Who Wakes Your Kid(s) Up in the Morning?

Does that sound like a silly question to you? It sounded like a silly question to me, until I began to meet other parents who were waking their kids up every morning for school. Why are parents giving 12-year-olds cell phones, but continuing to wake them up for school? What is that?! By the time the average child in the U.S. finishes the second grade (approximately 7 years old), they can discern the hour on a clock; they know the difference between night and day at an even earlier age.

Perhaps one way to start teaching our children to be responsible, is to stop doing things for them that they are capable of doing for themselves. Although nurturing and loving our children is paramount, we parents need to constantly be in the frame of mind that we must "wean them off of us." This mindset is particularly useful with children who are highly active; loads of energy. My son, Kyle, was the "little demon energizer bunny" of the Lucas home when he was a toddler - so my perspective is based on experience.

Back to "the waking up thing" .... When should a parent stop waking their kids up? Let's say as early as you can train them to do it themselves! My son would wake up at 5:30 - 6:00 am every morning as a baby and toddler. There was a clock on his wall. My mother gave me a toy clock that was a tool to teach children how to tell time and it was shaped like an owl - cute. So, since I wanted to get up at 7am, I decided to teach Kyle the rudimentary skill of determining "SAME" and "DIFFERENT" at 3 years old (you can do this playing "the memory game" and the like). Once he mastered these concepts, I set the owl to read 7 o'clock and taught him to stay quietly in his room until the clock on his wall was the SAME as the owl. This didn't even take a week! By the time Kyle was in the first grade, he had an alarm clock that we taught him to use. We haven't had to wake up Kyle since he was 3 years-old. It has been his responsibility since then. If you have a teenager that you can't get out of bed in the morning, ask yourself, "What do I need to do differently," and then make a change.

Getting your kids to be responsible for waking themselves up and getting ready for the day can be the precursor to having more peace in the house at bedtime ... because that's the next thing that will become their responsibility!

-Ruth, Keeping It Real