Speeding up a preschooler's "get ready" process

Penny's hit on the game that motivates her son to get himself ready in the morning:

Our son, age 4.5, has always been challenging to get out of the house in the morning. But about a month ago, we had the idea to leverage his competitive spirit - now when it comes time to get clothes, shoes and jacket on, we just say "Riley! Can you get <whatever> on before Mommy/Daddy?" and voila! He's ready to go before we've even finished our morning coffee.

Penny's simple game works because it compliments her son's nature. One of my children is naturally languid and precise -- she never rushes anything. In fact, she gets overwhelmed by races and "how fast can you do it?" games, and even starts crying when we're in too much of a rush-rush. After plenty of tearful mornings, I've learned that she simply needs more lead time as part of her morning routine.

Related: Four Parent Hacks for a nag-less morning routine

Comments

[Monera Mason]

I am glad to know I am not the only parent with a "languid child", It sort of jars against my type a go go go personality. But we make it work by having daddy(who is more laid back) get her ready while my youngest and I race around the house.

[Kelly Hasse]

My 4.5 yr-old boy would really respond to this. Getting him to get his clothes and shoes on is a constant frustration. The next challenge related to this is - How to get him to stop putting everything on backwards!
Thanks for the tip.

[Ethel]

I bet this would work with one of my toddlers! And then indirectly on her (twin) sister - the other twin might feel too pressured by the overt competition, but if her sister is faster, she will probably speed up.

[Kristi]

We've recently started playing "Simon Says" at getting-ready time. They're playing it at the preschool, and her eyes light up whenever I say "Simon says...", and we're usually out the door much more quickly than we were a few weeks ago. Just remember to throw in some "jump on one foot" and other things that aren't associated with leaving the house! ;-)

[Winston]

We have a fenced front yard, so, as long as the weather isn't terrible, I can get the boys out the door whenever the opportunity presents itself. They play in the yard and then when it's time to go, all I have to do is open the gate. It works alot better to find a time when getting ready works for them (e.g. when they're finishing an activity rather than trying to drag them away from something).

[Kim]

My daughter is often reticent to get ready for bed, so now we sometimes have a "race" to see who can get into jammies faster - my daughter or my husband. She usually wins, but Daddy has been coming in a close second recently. :)

[Jenn]

Be careful how you phrase the challenge. I once tried to hurry my child in a crowded fast food restaurant by saying, "Hurry up, honey, or Daddy is going to beat you." While all the other parents were reaching for their cell phones, my dear son bailed me out by saying, "No, Mommy, I am going to win."

[Bittermelon]

This should work on my son, but I'm a little concerned about getting him too competitive. He already gets upset in the am if I'm on the toilet and he's on his potty and I finish before him. He starts crying, noooo, I want to pee first.

[hedra]

With the sibling issue involved, the racing backfires big time. It ends up all being 'I'm first, no ME first, I got HERE first, I get to BE first!' ARGH.

We find (at least getting four out the door) that it works to:

a) Figure out the child's normal function and drive - if speed is in their nature, we ... well, we WOULD use it if any of them had it! Instead, we use their focus, their desire to help others ('how can we all help M get ready?'), and sometimes, on the flip side, their urge to do it themselves (setting them up to be ABLE to do it themselves is key - everything accessible, at a pace they can handle - blocks of time have to be bigger for them than for us).

and
b) Meet their needs and goals in the process. Because mainly they don't care if we're on time, *I* do. That's my problem. I can try to make it theirs, but that's pretty much lying, just creatively. Instead, we make it clear that *I* want help getting out the door on time, and problem-solve around that.

Oh, and for the older kids, we ask them to figure out a plan for themselves that will get them out the door ready at X time, and then work with them to see if the plan succeeds, and if not, tweak the plan until we get one that works. Funny, they often end up where we started (that is, hey, finishing the responsibilities before playing means I'm ready to go when it's time, huh!), and funnier, they actually don't resist the idea when they've figured it out themselves ('Mom, today my plan is to eat breakfast, get dressed, and THEN play.'). I don't care who gets credit for figuring it out, it's solved. :)

We also have one child who isn't necessarily slow, but is easily upset by pressure and stress (anxiety issue). She's MUCH happier if we don't race the entire time, but she does just fine with 'I know you've been working on getting your shoes on quickly, can you show me how good you've gotten at that?' A bit of speed in there is fine, but the 'racing' isn't so useful for her.

Ah, well - again, many ideas, surely there will be one that fits your child! (And I have a leisurely child in there, too. He understands the slow pace intimately. It is a help to get ME so slow down. And another child is not specifically SLOWER pace, but just longer duration in each state of being. Which is a different issue again. But also has great things for me to learn and understand, too. And just waiting for a count of 20 before asking her to do anything often gets better results than asking before she's ready.)

[Greg]

What gets my 4 year old motivated to get dressed is my wife "racing" him to the bathroom (he goes before he gets dressed) and threatening to put his underwear on her head.

Works much better than my "GET DRESSED NOW!!!"

[jeanne]

My 4.5 yo daughter loves her cartoons. One 30 minute cartoon in the AM will not ruin her life so we decide on a favorite (usually Dora)and what needs to be accomplished before she can watch it. So she knows that to watch a show she has to get dressed and have breakfast first. This helps me get her ready and leave on time and gives Daddy some quiet time to get ready. They meet after the show to brush teeth and put shoes on. If she messes around too much, no time for a show. Got lots of tears the first few times that happened, but the rule stands and now she says "maybe tomorrow"