 

Snack (kids can bring snacks from home or have the school snack) 

Water bottle 

Each of these items has a small picture next to it which helped the kids when they were younger and still learning to read.  

My husband and I can always use extra reminders, so my list includes: 

Phone 

Purse + Keys 

Laptop 

Lunch 

Even though I’m working from home right now, this list was useful when I needed to go into the office. A quick glance as we went out the door in the morning helped me to make sure I wasn’t leaving something on the counter that I’d need to come back for. 

My husband’s list was short but also useful, including: 

Phone 

Wallet 

Keys 

Lunch 

Laptop 

Basketball clothes (for his pickup basketball game days) 

Here’s what our current list looks like (and you can see I need to print a new copy of it since I’ve been adding to it as needed):

We don’t always look at the list, but when we do, we know we are remembering the most important items. Also, at first it was just my husband and I looking at the lists. As the kids have grown and started to get themselves ready, they have started to review the list themselves, and that has always been my goal – to help my kids grow into independent and self-sufficient people. A list like this teaches them how to keep themselves organized and how to improve their ability to make a list and plan ahead. 

After we had used the lists posted in the mudroom, we had a conversation with one of our children’s teachers that spurred me to think about other lists we could implement. During our conversation, we learned our child needed a little boost in their executive functioning. After I did some research, I realized that providing these lists would allow my child to work on their executive functioning and to improve our mornings even more. 

I decided to create morning routine lists specific to each child.  I made a new list with all of the items my kids needed to do to get themselves ready in the morning and I posted them in their rooms.  

My son’s Morning Routine list includes: 

• Get Dressed 

  • New underwear 

  • Shirt 

  • Pants 

  • Socks 

• Put clothes in laundry basket 

• Brush teeth 

• Put in contacts 

• Turn off lights 

 

My daughter has a list also and her list includes: 

• Get Dressed 

  • New underwear 

  • Shirt 

  • Pants 

  • Socks 

• Put clothes in laundry basket 

• Brush teeth 

• Turn off lights 

 

I added a little picture next to each item to improve quick readability and to make the lists look a little cuter 😊 My kids can get up, start getting ready for school, and then check their lists to make sure they’ve completed everything before heading down to breakfast or to leave. 

Since implementing these lists, I have seen a lot of improvement in our morning routines. If my kids seem to get distracted (something they are good at, for sure), I can redirect them to look at their lists and that helps them stay on track. For some reason, it’s less annoying to them when I’m asking them to just look at their list instead of continually asking “Did you get on new socks? Did you put in your contacts? Did you…did you…?”  Anything that supports smoother mornings are a win in my book! 

Do you need some help with making lists for your kids? If you’d like to download the mornings lists I’ve created for my kids, here are the links: 

Daughter’s Morning Routine

Son’s Morning Routine

Do you have anything you do to help keep your family on track in the mornings and herd those cats a little more peacefully? 

Good luck to us all!