The alarm goes off and the morning battle begins: you knock on your child’s bedroom door to wake him, but you have to go back time and again to make sure he’s actually up, your voice rising with each “wake-up call.” As the minutes tick by and he still hasn’t gotten out of bed, you resort to screaming and yelling in his face, and then tear the blankets off the bed. In desperation, you pull him out of bed by his feet, though you know you won’t be able to do that for many more years. A screaming match ensues, and now your child has missed the bus, so
you have to take him to school. You’ll be late for work again, and you feel your blood pressure rising with every traffic light. Finally, your child slams the door of your car, and you head to work, agitated and upset, sure that your boss will make a comment again today about your lateness.
"As long as you take responsibility for getting your child out of bed, they will let you do it."
If you find yourself bending over backwards to get your child going in the morning, you’re not alone. On the Parental Support Line, many parents tell me they set their own alarms an hour or more in advance in order to start the process of waking up their child. In many cases, consequences and punishments seem to have no effect.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, teens need an average of nine hours of sleep per night. Biological sleep patterns during adolescence make it difficult for teens to get to sleep before 11 pm, and nearly impossible to wake up in time to catch the bus or make it to homeroom on time. What that means is that when your child has to get up early to get to school, he or she is working against a biological drive to sleep. But just because a kid’s biology doesn’t match up with the demands of the outside world, it doesn’t mean that you have to surrender to the daily insanity of getting your kids up and out of the house.
The Good News: You Can Stop Working So Hard
The Total Transformation Program tells parents to stop taking responsibility for getting their kids out of bed on time. If you repeatedly bang on your child’s door to get them up, or you drag them out of bed, you are working harder to wake up your child than they are. As James Lehman says, “You are substituting your extra energy and effort for your child’s.” So if you think about it, why should your child get up on their own when you are willing to do it for them? If they know they don’t really have to get up until mom threatens to bring the ice water, why should they get up at the first ring of the alarm? Ten more minutes is ten more minutes, right?
Start by Setting New Ground Rules
In order to get your child to adhere to the morning routine, you need to give them the responsibility for getting up. Sit down with your child and have a discussion about getting up in the morning. You might say, “You and I have a hard time in the morning. I am no longer going to be responsible for getting you up on time. I will give you one wake up call, and then it’s up to you. If you miss the bus, I will not drive you to school. You will need to either find another way to get there, or you will need to call your teachers to get your assignments.”
This solution may not work for all families. Your child may be too young to leave at home while you’re at work; walking to school might not be an option. You’ll need to customize the consequences and expectations to your own family situation. If you do have to drive them to school because they overslept, maybe the consequence is that they have to do an hour of chores to make up for the time you lost.
The important thing to realize is that as long as you take responsibility for getting your child out of bed, they will let you do it. It may take a few days for them to get the hint, but once you stop working so hard, they will realize they have to change their behavior, or face certain consequences. A natural consequence for oversleeping and being late to school is having to make up any schoolwork that was missed. You might also check with your school to see what the policy is for repeated tardiness or missed classes. Don’t protect your child from these consequences by making sure they make that bus on time. In order to create less dramatic mornings, you have to let your child experience the consequences of not getting themselves up and out the door.
Make Sleep a Priority
The Total Transformation also recommends that parents institute an earlier bedtime. You might tell your child: “You seem to have a hard time getting up in the morning, which tells me you aren’t getting enough sleep. You need to be up by 7 am on school days. As of today, we are moving your bedtime back to 10 pm on school nights. Once you have shown us that you can get up on time for five days in a row, we’d be happy to move your bedtime back to 11 pm.” If your child does not get up on time, simply state: “I know you want a later bedtime. You’ll have to figure out how to get yourself up on time in order to have that privilege.”
Because of the biological drives I mentioned earlier, it may be hard for your adolescent to go to sleep before 11 p.m. Going to bed by 10 is going to be a little “uncomfortable” for your child. In time, the discomfort and annoyance of having to get into bed with the lights out and no electronics may motivate him or her to get out of bed on time in the morning. Once your child has gotten up on their own for five days in a row, you can change their bedtime to a later hour. If they begin to oversleep again, change it back to 10 pm until they improve.
Help your Child Problem-Solve their Way to a Better Morning Routine
What if your child doesn’t know how to help themselves get up in the morning? Remember, teens and pre-teens are fighting against a physiological drive that tells them to sleep later than many school start times. In order to change their behavior, they need a plan, not just wishful thinking.
If your child has a hard time getting up, have them come up with a list of things they will do to help themselves get out of bed on time. Changing to an earlier bedtime may help. Putting the alarm clock across the room, instead of next to the bed, may also help. Have your child pack their school lunch, pick out their clothes and organize their backpack the night before so that they don’t have to do it in the morning. Remember to put the responsibility for getting up in the morning on your child. If you do it all for them, they have no reason to do it themselves.
If you are a Total Transformation customer, you can access the Parental Support Line for help with these and other challenges you’re experiencing with your child. Support Line specialists have helped hundreds of parents customize a plan of action to help your child take responsibility for their morning routine, and we can help you, too. Specialists can also work with you to formulate realistic, appropriate consequences to help enforce the new morning routine. Whatever action you choose, be sure to stick with it. Calmer mornings are within your reach.
I had that problem with my 13 year old. I then changed the way I got him up. I did excately what they are telling us. I also had my husband get them up in the morning when he gets up. Which is an hour earlier than I do. If they are still not up when he leaves for work i will go into their room and tell them. If they are late getting around and forget things that they need for school, well that is their problem I tell them and they should get up and around when they are first told. They don't like to hear that but if we want them to be good adults in the future they will just have to suffer. I have three boys at home 13,12,10. Now that is a job all on it's own.
Comment By : robin42305
I agree with the philosophy of making it the child's responsibility to get up in the morning. I have told my daughter that she will bear the consequences of being late for school, because the school has rules. Although she was late 65 times to school last year, the school did nothing. She doesn't really care about school, so she makes no attempt to get up. If I give her consequences at home, she won't do them. We switched to home schooling so that she could do her school work later in the day. It started off ok, but now she is slacking off. She won't get up in the morning for anything, not just school. She misses out on being with her friends, because by the time she gets up, they have been out and about for hours. I would really like to know what type of consequences really work for teenagers?
Comment By : Chris
This is a great article, with some great insight. My wife and I struggle with our 10 yr. old not wanting to get up in the morning. We have since started implementing the Total Transformation strategy of having him be responsible for getting himself out of bed in the morning and getting himself ready. Since the consequences suggested in the article won't work in our situation, for safety reasons, we have implemented other consequences when he's not ready on time. Those consequences are the loss of a positive. For example, he has a favorite CD he likes to listen to and when he's not ready on time in the morning, he loses that CD for a period of time. When he can go two mornings in a row of being responsible for getting himself ready on time, then he earns his CD back. So far, he's only lost his CD one time, but it took him losing that priveledge for 2 days to change his behavior. Thank you for the reaffirmation of this issue. It's one in which so so many parents struggle.
Comment By : Father in NC
I think this article is great! We constantly hear about parents having a hard time in the mornings. The parents should also check the policies at the school. We recently put the "late consequences" in effect and some parents are not acceptable to the changes. They actually pulled out their child and sent them to another school. They will find out eventually that the other school will not put up with their excuses for being late. I am printing out this article and including it in out community flyers. Thank You
Comment By : CYW
Although I already do most of the things in this article I am one of those parents that has to get up at 5am to start waking my child. She is such a deep sleeper that she can sleep right through the loud fire alarms in our apartment building. As a baby she slept through the night from birth. I can pick her up out of bed stand her up on her feet and let go, she will still be snoring when she hits the floor.We have tried different bedtimes also but she will, if allowed, sleep 14 hours straight. Once I finally get her to stir she gets up fine and gets ready for school. Any ideas on getting a deep sleeper to wake up to an alarm clock? I could really use the extra 2 hours to sleep myself. I don't think putting her to bed at 5pm so she can get up at 7 am is going to work
Comment By : fedexair06
excellent advice. makes it easier to understand they really have a problem and are not just being difficult
Comment By : Suz G.
Good article. It has given me some more ideas on how to get my kids going in the morning.
Comment By : Lori
My 16-year-olds teacher has told me the same thing, but I still felt obligated or that I would suffer some penalty for her actions and attendance until reading this aritcle. I have put a call into her counselor to discuss future plans of getting her to be more responsible for her own schedules.
The article gave me that strength to turn it over to someone else instead of losing sleep and acquiring anger and drama each morning. She does good for a while and now I know what to do when she starts slipping back into bad patterns again. It might cause a little more drama to sit at her room at night an treat her like a young child making sure she goes directly to bed, but in the long run it should be more beneficial for us both in the mornings.
Comment By : Stressed over my Teen
One thing I have done that seems to work-If you cannot get out of bed and if you are not downstairs ready to go at 7:30 AM, that means you need more sleep. Tonight you will go upstairs at 9:00 (or whatever is 1 hour before normal bedtime), and we will continue 9:00 bedtime until you can wak up on your own.
The only reason you can't wake up is because you're not getting enough sleep! When you can start waking up on your own, and be down here at 7:30, you can have a later bedtime.
Comment By : Mom in Chicago
I have 3 teenagers in my home. I have recently implemented a system for getting them out of bed and also into bed on time. I keep a calendar posted where they can see it. Bedtime is 10:00. For every 5 minutes past 10 that they are not in bed, they have to be in bed 5 minutes earlier the next night. Same for the mornings. I wake them up once, then for every 5 minutes they put off getting up, they have to be in bed 5 minutes earlier. They really dont like going to bed earlier, and they are also aware that I actually enjoy then going to bed earlier. My 15 year old actually had to be in bed, lights out, at 8:25 once. She is much more motivated to meet deadlines now. Dawn
Comment By : Dawn
Megan- I believe we may have spoken Friday on this very issue! Thank you for your advice and this article. I followed your suggestions and so far the past two mornings have been much better.....thanks again!
Comment By : Sue
This is a tough one. My 9-year-old and I had this very problem this morning. I let him set his clock and after 5 full minutes of the alarm beeping, I had to go in there and wake him up. He didn't even hear it! It took him 30 minutes to get up and get going, and I am constantly having to stay on him. I've tried making him go to bed earlier but it doesn't seem to work very well. I will keep trying, though. Surely he'll get it one of these days! The other thing that makes it so hard is the fact that he spends every Wednesday night with his dad and he doesn't make my son go to bed at a decent school-night bedtime hour. Therefore, we are constantly in the "one step forward, two steps back" situation. Thanks for the articles and suggestions. I am determined to conquer this by the time he is out of the 4th grade!!
Comment By : sams_mom
Here's what works for my two teen sons: 1) Wake up call #1: I turn on the lights with a loud "It's 6, GET UP!" I put a chocolate Instant Breakfast drink right next to their beds. After 10 minutes, I walk in and expect them to have their feet out of bed and on the floor. If they don't, I calmly walk into my bathroom, fill a glass of water, and pour it on their heads. Food first, feet on the floor or mom's water torture. My boys need food to wake up...and then an IMMEDIATE consequence they can't stand! I have not had to use water torture at all this year. BTW, after school consequences for forgeting to take their schoolwork, gym clothes, hw, grades, etc. include doing MY jobs I do my jobs every day: food, clothes, transportation for them. If they don't do their jobs at school, I have lots of white tile that constantly needs cleaning, as well as floors to vacumn, clothes to wash, beds to make.... So they become MY maids! They seem to survive without their cell phones or X-Box 360 (weak consequences), but they HATE doing housework! I tell them, "If you don't get to school and work THERE, you will have to work HERE." I also remind them that without a high school diploma and college education, they can always work as a maid ;-) This system is working great!
Comment By : pray4sneaux
Dear fedexira06,
I work @ a pediatric hospital in the sleep lab. It sounds like from the description you're describing and the snoring that you're child is having that the child needs to be accessed for sleep apnea. I recommend that you contact your pediatrician and ask for your child to be scheduled for a sleep study at a near by hospital. Snoring and deep sleep in the A.M. hours are 2 key identification triggers associated with Sleep Apnea. Much Luck in the days to come. Deane Peck MS,RD,LDN.
Comment By : ach
I have a 51/2 year old that is in Kindergarten. My husband has always just gotten her dressed in bed while she is still sleeping so that we can avoid the meltdowns that come with EVERYTHING. We just got the Total Transformation program and I think it will be good. My only qustion about the getting up part is when are they old enough to get up and get them selves ready? Is 5 too young to start? My issues with many stories is that I have problems making them fit for a 5 yr old. Small number HUGE tude.
Comment By : Sandy
* Dear Sandy: A five-year-old can usually learn to get dressed on their own without many problems. I think your daughter may still be too young to get up by herself and get ready all by herself in the mornings, though. I would expect that she would still require and enjoy some interaction with a parent on school days. If the issue is that she has never dressed herself, I would recommend learning the techniques later on in the day instead of during the morning rush. Perhaps you can start by having her undress herself at night and then dress herself for bed. Make sure she’s not overly tired during these practices. When she has mastered the evening, start introducing the idea that she is going to participate in dressing herself in the morning by having her lay out her clothes for the next day the night before. Make sure that you allow for extra time to reduce the possibility of frustration or anxiety that comes with feeling rushed. After she is taking part in helping to dress herself in the morning, you can show her how to use an alarm clock to wake herself up.
I hope this is helpful -- please let us know how it goes!
Comment By : Carole Banks, Parental Support Line Advisor
In response to FedExair06 - I have an 18 yr old that would have horrible times getting up - come home to take a nap and she recalls when she played with friends as a little girl that she always wanted to play the baby so she could sleep! A pediatrician insisted recently that we get a sleep study done instead of just writing a prescription for ADD medication - she is now on a CPAP machine and what a difference! It's hard for them to get used to but she sees such a differnce now that she is even taking the machine with her to the beach with her friends over spring break next week! I recommend a sleep study to you. (We're a fedex family too) I also implemented these morning tips from Mr. Lehman for my son (15) and it has worked very well for him.
Comment By : My kids mom
I've been dealing with this with my daughter, now 15, for years. When I tried the, "get up yourself or get yourself to school" technique, she simply didn't go to school. This caused her to be referred to a truancy/dropout prevention program which pretty much punished me more than her. I took her to the meetings, she sat for the alloted time then I took her home. And the next morning she "missed" the bus again. She failed 8th grade due to excessive absences. Now she is in a private school which she LOVES but I have to drive her too. A boy in the neighborhood also attends there so I drive them in the morning and his family makes the return trip. But she still can't/won't get up in the morning. What i *should* do now is to tell her that if she's not ready by _____ time, I will take "Matt" to school and leave her. HOWEVER I am terrified that she will destroy my house when she does get up. She has terrible destructive rages. She no longer has a bedroom door because she's battered 2 to pieces in fits of rage and the shower curtain she now has over her doorway has long cuts in it that she's made simply out of spite. I am at my wit's end.
I am new to this site and I would like to tell everyone how much I appreciate seeing I'm not alone!
Comment By : SJB
my son is in college he is 18yrs old . He has inherited his mums lack of liking mornings. they do like to stay up late , so the circle keeps going. I have tried the stereo on downstairs but he just gor up and turned it off. meetings at college , incentives, of how much money he could earn doing IT. Nothing works for long , it is all as if it will come to him , what is the problem . He is a smashing lad , and once up he goes , but even today after the half term he stayed up till what time , I do not know. I rang him at 10am he answered, but still did not go to college. I want treat him like a young man but he acts like a 9 yr old when it comes to being able to get up . His attendce is only 50% and the tutor has warned him twice that he will not get his 2 yr diploma course for free. even if his work is good. Any thougts please. Sorry for being so long .
Comment By : Stressed dad
Well my grandson is 19 months old and refuses to get out of bed even though he is awake! How common or uncommon is this? He is healthy, gets stimulation in different forms and it happens on days when my daughter is home with him as well as days when either his other grandmother or myself look after him.
Comment By : Christina
* Dear Christina:
It’s not at all unusual for a toddler to play in their crib before falling asleep or for a time after waking up. Many children enjoy this quiet time to themselves. If you are concerned that your grandson is avoiding physical contact or socialization, have your daughter describe to his pediatrician the details of the behaviors she is concerned about. His pediatrician will be able to tell you if he’s on track developmentally.
Comment By : Carole Banks, Parental Support Line Advisor
My son is almost 18 and is a senior in high school. This is EXACTLY what we have gone through ALL his life. I am tempted to have him read this article. Would you recommend that?
Thanks!
Comment By : Rhonda
* Hi Rhonda, Thank you for your excellent question. Actually, we usually don't recommend that parents have their kids read these articles. That's because it's important for parents to "assume control" in order to establish a "culture of accountability" in their homes, as James Lehman says. What that means is that it's important for parents to learn how to take charge. For that reason, we don't want the program to become the authority in the home. It's also the reason we don't talk to kids on the Parental Support Line. I hope this answers your question. Good luck, and please let us know how it goes.
Comment By : Carole Banks, Parental Support Line Advisor
I have a seven year old and I have trouble getting him up in the mornings. I have been working the Total Transformation System for about a week. This morning after numerous calls to get him out of bed. He finally got up but refused to dress himself. (I have been dressing him prior to this.) I told him "That's fine, if you don't get dressed you can go to school in your night clothes." This just appalled him, so he got dressed. I have a long road in front of me, but Thank you Mr Lehman.
Comment By : Nana
what i would like to add -
please do understand that some bipolar children literally cannot get out of bed in the morning. it goes beyond the biological drive of normal teenagers and children. it's called sleep inertia and no amount of punishing or making them go to bed earlier is going to help, generally.
check it out here...
http://www.bipolarchild.com/Newsletters/0410.html
just a thought.
Comment By : marie
I've found that scheduling something fun in the morning seems to work for my 4th grader. He gets bummed when he doesn't get to help make pancakes/waffles or whatever we're making (usually his choice the night before). He also gets bummed if his dad leaves for work and he doesn't get a chance to say goodbye (if this happens it's because he did not get out of bed the first time). But think about it, who wants to get up to go to school? Have them get up to do something they enjoy!
Comment By : reg
Wow, so I am not alone! My daughter is eleven and will not get up - She and her brothers attend a private school and this morning it turned ugly because once again, she made them late. She was in tears not wanting to go, talking back, me fussing - it was awful - Something has got to change - My concern is there is not much to take away as far as consequences go - She plays sports and is a cheerleader and I work full time - She goes to school and then I pick her up from after care at about 6pm. All we have time to do is come home, eat dinner, do homework and go to bed. I have pushed her bedtime up - I love the additional chores idea but it would almost have to be on the weekend and her dad gets her on every other one so sometimes it would be a week and a half before she carries out her punishment - not much incentive at the time - Any advice is much appreciated!
Comment By : lv2bmom3
* Dear 'lv2bmom3':
Consider calling the support line staff to discuss in detail what is happening at home with your daughter so that we can give you specific advice for your situation. It sounds like you’re very scheduled and so you might try doing less instead of asking her to do more chores, for example. It’s good that you have moved her bedtime up because if she is having trouble waking up, she likely is not getting the rest her body needs. Make sure you check with her pediatrician to rule out any sleep disorders or other medical conditions. All kids need free time to ‘wind down’ at the end of the day in preparation for going to sleep. Try to notice if there is a calm environment in the evening in your household as everyone gets ready for bed. And try for a calm environment in the morning—having enough time to get ready in the morning without feeling rushed and tense every day. Sometimes when kids feel overwhelmed, thinking just shuts down, emotions take over, and efficiency goes out the window. Give us a call. We’d be glad to give you more ideas on how to use the techniques in the Total Transformation program.
Comment By : Carole Banks, Parental Support Line Advisor
