Chivvying in the mornings, or not

[Clearinguptheclutter]

My y7 DS (11, young for his year) enjoys school but needs a ridiculous amount of chivvying to get to the school bus on time, needing to leave by 7.50

so one of us wakes him up but then we either have to go and chivvy every 30 seconds or literally stand over him while he puts every item of clothing on, eats each bite of breakfast etc

his y5 brother gets a wake up call and that’s it, knows what he needs to do and just gets on with it, no chivvying required.

WIBU to give him warning but say I’m not doing it anymore, give him a wake up call and say that’s it, sort yourself out and deal with the consequences if you’re late.
He would very likely miss the bus and need to walk, it’s about 45 minute walk so not the end of the world but he’d miss his first lesson. Hopefully he’d then learn?

to be clear, he’s normally a good kid. Doing fine at school (once he gets there). I know chivvying is normal but how do you get them to learn other than cold turkey?

btw it’s less critical but it’s the same the other end of the day, getting him to get dressed and go to bed (sigh)

btw it’s less critical but it’s the same the other end of the day, getting him to get dressed and go to bed (sigh

The first thing I was going to ask was is he going to bed early enough?

I'd have a little chat with him tonight about how tired he obviously is in the mornings and suggest that he goes to bed an hour earlier tonight and every night before a school day so that he feels fresher and doesn't need the constant reminders to get up and ready in the mornings.

I disagree chivvying is normal by this age. Unless he has SEN, absolutely leave him to it. You are stressing yourself and having no discernable impact. TBH I wouldn't even give him a wake up call.

With mine the only thing I did was knock on their door about 20 minutes before they were due to leave if there was no discernable sign of action. But literally I knocked and said "it's x time" and went away.

Make a plan with him?

We absolutely do still need to chivvy our nearly 10 year old and it’s nothing to do with tiredness, it’s because he has ADHD. Does your DS show other signs of inattention/distraction? Have school flagged any concerns?

No I wouldn't do this. Your 11 year old still needs support in the mornings, it's up to you to give it, not punish him with a 45 minute walk and being late to school.

My 9 year old is like this, I know it's a bit younger but for him it's cos he is really really not a morning person, the school day is out of whack with his body clock. We do get him to bed on time but it takes me a lot of effort to wind him down. I am the same, total night person, my natural day runs around 10am -2 am. I was terrible at getting up all through school. He's still adjusting to secondary too presumably. I'd give him a bit longer before getting tough.

We had alarms - both of my kids will dither about a bit otherwise (eldest does have organisational challenges, youngest just lazy).

We don't have them now, but we all know what times things are supposed to have been done by in order to leave on time, and they're generally pretty good about that (not this morning, when DS1 discovered that despite me asking him if he was ready to go, he didn't have a PE kit, glasses or the right trousers on)

They seemed to respond better to Google telling them it was socks and shoes time than they did to me as well!

Having Alexa/ google tell them what to do sounds like a good idea!

My 11 yr old is good at getting on with it in the mornings (always been a morning person) but my 9 year old is terrible. Might steal this idea for her.

Thanks all
im pretty sure he’s not got adhd or anything, teachers never expressed any concern it’s literally just getting up and out (and in bed the other end of the day) that he finds it hard to focus on. He sleeps very soundly 10pm till 7am most days, though we do start chivvying him to go to bed around 9. Any earlier would be hard I think

I guess when he was younger he wasn’t naturally organised and so we chivvied and I suppose he’s just got used to the chivvying rather than ds2 who got more organised as he grew (maybe cos we were too busy chivvying the older boy so he just learnt to sort himself out!). Getting Alexa to chivvy instead is a good idea. Going to have a gentle chat with him this weekend and ask how he feels about no hassling at all on Monday morning. He hates our constant interventions for sure.

both I and DH needed chivvying at a similar age though probably not quite spoon feeding! I do know that some kids are entirely capable in the mornings at this age but I’m still not sure how many

We chivvied dd in the first term of yr 7 then after that let her know it was up to her. We gave her advice (eg packing bag the night before etc) which she doesn’t follow.

She only had to get detention once (for forgetting PE kit) and nearly be late once (ran back home as forgot her tie). The impact of that made her buck up much more than any amount of chivvying/advice etc from us.

Kids are all different but for dd we have to let her fail, bear the consequences, learn from it. Nothing else sinks in.

I was just about to write a similar post, but found yours. My year 7, is very similar, and seemingly has no speed other than slow.
Just has another morning of him sleeping through his alarm and then me telling him off because at the point he was needing to walk out the door I noticed his trainers were not in his PE bag, despite him reassuring me that he'd packed his bag last night.

It's absolutely driving me nuts. My y10 daughter is like a fully functioning adult and is up and out of the door every day without any help from us. arrgghhhhh!!!!!