The three most important things you can do when you want easier mornings with kids are to create a to-do list, be honest about how much time you need to get it all done, and build out a simple timeline for your family to follow each day.

Today on the podcast, I’m talking about the part of the day that trips up almost every family - the morning. I’ll walk you through my morning routine roadmap, a simple 3-step system to help you build mornings that actually get your kids out the door on time without stress.

You’ll Learn:

• My simple 3-step system for smoother mornings with kids
• How to create your own morning routine roadmap
• Why being on time isn’t the most important thing
• A sample morning routine and timeline
• 5 tips for less stressful school mornings

If you want less chaotic, more organized mornings, you’re in the right place!

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Resources:

• Free Guide: Easy Mornings with Kids
• Episode 192: The 5 Things: Easy Routines for Kids
• Episode 191: Eyeballs: A Simple Parenting Tool for Instant Connection
• Episode 190: Make Mornings Better with the Gentle Handoff

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Toolkit!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Toolkit here

Connect With Darlynn:

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host, I'm Darlynn Childress, and I'm

a life and parenting coach. Over the last few weeks, we've talked about

mindset and goals. And now today, let's get really

practical and talk about the part of the day that trips up almost every

family, and that's the morning. Today I'm walking you through my

morning routine roadmap, which is a simple 3-step

system to help you build mornings that actually get your

kids Out the door on time without stress.

This is one of my most popular free resources that I have on my website,

and I want to walk you through it here so you can put it to

use today. If you want to follow

along as I teach this, I strongly recommend you go to my

website and get the worksheet, which includes all the different things I'm

teaching you today, how to build a stress-free morning.

And it's at my website, calmmamacoaching.com.

And it's backslash easy-morning. So you can find

that under free resources or in the show notes. We'll link it in there. We'll

also link it down below if you're watching this on YouTube.

So if you have that, great. If you don't, it's okay. You can listen

along and you can jot down all the notes. And this is one of those

episodes where you really do probably wanna have a piece of paper handy because

I'm teaching you how to really structure your morning

so that it's less chaotic and more organized. And that way

you can yell less and have a calm morning. That's always our goal, right, is

to become calm mamas, and that is including in the

mornings. So the first step in the morning

routine roadmap is a to-do list.

And it sounds kind of simple, but I noticed that a lot of times we

have so much in our head as moms, but we don't spend

time taking what's in our brain and putting it down on a piece of paper.

And so I really want you to think about the things that have to get

done in the morning and creating a list of

all of those things that either you need to do or you want your kids

to do in order to be ready for school or camp or daycare

or whatever it is each day. So what you're going to do is you're going

to write down every single task, even if it seems

stupid, that needs to happen for you and your kids

to be completely ready. Okay. So I want you to

be as specific as possible, not being vague,

but actually getting into those granular lists of things that

need to be done. So in the morning routine, I've written out what is

typical in a family. And if you have that handy, like I said, go ahead

and read through that list and circle whatever applies to you.

Of course, if you don't have that roadmap handy, I'm going to list those

things here. And while I'm saying them, think about whether

that's true for you or your family. And jot them down on a

piece of paper or in a note on your phone. Okay, so here it is.

First is wake up. Now I'm gonna teach you in this

episode when to wake up. Like, you're gonna build your

morning, you're gonna back it up, you're gonna figure out all these things that you

need to do, how long they take, and then what time your kids need to

be woken up, or what time do you need to wake up in order to

get things done. What I've noticed is that some— for some

families is that the kids wake up on their own. That was true for me.

My youngest was like a 5 AM wake-upper, which was really rough.

Um, he played by himself for about an hour and then he would kind of

like need support to have me get up with him

around 6. But I didn't really want to wake up at 6. Now I don't,

you know, but, um, now I don't have to wake up at 6. But it's,

you know, when they were little, you kind of do what you got to do.

And that's what it's like to be a mom. Sometimes you have a

kid who you have to wake up for school. And that was my other kid.

I had to wake him up. And so what we're trying to figure out is

the timing. And you're going to do that by building out your list of

things that need to get done, and then what time you need to wake up.

Now, if your kids wake up on their own, this then is going to be,

when do you need to start getting into that morning routine?

When do you need to like get it into gear? Okay. So what is that

morning routine, right? We have wake up and then get out of bed.

Some kids, like I said, pop right up. They get out of bed, no problem.

Other kids like to lay in bed for a long time, or it takes them

a while to wake up, or they need some support. They need eyeball time. They

need you to come and connect with them while they're waking up. So be

thinking about that. So we have our kid, they wake up, they get

out of bed. And then if you have, if it's true for you,

make the bed. Okay. So they get up, they get out of bed, they make

the bed, they get dressed. And that might mean Taking off their

pajamas. If they have a pull-up, putting that pull-up in the trash,

and then getting on their school clothes. I encourage

families to have that happen pretty much right when they

get up. What I've noticed is if they stay and play in their

pajamas, you're creating another transition to get

them back to their bedroom to get dressed. And it can be really hard

once a kid starts playing for them to stop and get back into

the— routine of like getting dressed. So we get

up and this is the basics, right? We get up,

we make the bed, we get dressed. That means taking off

pajamas, taking off if there's diapers in the mix here, then

brush teeth. I always taught my kids to brush their teeth before we made

breakfast. Again, I wanted to get all those morning things kind of done all at

one time. We have a 2-story home. So while they were upstairs, they were

getting dressed, they were brushing their teeth, they were kind of tidying up. Whatever they

needed to do in their bedroom. Then I had to make breakfast,

right? And then the kids had to eat breakfast. I had to make lunch,

pack that lunch, get that all organized. Then the

kids had to put their socks on. They have to put their shoes on. They

have to gather any sort of school supplies. So gathering homework,

stuffing things into the backpack. Any, if you have your kids do

chores in the morning, Make sure that's on the list. Then getting that

lunch in the backpack. So I would put my kids'

lunchboxes on the counter and their job, by the

time they were in kindergarten, was to take that lunchbox and put it in their

backpack. That was part of their 5 things that they were

responsible for. Also, if you're going

straight after school to an activity or

someplace else, if they have aftercare and they need to have A change of

clothes or whatever they need, I want you to also put that on the list

that you have to gather after school stuff. Then

everything needs to get into the car. Everyone needs to get buckled,

and then you need to drive to school. You need to either park the car

or do the carpool line or the drop-off line, and then

walk your kid to the classroom or make sure they get transferred to the gate,

right? So if you think about a morning, there's actually kind of a

lot of different things that are part of the morning. Right.

You have your tasks of making breakfast and making lunch. Maybe make lunch in

the night before. If you do, that's great. But we still have

filling water bottles or whatever. I personally never could make

lunch the night before. I was actually too tired after bedtime or

even gearing up for bedtime. It was too exhausting for me.

So I always had more energy in the morning. So I just kind of used

the energy that I had and I would make the lunches. Also, one of

my kids really enjoyed hot food, so I had to heat it up anyway and

put it into a thermos. And so I might as well do it in the

morning. So, well, I would get the kids up and out of the

bed and dressed, and then I would go do my work

of making those breakfasts and making those lunches and

getting the lunchbox on the counter while they were probably playing

or whatever. My older one, he literally just Did those

morning things and came straight to the table. He wasn't even a

breakfast eater. And so a lot of times he would just go

straight, all those, get dressed, get out of his pajamas,

brush his teeth, make his bed. Kinda, I wasn't always honestly good

at having them do that. And then he would go kind of straight into

socks and shoes and into the car, um, because he just was such a

sleepyhead. Okay. So if you

Or thinking about this list, I really want you to be as specific as

possible. And if it's only a few things, that's fine. If you have a

lot of extra stuff you want to add, you want to be really detailed, that's

good too. Just really, at this point, I

want you to have everything that needs to happen in the morning on

one piece of paper or in one note, because we're going to

take that list and we're going to add the amount of

time each of those tasks take. Now I know this might seem

like dumb, or, you know, like, what's the— why do I have to do

this? I know how to get ready. But maybe you don't. Maybe the

mornings are stressful. Maybe your kids are not accustomed

to a rhythm or a routine, and you're constantly reminding and begging

and barking and yelling and nagging. And this

type of work that we're doing is how we set ourselves

up for success. And making sure we're allowing the

right amount of time for the things that we need to get done.

So we start with that list and we put everything that we need to

do, including driving, right? Everything that needs to happen.

And then, um, oh, I was gonna say, if you go straight to work

after drop-off, then I want you to make a separate list for your

morning. Like, you might need to really get up, blow dry your hair,

like take a shower, get, you know, Uh, get your

portable or your coffee, like, mug going, your carpool mug.

What is it called? Your commuter mug ready. Maybe you need to make your lunch,

whatever kinds of things. Maybe you have to get your kind of briefcase or your

items ready, you know, if you're going to work at a, a school or something

like that, right? You have stuff to get together too. Write your own list.

So the point of this step, like I said, is just to get everything out

of your head and onto paper. Because you can't

build a workable routine around a list that you haven't actually written

down. So I want you to build this routine by first

figuring out what needs to be in there. So this might be a good

time to mention that podcast episode I did last year called The 5 Things:

Easy Routines for Kids. And it's episode 192,

and it came out in September of 2025,

September 25th. So what The 5 Things is, it's sort of

my way of teaching routines. To my kids or to

kids. And what we do is we figure out what my kids are

responsible for, the 5 things. And I talk

about the 5 things over and over and over, over the course of

several weeks. And they learn what those 5

things are. The 5 things were get dressed, brush your teeth,

eat breakfast, get your lunchbox and backpack, and put

your socks and shoes on. So about 5 minutes before it was time

to leave, I would say, hey, have you done your 5 things? Now, of course,

they'd already had been gotten dressed and brushed their teeth because they did those right

away. I taught them to do those right away. And then I

would say, you know, have you done your 5 things? And so they would have

to ask themselves, do I have my lunchbox? Do I have my water bottle? Do

I have my socks and shoes on? And they would be thinking

about what was needed. That's what you

want is for your kids to start to build in this

internal guide about what's expected, the

list of things, right? The 5 things. And so you teach them

how to be responsible for those 5 things.

And then you look them in the eye and say, have you done your 5

things? Now, if you look around and you know that you can see that lunchbox

on the counter and it's not in the backpack and your kids are

kind of putting their socks and shoes on, I would rather you not say, go

get your lunchbox. I'd rather you look and say, oh, have you done your 5

things? Have you done this? Have you done this? Have you done this? What

else is missing? And then find out if they have, you know,

brought their lunchbox or whatever it is. Oh, my lunchbox. If you

have a kid who goes, oh, my lunchbox, and they're doing their own thinking, you

are winning. You are winning. That's an important part

of the process. Okay, so now you have your list. You know, you're teaching your

kids their 5 things. I want you to— the step 2 is to figure out

how long each task actually takes. So you're going to look at the

list and you're going to write down how many minutes that task

takes. So I want you to be honest with yourself. Choose the amount of

time based on what is reasonable to expect you and your

kids to achieve. Not how long you wish it

took, but how long it actually takes. Realistically

takes to do that task based on

what's reasonable for you and your kids, based on your kids' skillset. If you

have a kid with ADHD, you're going to probably need to allow extra

time. So this might be a work in progress. You might not know exactly

how long get dressed takes for your 5-year-old until

you do it a few days and then you track it a

little bit. So it's okay if you just make guesses right now. Your list

and the time is going to evolve as your family Builds this rhythm.

So what's interesting, I think, about this exercise is that a lot of

parents underestimate how long something is going to take

and they overestimate how capable their kids are.

That's where we all get into trouble is when we are thinking

something will go faster or isn't going to take

that long. And I want you to be able to

anticipate like kind of the longest something would take. Now, I don't

want you to allow too much time because then kids start to get squirrely and

start playing and stuff like that. But I'd love for you to have a, build

a whole routine with your family that is

realistic and say, you know, they have to do all these tasks

15 and 7:45, right? Get

dressed, brush their teeth, eat breakfast, get their socks

and shoes on, and put their lunchbox in the backpack.

If all of that takes about 30 minutes or 35 minutes, and you don't have

to leave until 8:10 and you're done at 7:45, great.

Then they can play. I want your kids to be able to

have the freedom to play in the morning and to regulate their nervous systems

and have a joyful morning, but we also want them to

be responsible for the time. So being able to know about how

much time things take and then building your routine based on

that. So if you think getting dressed takes 5 minutes and then it

actually takes more like 15, once you account for that

negotiation over which shirt and all of that stuff, then you're gonna

want to allow for that much time. Now, let me go back about

ADHD kids. I think that when you

have a kid who has executive functioning, time blindness is a

big thing for kids in general, but particularly kids with ADHD.

We have to sort of create smaller windows of

time for them to get it done so that there's more urgency. What's

cool about someone with ADHD is they can do a lot in a short amount

of time once that hyperfocus kicks in, but it can be hard to

get them into that hyperfocus. So you're going to

say like, you can leave this room once you get dressed and I hope

you beat the timer. Like you can gamify it. Or remember, you're welcome to play

Lego or play with your dolls or color downstairs or whatever it

is. once you get dressed, as long as you'd finish before the timer goes off.

So you kind of want to create some motivation in the mornings to get

them to do the thing faster, but allow for that negotiation,

allow for that time that you're going to talk to them and work it out.

I want your mornings to be paced realistically.

Okay. Now step 3, right, is build the timeline. So

you have your list, you have your amount of time it

takes, and now we're gonna build a timeline by working backward.

So you start with the time that your kids need to be at the classroom

door, like when the bell rings and when they

need to be on campus. And then you're gonna figure out what time you need

to leave the house to arrive on time, factoring in

drive time, parking, or going through the carpool line. I want you to

be thinking about those different

Maybe there's traffic or maybe there's concerns

like getting out of your driveway or whatever. I want you to really be practical

of like, if I wanna get my kids to school at

8:20, then we should be in the car by

8 o'clock, whatever that is. So work backward

through your to-do list and your timekeeper log, task by task,

until you land on the time that everyone actually needs to get

up. The key here is building in enough time for each task

without stress or rushing. All right, let me give you an example of how this

works, because I think it'll be helpful for you to hear kind of an example

in real time. Okay. Say the school bell rings at 8:30 and you need to

arrive by 8:20 to allow time to park and walk, and it takes

20 minutes to drive to school. So you need to leave the house at 8.

And then working backward from there, you figure out, okay, you said socks and

shoes take 5 minutes. So then that means that we need to be putting

socks and shoes on at 7:55. Packing up,

like getting tidying up before, you know, you leave, clearing the plates,

putting backpacks and lunchboxes, getting all that organized. Maybe you said that takes

5 minutes. So then that means you need to start wrapping up at

7:45 and getting everybody kind of towards the

door. Now remember, that's for an 8 o'clock leave time.

So you're looking at, like, in our

minds, we pretty much think that those, like, getting out the

door takes about 4 minutes, like getting socks and shoes and grabbing your backpack.

We don't allow enough time. But if you see, once you start to build it

in, you're like, oh, that takes 5 minutes. Oh, that takes 5 minutes. Oh, that

takes 5 minutes. Okay, so I need to say we're leaving soon at

7:45 to leave by 8. That means

breakfast needs to be done by 7:45. So you're like, okay,

breakfast takes about 10 minutes. I need to have breakfast from

7:35 to 7:45. Or maybe breakfast

takes 15, so you're like, okay, breakfast is gonna be on the table from

7:30 to 7:45. That's my goal time.

So when you are building your schedule, you're like, I gotta get breakfast on the

table by 7:30 in order for everybody to get out the door by 8.

I really want you to be able to see how important it is to know

about how much time things take, cuz we definitely underestimate, like I said, we

underestimate how long something is gonna take. So that means that the

kids have to be getting their teeth brushed at 7:35. They gotta,

you said 5 minutes for getting dressed. They need to be getting dressed at

7:25. They need to be getting their bed made

20. That means they need to be getting up at

7:15 or 7:10. So we're looking at

that timeline and we're realizing, oh, okay, I'm

gonna build in a little bit of extra time for connection. I've gotta, you

know, allow for a little bit of time that I need to get from

getting them out of bed and kind of like monitoring

that getting dressed period of time, especially if they're under 7. You really are going

to be part of that transition out of pajamas and into

clothes and into the bathroom to get their teeth brushed. About

by 8, or if you've been doing a rhythm, by 8

years old they can handle it on their own. If you are starting this with

an 8-year-old, you're gonna need to be present for that

time. So you are helping them get dressed and all of that, but

there's no breakfast or lunch done. So thinking about where you

are and where you need to be. So maybe they need to be

getting up at 7:10 and you wanna maybe already have had breakfast done. So that

means you, if breakfast and lunches take about 20 minutes and you wanna get

your kids up at 7:10, You might wanna be down at the kitchen

50 to allow that 20 minutes to get all

that prep work done before you go get your

kids out of bed. So this

process of working through the routine and

figuring out the tactical aspects of when, what

happens and when it happens and all of that is going to be

important. But notice that the whole timeline is built backward

from the time that your kids have to be at school.

And then every single step has an actual time attached to it,

not a vague, like, sometime in the morning. So that

specificity— is that how you say it?— is what makes mornings

predictable instead of chaotic. So if you

feel like your morning is really out of bounds and out of control,

spend time thinking about What do I wanna get done?

How long is it gonna take? When is it gonna happen? And then

work yourself back from the time you wanna be leaving for school.

I'm gonna say it again, it sounds so silly, but I have done this with

like hundreds of parents at this point, and every single time

we walk through one of these timelines or these roadmaps, the parent is like,

oh my God, okay, so they have to get up at 6:45. I'm like,

okay, great. A clarity comes, a realization of

what is necessary comes, and you're like, oh, now I

understand. I haven't been allowing enough time. That's why I'm so stressed. Or

I've been allowing too much time, or I haven't been getting started early enough.

I've been letting it go because I don't wanna deal with it. I notice that

happens at bedtime too. If you are like dreading the

routine, you kind of don't get it started, and then you

get backed up into like, now it's so late and the kids are overtired. Yeah.

Same thing happens in the morning. If you have kids that wake up on their

own, you want to like have an easy morning. They're in pajamas, they're rolling

around, and you want to like drink your coffee and kind of like breathe and

be a human. I get it. But at the same time, if you don't kind

of snap into gear early enough, you will feel

rushed at the end. So that's that morning

routine roadmap. I think it's a really useful tool. I'd love for

you to get a copy of it at my website, calmmamaresearch.com.

Um, commamacoaching.com. You can go to the resources page or just

go to easy-morning and you'll see

this morning routine roadmap and you can just get a copy of it. So I

want to give you a couple tips that will also help you with your morning

to make it work. These are 5 things that make the

difference between this system working and it just

becoming another source of stress. So the first one is lower your standards.

Only 3 things matter in the morning. Your kids are wearing clothes,

they're relatively clean, and they've eaten something in the last 12 hours.

That's it. If they skip breakfast, fine, bring a bar for the car.

If they're mismatched clothes, it's fine. If their hair is messy,

who cares? Peace is always more important than

perfection. If you build in a good rhythm and you have time to

do a really beautiful braid or a really great high pony or whatever

it is, or like You know, spend time building some kind of like cool Lego

thing, or some people like to do enrichment type of activities in the

morning. I think that's wonderful if you're able to build

that in and have it be stress-free. But if it's

stressful, then it's not worth it. Number 2 is to

keep things simple. Overcomplicated routines make everything

harder on you. Repeat the same breakfast, repeat the same

lunches, limit clothing choices. Have one pair of school shoes,

keep socks and school shoes staged by the door, fill water

bottles the night before, or don't even send them water if they are not going

to be responsible and you keep losing water bottles. It's fine. They can drink from

the fountain at recess. So you get to make your life

work for you and make it simple. You don't have to make it

so expansive. I remember having this mom friend.

Her name was Becky. And she had 4 kids. And I was like, oh my

God, how do you make lunches for 4 kids every day? Like, that's

so stressful. And she's like, oh, everyone gets the same

thing and I just make sandwiches every day. And I was like, wait, what? She's

like, yeah, I just make the same lunch every single day and that's how I

do it. And I realized I was like overcomplicating things, trying to make

sure that my kids had all the things that they preferred, all their preferred

foods, and I was catering. to their wishes instead of just

considering what would give them a balanced meal.

And once I started to simplify breakfast, simplify lunch,

and not give— also not give them choice. What do you want for breakfast? What

do you want in your lunchbox? I know that you think that's probably helpful

because you don't have to do the decision-making and the thinking, but it does

create so much chaos. Well, I want yogurt. Well, I want waffles. Well, I

want oatmeal. It's like, no, you're not a short-order cook.

Don't do that to yourself. Keep things really simple. Keep it to the basics.

I also, this is a controversial one, but drop the pressure to be on time.

You are a good person, even if your kids are occasionally late.

The school timeline is not your timeline. It's not worth

sacrificing your peace and your connection with your kid. When

something goes wrong, the alarm doesn't go off, or someone melts down.

Be like, oh well, we'll get there when we get there. Stress doesn't actually

make mornings move faster. It usually creates more

meltdowns and forgetfulness, which costs you even more time.

So if you can drop that pressure and be okay with maybe being

late every once in a while, you will probably find that

you're on time, that because, or you're at more peace,

right? So we want to be able to not feel that

pressure. Now for me, When my kids were little,

the school bell rang at 8:45, but I wanted to go

to an exercise class at 8:30, and they had early

recess, like before the bell recess, which was really useful

for my kids because they could go to the

recess and like run around and see their friends and all of that. So my

goal was always to get to school at 8:15 so I could drop them off

and then I could go to my exercise class. Those are the days that I

took the kids. The other days my husband took the kids, which was handy. But

there were, because I had this huge window of time built

in for like being late, that I wasn't

really ever that stressed. I mean, I might be late to my exercise class, which

was annoying to me, but I still had a lot of extra time built

in. I know it's hard, but I'd love to invite you if your school has

early recess or earlier drop-off and your kids can like Kind of play and

run around a little bit. It's really good for their nervous system to be outside

and get fresh air and move their body before they go sit in a classroom.

So aiming for that earlier time can be really helpful for you,

especially if you follow this timeline and you push that timeline up,

keep things really simple, do the basics. Then if you're

rushing or running late, you won't feel that worried about it. The

other thing I wanna talk about is looking for patterns. So if you see that

the same part of the morning keeps causing conflict, that

is information for you. It usually means that you need a clearer

or stronger limit around that particular

stress point. If it's getting dressed or if it's eating breakfast, or if it's

getting socks and shoes, you want to listen to some of the

limit-setting podcasts that I've taught about, you know, you are

welcome to have breakfast as long as you're dressed. And sitting at the

table by 7:30. Breakfast will be served for 15 minutes.

Then if they don't eat breakfast, oh, looks like you missed breakfast today. No problem.

I packed a hearty snack for you. You'll be all— you'll be okay once snack

time comes. Or you can do a rescue snack and have something in the car.

But having those boundaries is really important because otherwise

you're going to feel like you're chasing kids around with like scoops of yogurt

as they're playing. That's chaotic. The last thing I wanna say

about this is being kind to yourself. So new routines, they take

time to stick and be gentle with yourself the

first few weeks of school, the first few weeks of establishing a routine,

remembering that you're building a peaceful morning routine, committing

to it and keep going even if it's messy. Don't blame your

kids if your routine isn't working. That is

only because they don't know yet that This is the way it works in your

family. Take that leadership, keep working on the

routine, keep being consistent with the

behavior that you want. If you want your kids to leave the room

once they're dressed, say, you can leave this room once you're dressed. I really hope

you have a good breakfast. Okay. You can leave this bathroom once you've brushed your

teeth. You can sit at the table once you're dressed. Oh, are you dressed? You're

not dressed. Go back and put your pants on. Right? So holding those

boundaries is going to help your routine long-term. But

putting in the work and teaching your kids the routine without getting angry is going

to be really helpful. They'll feel more bought in. Now

it is possible to have this peaceful morning. It really

is. You just keep working at your routine. So this

roadmap that I've walked you through, it works hand in hand with that

gentle handoff concept that I've talked about over the last few weeks

about trying to deliver the most emotionally regulated human you

can at that school gate. The roadmap gets the

logistics handled, but remember the actual goal isn't to have

a perfectly executed timeline. It's delivering

that calm, regulated version of your kid to the classroom.

So the roadmap removes a lot of the chaos that makes staying

calm so hard in the first place. And don't forget that we always wanna

have those eyeball times in the morning where you give a few

minutes or even just like 1 minute where you make eye contact with your

child. Mm-hmm. And you connect with them and, you know, I love you. Good

morning. I'm really glad that you're here. I hope you have a great day,

right? Having that time before they leave to school, looking

at them, I'll miss you. I love you. I hope you have a great day,

right? Before you separate for the day that you've made a moment of eyeball

connection with them. That's not gonna be a task on your to-do list, but if

you need to put it on there, you can, but it will probably be one

of the most important parts of the whole morning. is that connection.

So here's the recap. You're gonna build your to-do list. You're gonna

time each task honestly, and then you're gonna build a

realistic timeline working backward from the moment your kid needs to be at

the classroom door. And layer in those 5 tips:

lower your standards, keep it simple, drop the pressure to be on

time, watch for patterns, and be kind to yourself

while it all comes together. And remember that all these

logistics, they're in the service of creating a calm family, right?

You're not a drill sergeant. You're not trying to get your kids trained for the

military. We just wanna have a rhythm and a routine that's

predictable and reliable and calm so that your kids know

what is expected. They get their stuff done, they get it done in the

timeline that you want them to do, and you get in the car and you

are off to school or to the bus or whatever your situation is, or the

carpool or whatever it is. So we're working towards that

gentle handoff, that calm, connected handoff. So you

have an on-time arrival, but you also have a kid who's regulated. Now

remember, there is a worksheet for this. It's in my website,

calmmamacoaching.com under the resources page, or you can go

directly to calmmamacoaching.com/easy-morning.

And we'll also link that in the show notes. So I'd love for this week

for you to just start with writing that list of the things that need to

get done in the morning and putting the

timestamps to each one and then noticing during the week,

is your time realistic? And also starting to realize like,

what rhythm do you like? What's the order of events that you want

your kids to do these things in? So this week, as school starts,

I want you to just be a witness and look for those

patterns, noticing, oh, I said that I wanted them

to do these things, but actually I don't care if they get that done. And

you drop that one thing and you have them do it after school. Or you

realize that breakfast is so chaotic that you

actually really do need to prep lunches the night before.

And you're going to just figure that out, how to make the energy work for

that and simplify your meals so that they are cold. They can stay in the

refrigerator and be cold. So you get to decide what works for you

and build that routine, but take it slowly. Don't rush.

And next week I'll be back with more. Like limit setting

and boundaries around sleep and screens and homework and all of

those things that are so important, especially at the beginning of the year. So

thanks for listening, and I will talk to you next week.