The first hour of the day can become a stressful time, especially for parents with young children who are racing against time to get to school on time. “It is very important that we plan in advance so that we do not have to rush the children and confuse them, because the only thing we will achieve is to start the morning with a lot of additional stress,” warns Silvia Alava, psychologist and child and adolescent psychologist, who proposes three guidelines to improve the way we start our day with children.
Stand with your right foot
For the expert, the most important thing is for children to get enough sleep: “If you wake them up when they are particularly nervous, irritable or having a hard time, it could be that they are not getting enough sleep. In Spain, we tend to sleep little, both adults and children.” After sleeping hours, Alava is committed to waking them up with love and leaving time for them to wake up. “We open the curtains so natural light comes in or turn on the lights if it’s still dark, and let them know that it’s time, always carefully, for them to feel loved,” he points out.
Fight the rush with anticipation
“Sometimes there are parents who prefer to wake their children up at a shorter time so that they sleep more and then fall asleep faster, but this is a mistake. Because as an adult you can at a certain moment pick up speed and move faster, but the young child’s brain is not yet ready to be able to do this and needs to wake up at the right time,” advises the psychologist who recommends going to bed early so that sleep is sufficient.
The main guideline for Álava is to calculate times well. “You have to take into account the time it takes your son or daughter to get ready in the morning. To wake up, go to the bathroom, eat breakfast, get dressed, comb their hair, brush their teeth, pick up their backpack… you have to think about what it will take them, not how much time it will take you as an adult,” he points out. “Before the age of four, the executive control network is not yet mature, that is, they are not clear about what they should do and you have to direct their behavior because they see a new stimulus and they get distracted and forget what they were doing,” explains the psychiatrist.
Another key to reducing stress and rush is to leave everything as prepared as possible the night before. “It depends a lot on age, but we will have to see what agenda we will do the next day, if we can leave clothes, uniform or tracksuit ready, if they are older and we have to bring a craft or a famous flute,” the expert recommends taking all this into account and not only trying to anticipate, but also instilling this organization.
Bet on autonomy
“If we involve them from a young age and tell them what we are going to prepare, we can do it later by involving them, asking them to put books in the backpack even if they are young, and when they grow up, they get used to it and they will cooperate more and more, and there will come a time when they will do it on their own and we will only have to supervise,” Alava says.
But if we stand for letting them have the space and independence to get dressed or eat breakfast, we must also have that extra time. “If I leave you enough space to eat breakfast alone and your milk spills, because you are learning and this is normal, then we should have time to collect quietly, because if time is very tight, the moment this happens, which is an evolutionarily normal thing, it is a drama and the screaming starts,” explains the psychologist. “The main enemy of the morning is haste, because without time, we do not have the opportunity to manage the unexpected from the calm.”
About The Author
