By Diana DeLonzor
Getting your punctually challenged family out the door without screaming, nagging, or pulling your hair out
It's 8:05 a.m. Your 6-year-old is due in school at 8:30, but he still hasn't eaten his breakfast because he's busy looking for a missing shoe. You have two other children to dress and feed, and your refrain of "Come on, let's go!" is beginning to sound like an overly sensitive car alarm blaring alerts every few minutes—heard but largely ignored.
Sound familiar? Nearly all parents have days like these. Even if you're usually a model of efficiency and organization, mornings can make you crazy and stressed to the breaking point. Carole Daniels,* a 35-year-old mother of three from San Ramon, California, says the morning routine keeps her family frazzled. "We relive the same scenario over and over again," says Daniels. "The boys dawdle and whine, I yell and threaten hard labor, and each day we're late to work and school."
Rick Taylor, a father of two from Stamford, Connecticut, recently faced a similarly tough situation. Too embarrassed to display his oldest daughter's straight-A report card on the refrigerator because of the glaring Excessive Tardiness mark it contained, he hid it in a drawer when his parents came to visit. "I was mortified," explains Taylor. "Everyone knows I'm the late person in the family, and having my tardiness affect my child's grades is unforgivable and just plain embarrassing."
How can you get your dawdling kids (and yourself) up and out the door on time without tearing your hair out or screaming yourself hoarse? Introduce time management techniques into your family's daily routine.
Children as young as 5 can understand and practice simple time management skills, and teaching time discipline in small daily tasks, such as making it to school and soccer practice on time, has an added benefit: It lays the foundation for scheduling and managing larger goals, such as test preparation and homework assignments. An extra bonus is that the more your children learn to manage their own time, the less often the job will fall squarely on your own shoulders.
When it comes to time management, perhaps the greatest mistake many families make is not having a well-thought-out plan of attack. When the time-honored tradition of nagging, pleading, and threatening no longer works, many families try…more nagging, pleading, and threatening. As the old adage goes, "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." So if your current methods aren't working, it's time to try something new. Following are a few techniques to start you on your way.
1. Have a family strategy. Start by calling a powwow with the kids. Calmly explain why being on time is important, and help them understand how punctuality will benefit everyone. Ask for their ideas on what may be causing delays and on how you can solve the problem together. Then work as a team to create written goals, taking care to be specific. It's not enough to write, "Everyone should be ready for school on time." Goals should be stated measurably and precisely; for example, "Everyone should be ready and standing by the front door at 8:00 each morning."
2. Make it fun by providing praise, rewards, and penalties. Create a goal chart and give each child a star for every occasion he or she has met the goal of being on time. Lynne Grant, a mother of four from Chicago, awards her children with a special gift or outing when they've received four or more stars in a week. Jim Dedreich of Phoenix adds a penalty phase to his strategy by docking his children's allowances and computer time when they earn less than two stars in a week. Don't hesitate to institute different rewards and penalties for each child, as what motivates or deters one may not have an effect on another.
3. Relearn to tell time. Studies suggest that the average adult underestimates by 25 to 30 percent the time it takes to accomplish various tasks, and children often emulate their parents' inaccurate estimates. This is what I call "magical thinking." To overcome magical thinking, give older children a small notepad and ask them to write down how long they think it takes them to get dressed and ready in the morning. For the next week, have them keep track of their actual times. At the end of the week, create individual morning schedules based on your family's new time estimates.
In reinventing your family's schedule, it is important to recognize each child's particular temperament. Some children are naturally more easily distracted, floating from one activity to another without making any forward progress, while others tend to stay focused on the task at hand. For easily distractible children, try incorporating the use of a kitchen timer to keep them focused. For example, if your child takes a half hour to get dressed, set the timer for 20 minutes so that when it goes off he'll have an audible reminder that he has 10 minutes before it's time to move on to breakfast.
You can also incorporate music into your children's routines to keep them on track. Put on a CD when the kids wake up and ask them to be finished brushing their teeth by the time the first song is over, finished dressing by the end of the third song, etc. Another version of this technique can help introduce younger children to time management as well. While helping your toddler get dressed, have him join you in a favorite song. Make it a game to be dressed by the time the song is finished.
4. Have a "preparation rule." Each night, ask the kids to lay out their clothes, put notebooks and backpacks by the front door, and choose their breakfast cereal. Identify items that are frequently lost, such as keys, homework, shoes, and glasses, and specify a designated place where those items are always stored.
5. Institute "Lombardi Time," renaming it after your own family. Vince Lombardi, the former coach of the Green Bay Packers, always insisted that his team and staff arrive 15 minutes early. Adopt this policy for your own family, naming it, for example, "Smith Time" to integrate it into the family culture. Remember this time-tested rule: If you plan to be 15 minutes early, you'll usually make it just on time. Plan to be on time and you'll most likely be late.
On those happy occasions when you arrive early, give everyone praise and, when appropriate, a treat. Always stock the car with interesting things to do or read while you wait, and above all, don't think of getting there early as wasted time. When you have to wait, think of those moments as "luxury time," time to just relax, talk, or think.
6. Teach older children to work with daily planners. Encourage your children not only to plan their days but also to log important due dates for assignments and projects, along with associated steps and milestones prior to those dates. (The Franklin Covey company has excellent planners for children as young as 5.)
For children under 5, it's unrealistic to expect complete cooperation with your new time management strategies. You can, however, get them involved in the concept of time management by talking to them while you go through the process of getting them ready. Carole Daniels uses statements such as, "It's 7 o'clock, time to brush your teeth; 7:15, time to put on your clothes." Getting children accustomed to the idea of time and schedules helps make the transition smoother as they grow up.
7. Set a good example. If you're frantically running around the house at the last minute, chances are your children will be too. So purchase your own daily planner and practice the techniques outlined here in your own life as well.
For more information on time management tips for individuals and families, please visit www.neverbelateagain.com.
* All names have been changed.
Diana DeLonzor is a nationally
recognized time management expert who headed a study in association with San
Francisco State University investigating chronic lateness, its causes, and the
psychological characteristics of late people versus timely people. Her clients
include Fortune 500 companies and government agencies such as Tyco and the
State of California. She has been featured in numerous national media, such as
the Chicago Tribune, Good Housekeeping, and Esquire,
among others. DeLonzor's website is www.neverbelateagain.com.
Article originally appeared in National PTA's Our Children magazine, Vol. 31, no. 1, August/September 2005