School-run Psychosis: ALWAYS LATE and it's driving me **mental** - please help!!

[FlossieT]

Sorry about all the punctuation....

Why are we always, always, always 5 minutes (sometimes more) late for school?

I have tried:

• putting clothes out, laying breakfast table and getting school bags ready the night before
• insisting children are dressed before they come down for breakfast
• HELPING the children get dressed before they come down for breakfast (as in, literally putting the shirts over their rotten little heads)
• getting up earlier
• starting to try to leave the house earlier

and NOTHING seems to work - invariably, I am a screaming banshee in the hallway and the boys are hopping around aimlessly, shoeless and vacant.

If you have solved this problem - or even found some clever tricks that make it less terrible - I would love it if you would share them as I am going out of my tiny mind trying to address this.

Yours just-about-clinging-to-sanity-by-the-tips-of-my-fingertips...

We have struggled with getting to school on time in the past. I now follow this routine. I get up half an hour before dd1 and have a coffee and prepare breakfast. DD1's clothes are kept in her bedroom over her heater. She has to put them on before she can come downstairs . She has five minutes to get dressed and then must come down for breakfast, usually nekkid.

She has 20 minutes to eat her breakfast, if she has not eaten her breakfast within that time it's taken away from her.

After that she has five mins to go upstairs and brush her teeth

Her hair is brushed and she is given the time it takes me to get dd2 dressed and in her buggy to put on the rest of her clothes or she has to finish getting ready outside

DD2's clothes are also put out the night before and she gets breakfast after the school run and a banana to eat on the way.

The night before I will do a check to ensure everything is ready for the next day before I go to bed. Inc. cereal bowls and spoons left out on the counter, book bag and coats by the door, full uniforms and clothes for me and dd2.

STOP fighting with them. If they don't have things done in the allotted time, they don't do them. Going to school with scruffy hair/odd socks/half their breakfast is not going to harm them and will show them you mean business.

We also aim to be 10 mins earlier than we ahve to be to allow for any delays on the way to school and dd1 walks at my pace or is left behind

I let DD miss the bus so she had to walk to school. I used the (mile) walk to explain that if she didn't run around and play in the morning, we wouldn't miss the bus (and Mummy wouldn't shout, either).

It worked. We are no longer late, ever.

we have a pasta jar and if dds eat their bfast before 8 they get a pasta - if they don't they get one taken away. Once jar is full they get a treat (chessington current aim). Also if they are out door by 8.30 they get £5 pocket money - if any day they are late they don't the £5 (cruel but it works!). As for 2 year old ds incentive is he gets to go in "cm's nice car"!

i added this thread in my watch list im always late-ish. not exactly late, late, we just make it in time. im,too tired of running around like mad woman every morning.

I'm with COV. All the people I know who are regularly late fot school are late because they either get up too late or leave things like homework and making lunches until the morning. It takes effort to be organised, it doesn't just happen.

Late people are eternal optimists. They assume things will run smoothly, trains will be on time etc. Start accounting for all the disasters and hire someone to sleep for you.

to get out the house on time, in a pleasant relaxed manner, I have to do the following:

1. get up at 6.30 and have a shower and get dressed
2. get dd and ds up at 7.15 AT THE LATEST
3. get them dressed STRAIGHT AWAY
4. frog march them down to breakfast
5. do reading books after breakfast if haven't had time the night before
6. back upstairs for wash, teeth and hair
7. downstairs for shoes, coats
8. have to be all outside with scooters no later than 8.30 if am not going to be late

Unfortunately, I usually press snooze about 5 times before I can bear to get up, so end up being all shouty and rushed.

but my rule I always stick to is definitely NO TV in the morning

I find that giving DD breakfast in bed makes the morning preparation a whole lot easier

really, BA? what do you give them? a friend was saying she did this, come to think of it...

A glass of milk (sometimes chocolate milk) to wake her up. A bowl of rice krispies or some baguette and nutella.

If she eats this in bed, she gets a huge energy boost and that way getting up and ready isn't a problem. And she can brush her teeth before getting dressed (which saves on clothing disasters).

BonsoirAnna I walk a mile every morning with them and do use this time to "remind" them how nice it would be to walk to school having a nice chat rather than me lecturing them every morning while running to school, It does not work either. I think part of the problem in our houshold is that I hate being late, I am Swiss and was brought up with sayings like "before time it is not on time and after time it not time anymore"( translation might not do it justice though).

However ectic it can get, I would rather run with all of them on my back to school rather than being late as I feel it brings shame on me! So we are always there just when the bell rings. and they probably thing that I "lie" to them when I tell them to hurry or we will be late. They do not get that I would like to have a pleasant walk with them rather than just run to get there on time!

The time when I let them be late did not actuially work because the headteacher who knows that we live far from school and walk every morning did not really tell them off but swiftly got them to their classroom... so I think they have not really seen any bad consequences of being late. I will have to work on that aspect more with them.

Goodness, MN is much much better than a shrink to get me to open up and get the errors of my ways!Sorry you had to witness the session!

I do build in lots of time to our schedule - I aim to leave the house at 8.20 but it is usually closer to 8.30 by the time we do leave. It is only a mile to school, so if we have to walk it takes 20 minutes, so we are there for 8.50 am whereas the door to the school only shuts at 9 am.

Hmmm.

After years of mad school rushes, I can honestly say that the only thing that helped was that DS1 started secondary, and now has to leave at 7:45.

Funnily enough, with one child out of the mix, the younger two have never been late since.

I used to be late for everything all the time. I put this down to being born well over my due date and decided it was written in the stars.

Then I had children and felt more responsible towards them than I ever had towards anything/one else. So somehow I get them to school on time MOST days. I try to stay calm since screaming and shouting just makes everyone more stressed and more bolshie and more late. Never have the telly on before school - too distracting. DD gets herself dressed but is a dreamer so keep an eye on her. A sort of routine - get up, breakfast, get dressed, check have relevant stuff for the day and leave. And make packed lunches somewhere in the middle. I'm not sure how it works really except I stay very focused on getting it all done - I am a dreamer too by nature so have to concentrate harder than a more systematic type. Don't get distracted yourself I think is my only tip. A bit like being in labour.

For us, lateness is really my fault, as my kids are too little to blame (2 and 4, generally reasonably co-operative, althugh don't do much independently) - and the best advice I was ever given is to set a time to leave, the house, and then just GO. Don't start anything withing 10 minutes of the leaving deadline.

My proble is I always try and do 'just one more thing' before I go - so everyone is ready, just need to get shoes on, and we have 15 minutes to spare...and I think "great, I will hang out the washing"...when really I should just leave the house and be EARLY (which to me seems like a scadalous waste of time!)

My proble is I always try and do 'just one more thing' before I go - so everyone is ready, just need to get shoes on, and we have 15 minutes to spare...and I think "great, I will hang out the washing"...when really I should just leave the house and be EARLY (which to me seems like a scadalous waste of time!)"

Astrophe - I am like you - those could be my words. That's what I meant by optimistic - you always think there's time to fit in a bit more even though experience should tell you otherwise.

am stunned that people in the mornings even have time to hang out washing, mumsnet etc. I literally am in a mad rush from the moment the alarm goes off, essential tasks only! TV? OMG!!

That sounds like you're maybe afraid something bad will happen if you don't fill the time?

that was to NJ and Astarte btw

I usually have time to hang a load of laundry, run washing machine, unload dishwasheretc. I really really can't understand why people are in a mad rush in the morning.

Could be. got to go my baby is eating polystyrene.

CoV when do you go to bed? I'm usually asleep by 9 once the boys have drifted off.

I can't imagine coping with mornings if I left it till say 11pm.

In bed by 10ish asleep between 11 and midnight up at 7.30am

I think my problem is that I refuse, on priciple, to get up before 7. On days I am working we need to leave at 7.30 to drop ds1 at nursery for 8 before ds2 at school for 8.30. Half an hour isnt really enough time to get 2 small children and mysefl dressed and washed and breakfast is usually toast and fruit in the car.

Bon appetit!