To think that having been at school for nearly 7 years, my 11 year old DD should have mastered the art of leaving the house by 8.30

[sandyballs]

Im like an old broken record, every bloody morning. I bore the arse off myself asking her again and again to get herself moving, look at the clock etc etc ..... She's been at school 7 fecking years, it's nothing new that she needs to be ready to leave by 8.30 or she's late for school.

She starts secondary in sept and will need to be on the 7.30 bus. How is that ever going to happen?

How can her sister get up half hour later and still be at school before her?

Didn't help this morning that DH rang to speak to her at 8.45 to wish her good luck in her piano exam later. Very nice, but I snatched the phone from her and bellowed down it 'SHE SHOULDNT EVEN BE HERE AT 8.45'

And breathe.

Dont worry, only another 5 years to go. :)

My eleven year old year 7 is the opposite. Gone by eight to school two minutes away. I'd love to say smugly that this is due toa thirst for knowledge and he can't wait for the learning to begin.

It's not. He wants to play football with the bus children who get there earlier.

Maybe she'll be tempted by social life too?

DH and I were discussing why it takes DD aged 12 forty five minutes to have a quick wash and dress earlier. No make-up, no hair washing... what does she do?

I have many memories of my parents saying this about me.

I reckon she'll be okay for the secondary bus though. She won't want to miss the social aspect of it. The thought of travelling without my friends was enough to get me to the station in time for the 07.48 where I would then plaster on the make-up and copy my mates' homework most mornings.

shit yes !
i woke up today at 8 25
one child had gone
two about to walk out the door to primary school
what do you have to do?

let her be late!

DD is in year 10 and has lost the abiity to
leave the house on time
have the correct uniform
have pens/pencils etc
do her homework
remember her timetable
sometimes she even forgets to actually go to school

I've had 27 years of practice, but I always always manage to leave the house late .

Have you tried setting the clocks ahead? My mobile phone time is always ten minutes fast, which has sometimes rescued me.

If she is getting the bus, she can just be thrown out the house at 7.30 and finish anything off during the journey including homework, doing hair, makeup. Sometimes I had to bring my toothbrush and do that in the bathroom at school

Thanks for replies, glad its not just mine. I have taken a back seat in the past and she's been late, school don't seem particularly bothered and neither just DD. I keep telling her that will be different at secondary and she will get detention.

Not sure the social aspect will make her move any faster, she's missing out on that now. Friends knock and then have to leave as she isn't ready. Her sister (same age) tries to encourage her and says they'll scooter down together etc. Has little effect, she still swans around like a Sunday morning with no sense of urgency about anything. When I've talked to her about it she admits she would like to go with friends but seems unable to motivate herself to achieve it! This morning she was sitting in her pants and socks playing the piano and genuinely looked shocked when I lost my rag.

Perhaps a little bribery is in order then.

I have four dc and getting them all ready on time can be a nightmare some days so I feel your pain. DS is very good at spending lots of time putting one sock on and nothing else and then appearing downstairs 5 minutes before we have to leave practically naked and with no bag packed. Some days it drives me nuts.

But if I have a weapon of bribery the mornings seem to come together much quicker. This week it is the packed lunch with added extras ie sandwich plus something nice. If he is not ready on time then he just gets the sandwich and fruit. It worked today but who can say for tomorrow.

YANBU - my DS also aged 11 and going to secondary in sept can take 15-20 minutes to get dressed into his basic school uniform! Nothing to think about, just basic uniform to put on.

We are going to new parents evening at the secondary tonight, apparantly quite a lot of it is about how to get them independent enough to cope with it all. We were also given a booklet called 101 tips for parents about going to secondary school (link below), it seems to have lots of positive ideas for helping them organise themselves for the transition.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0955207304

My youngest son has no sense of urgency either - he is totally one paced and it drives me bonkers. If we're a bit late for the bus he gets out of the car at the same speed as when we're early, "hurry up" are words he just doesn't recognise. I don't know what to do about it, and try not to get cross but sometimes end up losing my cool a bit!

101 tips

Ok mines are younger but what works is to break the morning in chunks.
They are still reading with me in the am so our morning goes like this:
-get up any time bewteen 7.00 and 7.30, have breakfast, play...

• 8.00 reading

-8.20 dress up

• 8.30 reminder 'are you dressed?' and 8.35 second reminder 'we will be going soon'

-8.35, 'we are going' with an aim to leave at 8.45 the latest. Note I still leave 10 min for them to just put their shoes and coat on. Experience shows there is always something missing. We also have dc2 coming downstairs to put shoes on, realize he doesn't have socks, goes back upstairs, put socks on, goes down again, realize shoes are actually upstairs (just to him when he was putting his socks on!). And then he will come down (still with no shoes on) with a toy in his hand telling me all about the latest story about spooky the dolphin etc.....

but having some sort of target time to have different thing ready does help a lot.

Ds is out of the house by 8.10, 8.30 would be a lie in

Thanks everyone. That book sounds useful, I'll order that. Anything to stop these frustrating mornings, not just mornings really she is like that about most things. Even if she was going on holiday or to Alton Towers for the day, she'd be slow getting ready. I'm constantly asking her to hurry or getting cross with her and I don't want it to be like that. Perhas it is just her personality and she won't ever change.

She likes to do things in a certain order which delays her, for instance her socks were downstairs in the drier, so I shouted upstairs to put the rest of her uniform on and put socks on after breakfast, but she won't alter from her little routine which is infuriating. I have wondered in the past if she has some form of special needs but teachers have never mentioned it. She's bright, has done well at primary school, expected to get all 5's in SATs, she's still very literal, which her sister and most of her peers have grown out of now. Doesn't get a joke for instance, will dissect it and analyse it, which obviously makes it very unfunny. Her grandfather was recently telling us about their trips to the park, where she has to take the same route and jump on/walk on the same things in the same order. Surely this is very unusual for an 11.5 year old?

She doesn't come across as a particularly anxious child so i don't think the routines are for reassurance. Her only anxiety is a fear of being sick which has got worse. She won't eat anything with her fingers if she can help it, for instance a bag of crisps which is difficult to eat with anything but your fingers, I've noticed she leaves the tiny bit that is in her hand, same with biscuits, anything. DH had a long chat with her on Sat saying it was generally bugs that make people sick and as long as she washed her hands after the loo etc, then hands couldn't make her ill. He encouraged her to actually lick her fingers which she reluctantly did then disappeard upstairs. i crept up and she was gargling with mouthwash and cleaning her teeth .

We have got used to this behaviour and see it as 'just being her' but i can see it isn't 'normal', whatever normal is, maybe she needs help.

I do worry about her going off to secondary and I need to stop being so cross with her, reading this back I can see she can't help it.

I just read the bit about not putting on other clothes before putting on socks and thought that sounds just like my DS1. Maybe that it is normal and not attributable to his SN and then in the next sentence you wonder about SN! Maybe he isn't after all.

Actually whether my DS does have Aspergers or DCD/dyspraxia is up for discussion. His diagnosis says one thing, I really think another. Anyway, dyspraxia explains his chronic lack of organisation. He is better than he was in juniors - I think that secondary are much less tolerant but they do help if he is obviously struggling.

I have no advice though, just sympathy. I totally get the stuck record thing and sometimes get really cross at the inability to actually do what needs doing. I pack his lunchbox whilst he is getting his shoes/coat/bag (DH takes him to school so has some of the cajoling to do these days) but if I am late downstairs or get tied up with something else, he will just stand there and not think to do it for himself. He seems to have no comprehension of what to do despite knowing what goes in his lunchbox. If I say hurry up he either looks bemused or goes faster for one step, quite literally one step before going back to the snails pace that is the norm.

Don't worry about secondary - buses are easier, as they enforce a sense of urgency. It's always the ones who live close to the school who are late, yes? They know they can sit about till the last minute, with no dire consequences like missing the right bus and being 30 min late.

Oh and wrt to the teachers not saying anything about SN, it could be that because she is doing well academically and isn't any trouble in class the teachers just haven't noticed or it isn't considered a problem. That isn't the same thing as saying children like my DS don't have special needs but that they are coping. My DS is no trouble at school and does well enough academically and I don't think, particularly in the juniors, that they would have said anything to me about him because he just kept his head down and got on with things in his own quirky way which was easy enough to deal with. Not saying that your DD has anything wrong but that there were similarities.

Mind you my mother used to say I only came with 2 speeds, dead slow and stop so maybe my DS gets it off me!

Persistent lateness is a classic symptom of ADD and OCD.

I'm 38 and still suffer from it. Was always late for school, essays and so on and in adult life I've missed countless trains, planes, and theatre curtains-up, lost friends and made myself and other people cry with the sheer frustration of it.

I had counselling, hypnotherapy, set every clock in the house earlier, everything. Nothing really worked, I lived my life on a wing and a prayer and it was exhausting.

Diagnosed with ADD last year, I'm still self-treating with dietary supplements, bingo, I am a changed person. Still 'below average' in punctuality, but the improvement is vast.

What has your son been diagnosed with BigBoobiedBertha (love the name ). Is it just dyspraxia or other things? I'm pretty sure DD hasn't got dyspraxia as she walked early, talked early, rode a bike without stabilisers at 4, learnt to tie laces early, and hop, jump etc etc. She doesn't fit the description, except possibly the clumsiness I agree with what you say about school, because she has done well she hasn't flagged up any concerns with teachers. My other DD was arguing with her the other day and shouted "everyone at school thinks you're odd".

You can be a very high-achiever and still suffer from ADD, dyspraxia, dyslexia and any number of disorders. Kids learn to compensate for their failings.

My essays at school were always late, but they were always A grades so the teachers used to let me off punishments (which may have compounded the inherent ADD traits, but we'll never know).

LadyInDisguise

Still reading with your children in the morning?! Is this common then? (Scratches head) I struggle to read with them in the evening tbh...

buses are easier, as they enforce a sense of urgency

That's certainly been our experience. All through primary (which we had to drive to) DD was nearly always late. Secondary school is 20 miles away, she has to get a bus at 7:40 which means she has to be ready and out the door at 7:30. I'm slightly stunned she's never yet missed the bus - I do still have to chivvy her and lay her uniform out on the bed but whereas last year I also had to pack her schoolbag, this year she does that. Whew. I guess I have a bit of a 'timetable' to stage the process- make sure she's out of bed at 6:50, breakfast eaten by 7:10; hair done and then dressed by 7:25; teeth clean, check bag and go - that sort of thing. Break it down into chunks. If your DD has a set routine, maybe figure out how long each stage needs to take and work back from the time she needs to be out the door ...factoring in extra time for the odd day when they need 10 mins in the loo!

From your post about routines, she sounds like she has some similar traits to DS, who has Aspergers. I'm not saying you necessarily need to look at getting her assessed if she's managing fine in other ways, but you could just look at tips used for dc on the spectrum anyway. It won't do her any harm and it might help you consider strategies that you wouldn't normally consider.

For example, I use a visual timetable for DS - when he was younger it used to have pictures on, but as he's a teenager he just has lists. You might also want to look at social stories to help with the literal thing. There's lots of information on the NAS website and plenty of good books with strategies for parents as well.

OTOH, if it's something you want to look at more deeply into these concerns, I'd say that DS was also at level 5 and very bright, yet he has a full time statement now. Lots of students on the spectrum manage well without support throughout primary school but find it much harder at secondary because of the level of independence required and more complex social demands.

the dcs are in Y3 and Y2.
dc2 needs to read to me (hence the 'still') but yes I have found it is easier to do that in the am rather than in the pm when they are tired.

So for a few years now we have been doing all the readings first thing in the morning before going to school.