How do you get your 11yr old going in the morning?

Question

My son has an alarm clock; will get up, eat, then lay back down until I get ready to walk out the door and I see he is not downstairs. I go back up and he is not dressed. I have to yell and scream for him to get dressed, get his shoes on and let's go. I am really losing it on him. He makes me late and he's late and I scream at him all the way to school. Not a good way to start our day. If you have experienced this please give advice on how to handle.

Answer 1

I have a 12 year old daughter that did the same thing and then when I'd scream at her to get ready, she'd take forever to chose what to wear!

Here's what you should do, in the mornings, when he comes downstairs for breakfast, tell him that he has 5 minutes to get dressed and ready, then he can come downstairs and relax in the living room until it is time to go. Go upstairs in 5 minutes and if he's lying around tell him to get out of bed and get dressed and give him another 5 minutes. This time, leave out clothes FOR him so he knows you mean buisness. Come up 5 mintues later and if he is STILL not ready, then start yelling. Tell him that you will stand there until he gets ready. And really stand there. Don't move until he's done getting dressed(although you should clothes your eyes when he changes underwear!). This is what I did with my daughter and it worked.

Pretty soon you'll find yourself only having to come up there once to remind him and then pretty soon after that, he'll be dressed and ready to go without you having to tell him!

Good luck!

Answer 2

Well my kids are 7 and 9 and here is what I do. First of all I wake them up a half hour early so they have time to wake up, watch cartoons, or whatever they choose to in  that half hour. Then it is time to get ready. If I have to tell them more than twice after that I give them a tally mark on a note card. And after school (or whenever you get home if you work) they owe me a set amount of time for each tally mark. It is served immediately and before snack etc. I give my kids 1 hour of free time after school before they have to start homework and if they have enough tally marks to use up that hour so be it. Now all I have to do is put an initial on the note card and they get moving.

Answer 3

try reward system if your son gets up and ready for a week then on Saturday he will be rewarded.(have him pick the reward with in reason )

Answer 4

I wake my son up and I allow him 10 minutes to roll around and be sleepy. He knows I'm coming back and he hates to get forced out of bed. When I did have to walk in, I made him immediately get up sometimes with my gentle nudge, brush his teeth and get dressed. He knows that he has 25 minutes to do this. If not, here comes Mom again. He now gets ready and still has time to hang out.. And finally eats breakfast every morning. He admits now that he's much happier than the good old days when I came in screaming and yelling like a banchee for him to get up with only 4 minutes to get ready and out the door.

Answer 5

in the moring wake him up gently, then let him take a quick wake-up bath, then eat breakfast, hopefully something he likes, try laying out his clothes the night before. you might want to make his bed time 30 min. earlier too...

Answer 6

set his body clock to morning by waking him up get him to eat then make sure he don't get back up stairs to his bed and lock his rooms door if you can. if he do this everyday he would get used to it and become a morning person. i was not a morning person but my work schedules is from 7:50 so i get my wife to wake me up she did this about a month or 2 but it really depends on the person and now im a morning person ready to work and not having no one waking me up after my body clock changed but sometimes your body clock just sets it self my son is very energetic in the morning till around 7:00 pm

Answer 7

Well.... I would make an early bedtime and everyday that he's running late make it earlier the night before. He will get the idea and STOP messing around! My daughter has to go to bed at 8:30pm.. and this week it is 8:00 cuz she was whinning about being tired last week! Soooo Even though she get's TONS of sleep... {she doesn't get up till 7am} She still needs it I guess.

I say make him get realy BEFORE he eats or he can't eat! then you'll only be waiting on him to finish eating to go!

GOOD LUCK

Answer 8

I too have a child who is a late bloomer in the mornings! She is 12 and has done the exact same thing. I finally broke her of it by this method; every night before going to bed we would lay her clothes out, we would make sure everything she needed for school the next day was put away in her backpack and even decide what she would have for breakfast the next morning and do any preparations necessary for that. Like making the batter for pancakes and storing it in the refrigerator, or laying out her favorite cereal with a bowl and a spoon. Actually truth be told it saved me an enormous amount of time as well each morning. I would set her alarm clock a half an hour early, which meant she could push the snooze button twice, gave her a little more time to really wake up. If she got up on time for a whole week she would get a reward, maybe a movie, or a friend over. If she did not wake up every morning and get ready on time, she would lose a privilege, like TV time, or a friend coming over etc. It really worked, children need a structured routine, even though they don't always think so! And earning a privilege gives them something to be proud of, losing one gives them something to work towards! Don't know if this will help you or not, but that's all I've got! Good luck!

Answer 9

He must come down to eat right? Well you have to stop him going back upstairs....thats just lazy of him..if he is ok to eat then he can get up...he is aware of what he is doing which is selfish.

Lock his bedroom door after he has eaten.