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Having a calm, organized and productive morning will set you up to have a calm, organized and productive day. By implementing a routine and using my tips it will help you and your kids to have a good start to the day.

First of all, make some time for yourself!
Wake up and meditate for 10-20 minutes, you can do this from bed, because I know how hard it can be to get out of bed early in the morning. You can use a guided meditation, like the smiling mind app, or if you’re not really a meditation person you can just spend some time to focus on your breathing and imagine your dream life or future goals. Make sure you don’t use your phone or spend any of this time worrying about things you need to do today. This needs to be some time for yourself. Spend the last few minutes, of the meditation setting your intentions for the day and thinking about what you want to achieve.

I know this precious sleep time, but giving yourself these minutes will be more relaxing and resting and help to give you patience and positive energy throughout the day. To start with, it may be easier to do 3-5 minutes, rather than 10-20.

Do some exercise for 15 minutes or stretch.
Take some time for yourself before the kids are up to get outside, get some fresh air and do some exercise. When we fill up our own cup, it’s so much easier to deal with the kids. Whereas, when the kids wake us up, we wake up grumpy and everything seems like hard work.

If your kids are too young for you to be out of bed before them, start with some snuggle time. The deep pressure they get from snuggling with you, makes their body feel good and will set their body up for the day. If they don’t like snuggles then read a story. Just spend some quality time so your child, so they feel loved and connected rather than rushing through the mornings and feeling stressed for the day ahead. Even though implementing this in your morning routine will mean you start your day later, it will run much smoother and be much more enjoyable for everyone.

Cut technology and put on some music
Music has a very powerful effect on our body and our mood. The beat of the music determines how your body is feeling. Slower beat music slows us down, fast music brings us up.  I like to start our mornings with around 100bpm, we usually listen to Ed Sheeran in our house because it’s a beautiful music to get us all going. You can see the kids bopping along to the music as they eat their breakfast. It puts you and them in a good mood and it syncs our body’s and natural heart rate to the beat.

Try not to use the TV in the morning because you’ll find it really hard to get the kids away from it. If you have to use the TV in the morning – use it after they’re ready for school. But even then, I strongly discourage the use because the TV will overstimulate their brains and they’ll find it difficult to be able to reset to start learning. Teachers have said they can tell the difference if the kids have been watching the TV and are overstimulated when they arrive.

Arrive to school early
As much as the teachers might not me saying this, try to walk, ride or get your kids to school by 8.30am. This will allow the kids to have some time to run around, play on the monkey bars and get their bodies ready for learning. One thing that’s tricky for teachers is when they have some students arriving at school and their engine is running really high and others who are still half asleep, and the teachers are trying to teach in the middle. If the kids are at school early, they are able to run around and the ones that are bouncing off the walls can huff and puff to bring them down and the half asleep students can run around and wake up. This helps everyone to meet in the middle and get ready for learning, especially if the kids are supposed to go straight into quiet reading in the morning. Certainly, things that are working their muscles are better. So if they walk or ride to school, let them carry their own backpacks because the extra weight in their backpack provides deep pressure into their muscles and joint and gets them ready for the day.

Food has to be fun
If you have a child who you struggle to feed breakfast in the morning, maybe back off on the pressure of that for a while because food has to be fun! If we take the pressure of it, they can relax and then they can enjoy it and we can then start to make some healthier habits.
If they are having breakfast try focus on high protein, lots of good fats and foods that will stick with them throughout the day and not give them big sugar spikes and then crash as they get to school. So avoid highly processed and sugary cereals.

I know in my house since we’ve created a happier morning and evening routine, it’s made us all a lot calmer and it’s easier to get out of bed and be a part of a peaceful routine in the morning.