How to cope with a teen that never follows their routine?

[SmileLady]

My DD, aged 13 is driving me absolutely round the bend.

Context: We are a family of five kids. DH and I both work full-time. My DD, aged 13, is the second youngest. Everyone in the family, including the 7 year old, follows their morning routine. DD13 & DD15 are on the role at the school I work in. We have to leave at 7am on the dot; otherwise, we get stuck in about 1.5 hours of traffic to get to work. If we leave any later all of us are late. Sometimes up to an hour late for school/work. I get up at 5.30am every morning and makes the lunches.

DH takes the other three to school. They are in 3 different schools.

It's NOT hard

Alarm goes off.
Get Up- make bed
, use toilet, wash face brush teeth, get dressed.
Come downstairs check bag- do you have water bottle, lunch box, glasses, PE kit (if needed), home work etc.

Have breakfast- everyone has a choice, bagels, cereals, boiled eggs, toast. they make their own.

Then get on jacket and shoes and leave the house.

EVERY SINGLE morning, DD13 has forgotten something, such as her glasses and PE kit. We arrive at school, and it's freezing cold, and she doesn't have her coat.

At night, she won't have a shower until late, then dilly-dallies around and isn't in bed until after 10 p.m. She can't get up in the mornings. She is not allowed her phone anymore as she sits mindlessly scrolling.

I am seriously considering just leaving her to get the bus to school in the mornings and just take the hit for the consequences of her actions. I am genuinely worried about the impact this is having on my job as I arrive at work completely emotionally frazzled and this affects me all day. I can't seem to shake the effect that she has on me every morning,. Does anyone have any advice??

Yeah why can’t she get the bus? That is to be fair very early to leave every day, what time are you dropping her at school? If she got the bus when would she need to leave?

How far away is the school?

On a side note, why are you making lunches in the morning? Can’t you make them the night before to save some time in the morning?

Is the problem that she is always late or that she always forgets things? If she's not ready for 7am then she gets left behind and has to make her own way to school. If she forgets things then she has to deal with not having them.

She would need to get 2 buses to school. The reason we leave so early is due to major infrastructure work taking place. My road has no way out aside to straight onto this awful grid-locked traffic. If we leave any later then 7am we get stuck, it is awful. But if she got the bus she would still need to leave about 7am, we would have to pass her waiting at the bus stop. She knows this and she would need to take the bus to another stop and change buses. Due to the roadworks all the bus routes have been re-routed. I am tempted to just let her get on with it.

She forgets things and is never ready by 7 a.m. On Friday, we had to go back three times as she forgot her glasses, swimming kit, and trainers. We didn't arrive at school until 9:15 a.m, and a sub had to cover my class. It's embarrassing.

Don't go back. Its not just embarrassing its unprofessional.

Get her to pack everything the night before, help her make a list of what is needed each day. Then she has no excuses and if she continues to forget things she just has to live without.

Why isn't everything prepared and in bags, by the door, or in the car the night before? It's a very early start at your house and there's a lot of pressure. A morning checklist might help her too.

Teen brains.
What help does she need to do better?
A timetable on the fridge, checklist by the door?
You can't assume she's going to be like your other kids and she's not naturally good at managing her time.

My son used to be like that. The more I harassed him the slower he went As if he was secretly delighted to see me getting stressed out. The only days he was fast were the days I purposely got up 15 minutes earlier and acted serene

A lot of the organisation could be done the night before.

Bags all ready with glasses, PE kit, books, homework etc all organised the night before school.

Packed lunches made the night before and put in fridge with a drink bottle.

That would really cut down on what everyone has to do early in the morning. It would give you time to check that she's managed it all OK and remembered everything.

It sounds like she needs a bit of extra support in learning to be organised. At 13 she's still young to remember everything. I have a very capable 13 year old who still needs reminders and a bit of support to make sure she has everything for her day.

Gosh I think I feel fir her ! Some children ahd Teens are more disorganized and that is a seriously early start!
I would just super focus oh having it all ready the night before.

If she's forgetting something every morning then she clearly needs support. It's unlikely that she's doing it on purpose.

Get everything ready the night before?
Laminated checklist for her to tick off as she goes along?

Thanks all.

I do make the lunches the night before, but I pack the lunch bags in the morning, as there's not enough room in the fridge for 7 lunch bags all full!

We have a check list pinned on the bathroom door that everyone can see. Unfortunately the house hallway is not large enough for all the bags etc, so everyone (including me) keeps our bags in the bedrooms, they should be ready. They check to ensure nothing is forgotten in the mornings.

As we were leaving the house, I do a check list: "Do you have your water bottle, lunch box, etc." And they all said yes. She always says yes, and if I ask if she's sure, she starts to moan and have a tantrum. Then she doesn't have it.

I am absolutely dreading tomorrow morning, she can have almighty meltdowns if you ask her to do anything.

She does not have Autism/ADHD- she is fine to jump out of bed at 6am on a Saturday to get ready for her activities, has her bag packed and also goes out with friends in the afternoon.

Don't go back.
Learning by doing. She is 13.

She'll have to deal with leaving her stuff. I'd let her get the bus.

Leaving at 7am is hard for a teen body clock I think. She doesn’t have a friend she can get a lift with or something?
How long are the road issues going to be there for?
I guess you need to help her get packed up at night. Also is she ok at school? Ours was like that when she was not happy. Oh and she was also anaemic, your daughter doesn’t have very heavy periods does she?

Agreed, don’t keep going back that’s crazy, what’s the worst thing that can happen? She has no trainers and can’t do PE and gets told off the consequence is on her?

Write an evening and morning list for her to tick off. Something visual she can work through twice a day.

Tell her if she wants a lift she must be sat in the car at 7am when you leave.

Then leave at 7am.

The only way we manage here is that everything is sorted the night before.
All bags are done. Lunches are done. Clothes for everyone is sorted and ready.

It might help to organize everything in the night.

Yes no turning back. Tell her in advance you do not have time.

Thanks for all your comments. I am not going to go back anymore. I just feel sorry for her as she starts to cry, really sobbing tears in the car as she dreads getting into trouble at school.

You are right. It's very unprofessional- for me.

The road works are due to end on December 2026.

I think I just needed to vent more than anything.....

She sounds like DS who is 12

I am genuinely trying to understand that he is just wired differently to me. I believe that he genuinely CANT do it - not that he's a bit shit / dreamy / disorganised / lazy.

He also gets very very upset with himself when he forgets things.

He's had punishment and natural consequences many, many times. But it makes NO difference.

You can try to leave her to it - but I think she'll still forget everything, will be very upset for a lot of the time and her school work will suffer.

We now have a 'boots on' time which is 10 mins before we actually need to leave. At this point, he picks up bag and gets shoes on. Then I run through the list and he runs up and down gathering all the stuff he's forgotten. But we are calm and leave (mostly) on time.

DD9 is nothing like him and regularly reminds ME of stuff we need to take for her school!!

The phrase I got from here which I repeat to myself is that some children just need more scaffolding, for longer, than others.

My DD had the same start time as did many of her friends throughout high school.
It's early but not uncommon.
I think you need to start with saying you're not going back for left behind items and let her take the consequences at school.

You're gone back 3 times. That is crazy
am not sure i'd go back once. TBH though one scatty child out of 5 isn't bad going.

You mention sticking to 'the routine'. Might she do better with her own routine. Could her order be rearranged?

I think your options are either to

1. come down hard, make her catch bud if needed etc
2. give her more support with packing her bags and general organisation.

What you do probably depends on how frazzled you are now!

I feel for you op, my teen just told me she has to wear her Tracksuit tomorrow, which is dirty at the bottom of the wash basket as she usually only wears it on a Friday. She is very disorganised and I have to second guess everything, luckily she is my youngest by quite a lot so I can concentrate on her.

Hard as it is, the consequences of her not having what she needs at school are going to be more effective than any amount of bollocking or turning back from you.

When my kids were that age I used to say I was like the teacher in Charlie Brown (Peanuts) who is talking to the kids but all they hear is wawawawa wawa

Our 13yr old is the same, also emotional and dramatic if she has forgotten stuff. We just ignore it, if it's forgotten sorry there is no going back