Morning and Evening Routine for children – the best tips against stress

Somehow, everything seems to be going wrong this morning. At the breakfast table, the children are throwing oatmeal at each other. Then your son solemnly announces that he is on a toothbrushing strike, while your daughter needs twenty minutes to put on her socks because she is still sooo tired. Of course, that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she preferred doing somersaults until late last night instead of going to sleep.

But you don't have time for arguments: If you don't find the car keys soon, you won't be able to get the children to school on time, let alone get to work in time. And you ask yourself: Why is everyone always so stressed in the morning?

Fortunately, there is another way. If you consciously plan your morning, you will gain control over your day before the chaos breaks out. A successful morning routine also gives your children stability and security. The best part: Anyone who starts the day relaxed with a fixed routine also reduces stress throughout the rest of the day and increases overall well-being. [1] [1] Early risers have more well-being and less stress: Renée K. Biss/Lynn Hasher/PubMedCentral, Issue 12, p. 437-441 (2012): Happy as a Lark: Morning-Type younger and older adults are higher in positive affect

And you probably already know it: A good morning starts the evening before. If you want to start the day in a good mood as a family, you need a routine that helps you wind down regularly in the evening. We have great tips for both today, to help more calm and peace find a permanent place in your life – – just like the car keys.

It is not the child who should adapt to the environment, but we should adapt the environment to the child. – Maria Montessori

3 tips for a relaxed morning routine

1. Me-time in the morning

Do you often wake up to find your children pulling the blanket off you and using you as a private climbing gym? Do you have no time at all to properly wake up in the morning before the everyday family chaos breaks out around you? There is good news and bad news. The bad news first: You have to get up earlier for this, and that can be quite tough. But maybe you can get into the habit of going to bed a little earlier in the evening? What's more, you get something that is rarely possible with children: time for yourself. With a cup of fragrant coffee or tea, you can take your time for a date with yourself. Maybe this will also make it easier for you to integrate other routines, such as the morning entry in your 6-Minute-Diary or a short meditation. You can find a few more tips on this here.

With your personal morning routine, you start the day with a full battery and can defuse minor or major crises more calmly.

2. Gratitude at the breakfast table

Are there often arguments, tears, or outbursts of anger at the breakfast table in your family? Because, for example, the jam is suddenly empty or the favourite plate with the elf motif is currently in the dishwasher?

Anyone who is in a bad mood often looks for negative things as if through a magnifying glass and overlooks everything that is going well. This is the same with children as with adults. Gratitude focuses on the positive. Studies suggest that children who regularly practice gratitude are more satisfied with their lives. [2] [2] Grateful children are happier: Greater Good Magazine (2014): Seven Ways to Foster Gratitude in Kids  Here are a few more valuable questions you can ask your children to turn their gaze towards gratitude:

• Which of the delicious breakfast items on the table do you like best?
• Which game at kindergarten are you especially looking forward to today? 
• What was the best thing that has happened so far this week?
• Who are your best friends and what makes these children so unique?

Anyone who can already write can also put these thoughts down on paper. The 6-Minute-Diary for Kids is excellent for this. It contains playful exercises and practical tips that pupils can use to train a positive mindset every day. They learn that it is okay to feel bad sometimes, but that good things always follow negative feelings. A great addition or an independent, playful conversation starter to talk about experiences and the feelings that go with them is the 6-Minute-Emotion Cards. 

3. Astronaut training and other games

Sometimes it is enough to drive you crazy: You have already asked your children several times to get dressed or brush their teeth. But they have something more important to do: For example, to find out how many Lego bricks fit in a sock. Or to write a birthday card to the teddy bear.

Instead of nagging, you can motivate your children in a playful way to get ready. This is good for all of you: Playing reduces stress and strengthens the immune system, as a meta-study from London was able to show. [3] [3] Playing reduces stress, increases well-being, and strengthens the immune system: Jacqueline Harding/Middlesex University London (2020): Parents can reduce stress levels by playing during lockdown with their children   Think of a few fixed routines that you can use and vary every now and then. Feel free to use one of our ideas:

• Pretend you are astronauts going on a mission in space. But before they are allowed to board, all crew members still have to complete a few tasks, which you announce with a voice changed as if through a microphone: “Our spaceship takes off in ten minutes. All astronauts are asked to get dressed now!” At the very end, when your children are ready, they are supposed to climb into the imaginary spaceship (i.e., climb onto the sofa, for example) and you count together: “Five, four, three, two, one: Blast off!”

• Play hide-and-seek with your child, but with a small difference: Instead of counting to 20, your child should get dressed before they are allowed to look for you. The longer it takes, the more time you have to find a particularly elaborate hiding place. Maybe outside in the hallway so you can go straight out afterwards?

• This game needs a little preparation, but it is excellent for days when you yourself have a lot to do in the morning and want your children to entertain themselves a little. Distribute small notes in your apartment the evening before, each with a task and a riddle. For example: Where are the shoes you put on in rainy weather? Then the note is in the Wellington boot: Put us on. Now look for the bag in which your sneakers are hidden (aka: the gym bag). 

It is better to dance through life than to march through it. – Yoko Ono         

3 tips for an evening routine with children

Only well-rested children (and parents) start the day happily and relaxed. However, little whirlwinds don't necessarily see it that way. Instead of going to bed, they prefer to build a bouncy castle out of sofa cushions in the evening or have a race in the living room. Here are a few tips that you can plan every evening to wind down from long and even longer days.

1. Reading time – also for primary school children

In many families, reading aloud is a fixed part of an evening routine – but only until the little ones can read themselves. But even primary school children still benefit from this bedtime ritual. You can read stories to your child that their own reading skills are not yet sufficient for. What's more, you gain a few minutes that belong only to you. Switching off from the hectic family everyday life not only does your children good. Reading is a great remedy for stress. Maybe there is a favourite book from your own childhood that you would like to read to your son or daughter? 

Reading is a boundless adventure of childhood. – Astrid Lindgren

2. Playtime instead of Screen Time

The Post-it notes with unfinished to-dos have long had a life of their own on your desk. In the kitchen, it looks worse than back in your student flat (and that is something you have to achieve first). We don't even need to talk about the piles of laundry in the bathroom. When there is too much to do in the evening, it is completely understandable that you turn on the television or tablet and leave your children's entertainment to Sam the Fireman or the princesses Elsa and Anna.

But especially in the evening hours, media consumption and television have a negative effect on your children's night sleep. [4] [4] Watching television before bedtime disrupts sleep: Welt Online (2011): When television robs children of sleep  Instead of helping your little treasure relax in the evening, television makes them even more restless. The high blue light content of screens disrupts the melatonin balance in the evening hours and disturbs the sleep-wake rhythm. [5] [5] Blue light from screens disrupts sleep: Alexa Fry, Dr. Anis Rehman/Sleep Foundation (2022): How Blue Light affects Kids' Sleep  Even if television, tablets and co. are certainly no longer unthinkable in our time – – if you leave out screen time in the evening more often, your children (and thus you too) will calm down more easily. Here are a few television-free alternatives that help your child wind down in the evening and give you time to get a few things done. For example, your son or daughter could:

• draw a picture story: Each picture should represent something that happened today.
• do a puzzle or build something out of Lego. 
• make themselves comfortable on the sofa with an audiobook.

3. Bed-itation: Meditation before bedtime

Whether it is an argument with the best friend or the upcoming English test: When children's thoughts are racing in the evening, falling asleep is difficult. Meditation can help you fall asleep relaxed. Mindfulness training improves and extends children's sleep: This was shown by a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. [6] [6] Meditation lets children sleep better: Ruth O'Hara/Stanford University of Medicine (2021): Mindfulness Training helps Kids sleep better 

Have you never meditated with your children? You can try this simple exercise, for example:

The flower meditation: Ask your child what their favourite flower is. Then ask them to lie on their back and close their eyes. Then they put their hands on their belly and imagine holding the favourite flower. With each breath, they feel it rise and fall again. And imagine breathing in the beautiful blossom scent. Alternatively, there are numerous apps you can use for this purpose.

This is how you start the next day organised

Remember the morning chaos at the beginning of this text. If you yourself have to gather everything more often in the morning, then this last tip is for you.

Avoid morning stress by preparing everything the evening before. Because as parents, we often have the feeling that we are packing for a short trip when we go somewhere with children. And a day when we forget the cuddly cloth, a snack for in between, or the wet wipes can quickly become stressful.

Keep things you need every morning in the same place. Maybe there is a wardrobe or a chest of drawers in your apartment that you can use for this purpose. Explain to your child that school bags, shoes, jackets, and everything else they need for school will have their home here in the future. Every evening, you make sure together that everything is packed and laid out for the next morning. 

If you get things done already the evening before, they will no longer haunt you in your head later and keep you from falling asleep. The Zeigarnik effect, named after the Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, states that our brain remembers unfinished tasks more than completed ones. [7] [7] What effect writing down unfinished tasks has: E.J. Masicampo, Roy Baumeister Roy/Journal of Personality an Social Psychology, Issue 101 (2011): Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals

New habits are not formed overnight

Which of the tips do you find most useful? What would your children respond best to? Even if you only follow a few of these ideas, your morning race against the ticking kitchen clock will soon become a leisurely stroll into the day.

Make sure to take enough time to develop a relaxed morning and evening routine for you and your children and design it so that it suits you. New habits are not formed overnight, but need some practice. If you are looking for a few good tricks for this, we definitely recommend one of our most-read articles How to finally develop good habits: 8 sound tips. But if you start small and get the ball rolling, your family life will gradually become more relaxed.

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This post is by Maria Röckmann. During her journalism studies in Down Under, she one day held a microphone in front of a man's nose, fell in love with him, and stayed there. When she is not roaming the playgrounds in Brisbane with her children, she writes for the 6-Minuten-Verlag or works on her first novel.

Sources:

[1] Early risers have more well-being and less stress: Renée K. Biss/Lynn Hasher/PubMedCentral, Issue 12, p. 437-441 (2012): Happy as a Lark: Morning-Type younger and older adults are higher in positive affect

[2] Grateful children are happier: Greater Good Magazine (2014): Seven Ways to Foster Gratitude in Kids

[3] Play reduces stress, increases well-being and strengthens the immune system: Jacqueline Harding/Middlesex University London (2020): Parents can reduce stress levels by playing during lockdown with their children

[4] Watching TV before bedtime disrupts sleep: Welt Online (2011): When television robs children of sleep

[5] Blue light from screens disrupts sleep: Alexa Fry, Dr. Anis Rehman/Sleep Foundation (2022): How Blue Light affects Kids' Sleep

[6] Meditation helps children sleep better: Ruth O'Hara/Stanford University of Medicine (2021): Mindfulness Training helps Kids sleep better

[7] The effect of writing down unfinished tasks: E.J. Masicampo, Roy Baumeister Roy/Journal of Personality an Social Psychology, Issue 101 (2011): Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals