I’m participating in Christian Homeschoolers Taking a Stand‘s Homeschool Family Question of the Week bloghop for the first time. Each week, on Thursday, bloggers share their answer to a specific question. This is meant to inspire, help, and allow other homeschoolers to know that they are not alone. I think this is a good idea and I’ve been checking in on the questions myself for a few weeks now so I thought I’d like up myself.

This week’s question is:

“How do you get everyone up, moving and motivated in the morning? Our mornings are incredibly ROUGH!”

I have to admit that I am the one that is hardest to wake in the morning. My older children are up at the crack of dawn but I have a lot of trouble staying and falling asleep during night time hours and find I get my most restful sleep between 6 and 8am. However, sleeping in comes with it’s own issues so I’ve found it best to be up and with the other children within 20 minutes of them getting up. It avoids cereal being spilled on the floor, milk wasted, the house from looking like a hurricane has hit. Worth the hour or two less sleep in my opinion.

I do have to have some ground rules in place for the morning, though. The children need no help getting up but getting on with their day is a whole other story. If my children come downstairs in the pajamas, I am likely to find them lounging around at 10am with no interest in doing anything else. Getting them to make their beds and get dressed at that point is just horrible so the number one rule in this house is that when you wake up, you get dressed and make your bed before coming downstairs. This avoids the hassle of Mum trying to get them to do so later in the day and gives me a few minutes to wake up as they are getting set for the day, meaning that they won’t have time to pull too many things out before I get up.

After breakfast we do our chores together. The children feed the cats and then each day has a specific chore that we do together as a family. It’s nice to start the day with some teamwork and if I get indication that there is some grumpiness in the house then I’ll usually put on some music so that the children can sing and dance around a bit while getting the work done. This usually takes us to about 9am and then the kids seem to be more settled in the day, the house has gotten straightened up a bit and we are ready to begin our day.

I think it’s mostly a matter of routine and finding what works best for your family.