Stupid Mom Behavior & Crazy Mornings

My boys are both the same way. For every meal I set a timer on the oven. After a certain amount of time, it varies by meal, when it goes off they are done. If they go to school or bed hungry it's their fault. They are slowly coming around. Kids aren't going to starve themselves. For breakfast on school days, they have 15 minutes. For lunch and dinner, they have 20 minutes.
I was a single Mom working full-time for 6 years, I know what you are going through. I try to "pick my battles" but it doesn't always work. My patience is tested everyday!!
(I also set a timer for teeth brushing. They have to brush a full 2 minutes.)
Good Luck!!!

Yeah, mornings are the time I have the most trouble keeping a cool head with my daughter. Being a preschool teacher I have perfected the art of patience.....but somehow can't always keep in together with my own child 100% of the time. The previous response had very good ideas about waking up earlier, allowing the natural consequences to be felt by your daughter (i.e. if you take too much time getting dressed you will not have time to eat and may be going to school hungry). Sometimes feeling the consequences just once is enough to make a child get themselves together. One strategy I would suggest (though it takes some time to get together) is making a picture schedule for you daughter. On a large paper you can put a sequence of the morning tasks (wake up, eat breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth...whatever you need your daughter to do before leaving for school). Then you can either take pictures of her doing each step, draw pictures...or make it an art project and have her draw the pictures (explain why you are making this and make her a part of it). Use velcro or paper clips to put each picture next to the corresponding direction and stick an envelop to the bottom of the schedule. The hang it in a location central to the morning activities. At first you can show your daughter each step as you go through it and when a step is finished have her take off the picture and put it in the envelope. After a few days she can take control of following the schedule and you can just refer her back to it if she starts to lag. Give lots of praise when she takes responsibilty and completes each part of the schedule. You can give warnings of time, or set a timer if you need to. This may sound like a lot of work to set up...but when this works it REALLY works and makes life easier. Also, I agree with the other response about the importance of apologizing when you lose your temper with your child...you may already do this. It is important for children to see that adults make mistakes, too........and can own up to them.

That sounds exactly like me and my son, only he's slow with other things. In order to avoid some of the emotions, give her breakfast and set the timer for, say 20 min. (like on the stove or a small timer you get at the grocery store - and keep it where she can't reach it and change the time) When time's up, breakfast goes away. That's it. You just say, "The timer says that breakfast is over now. We have to move on to getting dressed." She will learn after a few times of being hungry that she has time limits that she is responsible for adhering to, and that you mean business. The timer is impartial and does not allow for extra minutes and seconds. You could use it for other duties she has to do too. I used that for homework last year, so it didn't take two hours (in the first grade!!!). It was all stuff he could do, he just dragged his feet, and oh, how we fought. I feel for you. Let me know how the timer works. :)

You sound like me. I pray and love the Lord, but God knows I am still made of flesh. Every now and then I lose it and go off on my 9 year old. I usually apologize later because I want her to learn to be humble and recognize mistakes. BUT, my daughter does not know how to move in the morning and sometimes I let her go to school hungry or resort to setting her alarm an extra half hour early. (She's been able to wake up by herself for a few years on her own.) We do everything the night before so all she has to do is get dressed, brush teeth, do her hair and eat. As much prep as I do the night before, I still find that we are late because she does not know how to move. I will say she is getting better because she likes sleep and so the alarm thing is beginning to work, but I understand. Love your baby tonight and know that she will get better. If she knows how to get dressed, try setting the alarm earlier, letting her eat while you go back to sleep for a half hour. It might work. Hang in there!!!!!

I go through this quite a bit. There are times that I'm so frustrated and I say awful things or I scream at my daughter and then feel awful afterwards. In any case, I know that I have a short fuse and one day, I was so mad, I started yelling and slamming my hand down on the table and it scared her. My husband said that what I did was something my mother would have done and that opened my eyes really quickly. I think since then I'm just a little more conscious of the mom I want to be and the mom I definitely don't want to be. So, although I know it's a huge pain, I would recommend just waking up a little earlier. Although it will be difficult at first, it may alleviate some of the stress, and that's what it's all about! Good luck.

First and foremost, you're not a terrible mom...you just had a terrible morning. Couple ideas pop in to my mind. Could you get her up earlier? If she is like my daughter, that is a "NO!". Is she eating at the table or in front of the TV? If she's in front of the TV I am sure she can be easily distracted by her show, so try having her sit at the table with no TV. I was also thinking that if you put an egg timer on the table and set it for 5 minutes and let her know she has 5 minutes to eat one slice of toast. When it goes off..take away what is left of the one piece. Then set it again for another 5 to finish the other piece of toast. I know it might worry you that she didn't get to finish breakfast...but I don't think you would have to worry about that on morning number 2.

I am a single mom also...I have had similiar mornings and I know what it feels like to beat yourself up all day...but don't we all make mistakes..the important thing is to learn from them..and your already working on that by posting a message on here.

do you get your daughter up in the mornings, or does she wake up by herself? i used to have problems with my daughter, who is also 6, until we bought her an alarm clock. it is a hello kitty one, so it is cool for her, and she helps me set it and she feels important because now she can get herself up and get ready. also, it helps to make a list of things to do in the morning, and then stick to the routine. my daughter gets up at 7, gets dressed, washed up, and then eats. she likes to get her own cereal out. maybe you can put out the bowl for her at night, and maybe pour some milk in a cup and keep it in the fridge so she can do it herself. i know that my daughter is very independent, sometimes i forget that she is only 6. but letting her do things on her own has been very helpful. good luck!!

L.

get a timer....an set it for everything and set everything up the night before...it helps...and yeah i feel like that alot expecially with my middle daughter she is three and autistic and i never know which way she is going to go at anytime and i actually will give myself a time out just to regain composer and start over....

yes we have all had those days. i have a 4 year old and we have a routine as i am sure most ppl do. however one thing we do have is "breakfast" for weekdays and breakfast for weekends. during the week, i buy quick stuff, breakfast cookies, fruit, etc. then on weekends we do pancakes, eggs, etc. the one nice thing about the weekday food is it can travel if she doesnt finish it.. she can eat while we are waiting at the bus stop. i give her enough time to wake up a little, watch a little tv. then we get changed and brush and leave. she moves VERY slow also. thats why (after a few hair pulling days) that i need to start her a little early.

some say i try and explain things to much with my 4 year old, and this is the type of relationship i am trying to have with her. i TRY and explain why we need to hurry, i explain what will happen if we are late and miss the bus, or whatever.. sometimes "explaining" bites me back. but when i loose it or whatever, i tell her i am sorry and i love her, and sometimes i get anger just like her.

i dont know about you, but she is penence(sp?).. i had such a mouth on me and i was so independant it was scarey. wish me luck too!

advice is very easy to give, very hard to take :)

1) Put a blackboard up in your chld's room with a list of things she has to do in the morning. It helped my firstborn a lot. It should be detailed: Get out of bed; take shower; get dressed. Put on shoes. If it still doesn't work, make it breakfast on the go. If that doesn't work, I actually put my kids in their clothes at night during one bad stretch.

2) At night, no matter how hard it is, empty your sink of dishes and pre-program the coffee maker to give you hot coffee in the morning.

3) Flylady.com

4) Put your child to bed sooner. She may just be tired.

Hang in there.

First, I agree 100% with Karen C.'s response below!! Especially about Flylady.net!!

Second, since she's almost 7, she really is old enough to "know" better. My 7 year old stepson used to behave similarly in the mornings until we started setting a timer. When the timer goes off, he absolutely must leave the breakfast table, put his dishes in the sink, brush his teeth, get on his shoes & coat and be ready at the front door for the bus to come. He gets to watch the timer while he's eating so he knows the whole time when he's getting close to having to be done. If he's not done eating when it goes off... OH WELL. It only took once or twice of that happening for him to understand that we meant business.

Now our mornings are quite peaceful as he's in charge of his eating schedule and knows that the timer going off means he's done whether he likes it or not.

Been there and completely understand! It might not be the ideal situation but I would highly suggest making the most of your drive to her school and have her eat on the way. Even if its a cup of dry cereal and a cup of milk or OJ, it will save you some time.

Hang in there!

Hi N.,
I've had those mornings (and afternoons and nights too). It is soo hard to control myself when I lose my patience. I could only suggest to do what I've done which sometimes has worked... waking up earlier than usual to give much more time into getting ready and plan on something "special" to do at breakfast time. This doesn't have to be something fancy... my daughter loves "cookie crisp" cereal and we had run out of it for a couple of days... so I used that and she jumped out of bed :P
Maybe french toasts? I don't know, something your daughter likes and maybe on sundays you could plan the breakfast menu for the week and check it out every night so you both know what to expect the next morning.

hope this helps!
M.

yes and yes and yes.
:)
rarely but it happens. now here's what totally changed my attitude towards yelling. i was driving with my kids in the car one day and stopped at a traffic light. i look to my left side and there was one mom in the car witrh two kids, couldn't tell the age maybe between 3 and 5. and the mom was screaming at the kids, when she turned her head to look back at her kids i saw her face for like a split second. and it was the most ugly face i had ever seen (she looked awful screaming like that and i just stopped and thought my god if she scared me i wonder how her kids are feeling).
i don't know the answers to that but i never yelled again. EVER AGAIN
:)
so, if she's taking her time in the morning then give her a banana on the way to school and have her eat something once she gets there. explain to teachers that you cannot be late for work and if they could let her eat breakfast there. if it doesn't work banana is very filling and nutritious
good luck
vlora

N.

Your mornings sounds similar to mine. My child is two and she just started school which is two min away from us as well. She's still getting used to the new environment and cries EVERY morning I drop her off. It's bad! She's a whiner and does not cooperate with me in getting her dressed, washing her face, etc.. I also am working thru my frustrattions with her.. It's SO HARD FOR ME!! The blind can't lead the blind but we can try..(smile) I understand how you feel and am right there with you.. I've been trying to talk more and yell less to my daughter.. Reagrdless to how she feels, we have a mission.. Stay focused on that mission and all else will fall into place. GOSH! This single mother thing is NO JOKE! Have a great day~

Well I know the feeling. I just had my second child in february and my 5 year old is taking the brunt of me being sleep deprived. I have had many of the same temper tantrums myself and end up in tears that I said horrible things to him. We have to keep in mind that we're only human and we all have our limits. I try to take a break and count to five and usually I will calm down. As far as the eating problem it sounds like maybe your daughter likes to spend that time with you or its her way of having control of the situation. I'm not sure if you have the time but maybe you could sit with her and tell her she has 5 minuets to eat with you and then she has to take it in the car or finish at school. Maybe you could make it a game to see if she can eat as fast as you and place a timer near by and let her set it so she still feels a little in control of the situation. I'm sure its hard for both of you to run such a tight schedule but we do what we have to do!! Good Luck