November 25, 2025 • 41 mins
If your mornings feel like a daily emotional avalanche, lost shoes, floppy limbs, scratchy socks, MELTDOWNS, you’re not alone. In this episode, Jon goes back to the original Whole Parent format and answers real listener questions about morning routines, meltdowns, and the brain science behind why kids fall apart at the exact same time every day.
Instead of asking “What am I doing wrong?”, we flip the script:
What if the problem isn’t you… it’s the lack of brutal predictability?
Jon breaks down how kids’ underdeveloped executive function makes mornings uniquely hard—and how a simple, boring, repeatable routine can take the mental load off their brains and yours.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why mornings are so hard for kids’ brains
How an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, weak time sense, and limited executive function make “getting out the door” way more complex for kids than it is for adults. - The power of “brutally predictable” routines
Why turning mornings into the same simple sequence every day (with visual aids, checklists, or songs) actually reduces meltdowns and resistance. - How long it should really take to get out the house
Jon’s 20-minute rule for shoes/coats/backpacks—and why building in buffer time makes you less likely to snap, rush, or bark orders. - Connecting before correcting
What to do in the first 3–5 minutes after kids wake up, and why a few minutes of cuddle + connection can change the whole morning. - When your kid’s “routine” includes a meltdown
How kids unconsciously bake the meltdown into the pattern—and how to replace that step with connection, play, or a job instead of power struggles. - Brain-based hacks that actually feel doable
Including:- Turning the morning into a game instead of a battle
- Giving kids simple “jobs” that channel their energy
- The “put the shoes to bed” trick to end the Great Shoe Hunt every morning
Listener questions in this episode:
- Nancy:
“My 6-year-old wakes up slow and my 3-year-old wakes up fiery. No matter how early I start, we’re either late or someone is screaming. What am I doing wrong in our morning routine?” - Dave:
“Every morning falls apart at the exact same spot: shoes and coats. My 4-year-old goes floppy, my toddler zigzags half-dressed, and I feel my patience evaporate. How do I break this pattern without becoming the drill sergeant I swore I’d never be?” - Anonymous (aka The Great Shoe Hunt):
“Every single morning turns into a shoe hunt. One shoe is in the pantry, the other in the bathtub. Is there a brain hack for kids who cannot keep track of their shoes?”
Key Takeaways:
- Your mornings probably aren’t failing because you’re a “bad” parent. They’re failing because kids’ brains can’t carry that many steps without structure.
- A brutally predictable routine + a visual aid (chart, checklist, pictures, or song) can remove 80% of the morning chaos.
- Build in more time than you think you need so you’re not parenting from panic and hurry.
- Connection first, then routine: those first minutes after wake-up are prime time to fill your child’s emotional cup.
- If your kid’s “routine” currently includes a meltdown, your goal is not to shame it away—but to replace that step with play, jobs, or connection.
- Responsibility (like putting shoes “to bed” at night) isn’t punishment—it’s how kids build agency, confidence, and resilience.
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Episode Transcript
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Jon @WholeParent (00:00):
When you say what am I doing wrong, the
answer is actually less of whatyou're doing wrong and just what
you're not doing.
And what you're not doing ismaking this entire process so
brutally predictable that theirbrain, which is underdeveloped,
which has a hard time predictingthe future, which has a hard
time to uh orient steps in aseries.
These are all executivefunctions.
You have taken away all of thismental and cognitive challenges
(00:25):
from morning routine.
And now it just becomes a gameof just following the steps.
Hello and welcome to the WholeApparent Podcast.
I am so excited that you arejoining me today.
You can tell that this podcastis going to be a little bit
(00:47):
different than the last couplethat you've heard just by that
little intro.
And I already have a bugsitting on my microphone, which
is funny.
Sometimes these little stinkbugs get into my house and then
they like run amuck because I'mon my porch.
It's a beautiful day here.
I'm excited because we're like,I'm back out on the porch, even
though it's mid-November orlate November.
(01:09):
Thanksgiving's this week.
And uh oftentimes at this timeof the year, I have to have like
all sorts of heaters on andstuff out here because I'm in an
uninsulated room in Chicago.
But um this morning it was justlike warm when I woke up, so I
was like, all right, let'srecord some podcast episodes, or
a podcast episode at least.
Um, this is a little bitdifferent than the uh the last
(01:30):
couple podcast episodes thatI've recorded, and I wanted to
give you a little bit of anupdate on that before I jump and
dive right into our materialfor today.
Um, as you probably can tell,the podcast has been pretty
different in the last boy year,year and a half than how it
started.
When we started, I was doingcaller or not really caller,
(01:53):
emailed in questions, whereparents would email me questions
or DM me questions, and I gethundreds of questions a day from
DMs and things like that.
And I would take those and Iwould kind of organize them into
questions that are aroundsimilar ideas, like sibling
rivalry, or in this case today,we're talking about morning
routines, a bunch of questionsthat stem from getting up in the
(02:15):
morning and getting out thedoor.
And I would change the, or Iwould I would put those
questions uh onto a just a verysimple Google Doc, and then I
would read them live on thepodcast and I would just respond
in real time.
Sometimes I would make a couplenotes ahead of time, but I
would really try and respond asif I was on group coaching.
So for those who might notknow, I do a membership, and
inside the membership, I domonthly group coaching.
(02:36):
I've been doing that for overtwo years, and actually when it
first started, it was likeweekly group coaching.
So I've done like hundreds ofthese coaching calls where I sit
with people and I ask questionsanswer questions just like
this.
And what I've received over andover from people inside the
membership is like the best partof the membership is watching
just the replays.
They're like, I use this as mymonthly podcast from you.
(02:56):
And so that's how the podcaststarted.
And it was great.
We had a ton of peoplelistening.
We covered some awesome things,had a bunch of five-star
reviews.
And you would say, John, why'dyou change anything?
And the answer is because I'm alittle ADHD, uh, not a little,
I'm a lot ADHD, and I got kindof bored with doing the same
thing every time.
And so I started interviewingdifferent parenting experts.
(03:19):
And those interviews did notalways attract the same amount
of attention and interest justbecause it wasn't as practical,
like boots on the ground typeparenting answers to questions,
not as much neuroscience.
It was talking to experts thatI was really passionate and
excited about talking to, butbut not everybody was was here
for it.
And so I adjusted that over thethe time that I was
(03:39):
interviewing people and Istarted to interview people and
then envelop those into uhepisodes where they were
scripted out.
I would read the script for youof exactly what I wrote out.
So it's more like my writing,less like my talking or my
coaching or my social mediacontent.
And I would script those outand then I would insert the
(04:00):
interview, like the keyinterview clips or the best
parts of those interviews intothose grander podcast episodes.
And I would add all sorts ofmusic and high production value.
And while that is really great,and I think that those episodes
are really, really good andwill kind of stand as a monument
or a testament to a tremendousamount of work.
The problem is I just can'tpump them out very quickly,
(04:20):
right?
If you look back, episodes comeout, you know, every three
weeks.
There's periods where I have totake entire months or several
months in a row off just becauseit's impossible to record uh
and edit and write and do allthe stuff and organize the
interviews and host theinterviews and go back for uh
questions that we missed andstuff like that after the fact.
(04:42):
So what I'm doing now, or whatwhat it eventually morphed into,
was uh doing kind of standaloneepisodes where I was scripting
them out and I didn't even haveguests.
And if you look back at thelast few, several of those are
those episodes where they'rescripted.
I read off what I've alreadywritten and I add all of this
music, and it's kind of has likea this American life type feel
(05:02):
if you are familiar with thatpodcast.
And again, those just take somuch time.
They take so much and aninordinate amount of time of
editing and writing and uh anadditional research because I
like cite a lot of studies andthings like that.
And while I love that, and Iwould love to do that kind of
professionally or or full time,the truth is the podcast is a
(05:24):
net negative financially for me.
So uh I pay money to do thispodcast, I don't get paid money
to do this podcast.
And so as a result, um again, Ijust wasn't putting them out
very quickly or or frequently.
And uh it means that people areleft kind of in the lurch, just
going, well, I came here forpractical parenting advice, and
(05:44):
now you're giving me this likekind of philosophical
storytelling parentingphilosophy, I guess that's the
right word.
And while that's important andexciting and fun to listen to, I
want more than one episode amonth.
So, all of this long, long,long intro to say, today we
return back to something thatI've been encouraged by so many
(06:08):
of you to do for so long, whichis just John, can you just start
answering questions again?
Like, you don't even have toedit it, you don't have to add
music, you don't have to addanything.
Just like edit, just just justput these, hit record, record
these podcasts, and then you canput out, you know, one a week,
or even maybe more than one aweek if if you're able to record
more than one a week.
(06:28):
And so here I am.
We're talking about morningroutines this morning, and I'm
gonna jump in with our firstcaller question.
Um, this one is from Nancy, andshe says, Hi John, my question
is about morning routines.
My six-year-old wakes up slow,and my three-year-old wakes up
fiery.
It's hard to balance all theemotions coming at me before 8
(06:50):
a.m.
Somehow I end up bouncingbetween brushing someone's hair,
negotiating which socks feeltoo scratchy, and no matter how
early I get started, we'reeither late or someone has
screamed at each other.
I grew up in a house wheremornings were tense, to put it
mildly.
I can feel some of that oldwiring kicking in.
Okay, I can tell Nancy it'sread my book.
What am I doing wrong?
(07:11):
Okay, Nancy, the first thingthat I want to say is that
you're not doing anything wrong,right?
So let's put aside this notionthat there's a right and a wrong
way to parent in these momentsbeyond not harming your kids,
right?
So I don't wanna I don't wannastart from a place of saying,
well, if I was perfect, none ofthis would happen, and it must
(07:34):
all be on me.
I love parent-centric ideas orthinking about parenting rather
than child-centric ideas aboutparenting.
What I mean by that is ratherthan blaming the kid for having
an underdeveloped brain or brainblaming in some way like just
kids in general, inherently, allkids are bad or all kids are
(07:56):
annoying.
This is where you get phraseslike the terrible twos or the
you know, terrible threes.
I've heard three nature, all ofthis stuff.
Um, instead of thinking of itin those terms, it's much
better, I think, to think aboutparenting from a parent-centric
model, which it looks at, okay,I can't change everything, I
can't fix everything, but I cando those things that are
(08:18):
possible for me to do.
And those changes will, on thelong, in the long term, on the
grand scale, make positivechange for my kid.
And so I love that you'restarting from that point, but I
want to rephrase that what am Idoing wrong just right off the
bat and say, okay, it may not bethat you're not that you're
doing anything wrong.
It may just be that there arebetter or more effective ways to
(08:41):
do morning routines that don'tlead to this kind of snapping.
And the first piece of advicethat I give people with morning
routines, and you've alreadykind of done this here, you've
already said this, and so I'mkind of giving this advice not
just to you, Nancy, but toanybody who's struggling with
morning routines, is to set yourexpectations that it's going to
take you 20 minutes to get outof the house a minimum.
(09:02):
So if you have to leave thehouse, like for in my case, we
have to be out of the house by8.35.
We got to be in the car, 8.35,driving to school.
My kids' school is about 20minutes away and they're
supposed to be there between8.50 and 9 o'clock.
I know that I need to givemyself a five-minute-ish buffer
in case there's traffic or weget stopped by a train or
(09:24):
something like that.
And just in general, because Iknow even if I say 8.35 is my
intention, if it's 8.37, I don'twant to then be two minutes
late, right?
So I've even built in anotherfive-minute buffer for myself
there.
And sometimes we need itbecause, like I said, you can
get stuck by two trains goingthe opposite direction or
something like that.
So first thing that you gottado is you just gotta set that
(11:18):
intention.
It's gonna take 20 minutesgetting out of the house.
So if I'm 8:35 is my leavetime, that means at 8.15, I need
to start that movement ofsaying shoes, coats.
In my case, it's usually likesnowsuits, uh, extra clothes.
My kids go to four school, sothere's a lot of additional
things, obviously, a lunch forlunch, things like that.
(11:38):
And I gotta start that movement20 minutes before we have to
leave.
And for people who don't havekids, I don't know why you'd be
listening to the podcast, but incase you are listening and you
don't have kids yet, that seemscrazy because it's like, how
long does it take to put yourshoes on and walk out of the
house?
For for an adult, a minute,maybe two, right?
But for a child, when you'renavigating all of these things,
(11:59):
and it might come up, hey, bythe way, I'm still hungry, I
gotta eat, or I have to go tothe bathroom, which is actually
a good thing to do anytimebefore you leave the house
because it's just, you know, doit there and where you have
parental uh reminders to do thatinstead of even maybe your kids
on a bus or something and thenthey pee their pants and then
you've got to go drive to schoolor something.
So it's always good to do thatbefore you leave the house.
(12:20):
But all of these differentthings are gonna pile on top of
you.
And so setting that intentionthat you have to leave 20
minutes earlier, or you have tostart to leave 20 minutes
earlier than you intend toleave, is like first and
primary.
And so, Nancy, you're alreadydoing that.
You're already starting fromthe best possible thing, which
is no matter how early I start,uh, we're either late or someone
(12:42):
snaps.
So you've already started bysaying, well, at least you're
not putting that additionalrushing on kids.
And I will say, this is a goodmoment to just say when you have
that 20-minute buffer to getout of the house, you are far
less likely to be like, oh myGod, we're late.
Come on, hurry up, hurry up,hurry up.
And that stuff really, reallygets to kids in a negative way.
And it makes them melt down,and then it's slower getting out
(13:05):
of the house, and it justeverything is is worse.
So you might think, oh, okay,well, for we only have five
minutes to get out of the house,I can just start barking orders
and pushing people out of thehouse.
But that is not usually goingto work.
It's usually going to backfire.
So now that we have our ourleave time, whatever that is for
you, Nancy, for me it's 8 35.
Now we've moved back 20minutes.
(13:25):
So we've we've said, okay,that's when we're going to start
putting our backpack on,putting our shoes on, putting
our coat on.
And by the way, if you wind upgetting way out of the house 10
minutes early or even 15 minutesearly, playing in the front
yard for an additional 15minutes before the bus comes or
before you have to get in thecar is actually a very
regulating, positive activity onthe whole.
So even if you wind up going,okay, John, but but I don't need
(13:47):
20 minutes to get out of thehouse.
I only need five.
And now my kids are outside andthey're they're cold and it's
they have 15 minutes to standout there, then give them more
clothes.
Like dress them up warmer.
Because that extra 15 minutesof just calm play before they
actually enter neath enter intothat space of of shifting into a
new environment is a netpositive for them.
So let's let's start with thatintention.
(14:08):
We're gonna leave, we're gonnastart getting ready 20 minutes
ahead of when we actually haveto leave.
And even if that means thatwe're early, that's okay.
Uh, next, I would workbackwards from that leave point
so that my mine's 815, I don'tknow what yours is.
I'd work backwards from that,and I would set the next, let's
say, 30 to 45 minutes.
I would create a routine thatis brutally predictable every
(14:34):
single day, the same thing.
And like I said, it does it itcould it could only be 30
minutes.
It only has to be 30 minutes.
But that routine is going toinclude things like breakfast,
as I already said, going to thebathroom, um, getting clothes
on, although I have actuallyskipped that one.
I put my kids in the clothesthat they're gonna wear the next
day uh overnight.
I don't know if that's weird,but I've just learned that if
(14:56):
PJs is one more thing I don'twant to have to deal with in the
morning, especially because I'mgetting my kids all these
additional clothes to go out andspend all day in the forest.
And so uh I just do that thenight before.
So you you may have differentones than me.
Maybe yours is, like you said,uh brushing somebody's hair.
I have uh one daughter and Ihave to brush her hair, but
she's only one year old, so ittakes about six seconds.
(15:18):
Uh none of my other kids havelong enough hair that I really
have to brush, so maybe that'spart of your morning routine.
But every single aspect of thismorning routine is going to be
brutally predictable.
And I would make a physicalvisual aid for that.
So I would literally sit downwith your child, you can have
them, especially thesix-year-old, uh contribute to
(15:40):
that visual aid, contribute tothat morning routine.
They can draw the pictures forit or something.
And I would literally like, youknow, if it's a checklist that
they can check off on uh withlike a whiteboard marker, or if
it's a sticker that they can puton each one of their things or
whatever, or if it's a post-itnote that they can cover up, or
you can make like a if you wantto get really fancy, you can go
(16:01):
in and make like a fold-downchart where they fold down each
step of it.
Uh I have that downloadablethat's available for people
inside my membership for bedtimeroutine, and I think I might
even have one for morningroutine.
But whatever it is, you'regoing to have those, let's say,
a minimum of four steps thatthey're going to do every single
morning.
And those steps are going to bebrutally consistent.
(16:22):
So now we've taken out of theequation basically any uh change
or any variability.
We've just said every singlemorning, here are going to be
the steps.
Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, eightfifteen, now we're getting our
backpacks on, we're getting ourshoes on, boots on, whatever.
(16:43):
Bundled up, lunch in thelunchbox, whatever, out the
door.
Right.
And if you're early, great, nowwe're playing in the front yard
or the backyard or on thestreet corner, wherever that
looks like for you.
When you set that brutallypredictable routine, now a lot
of that tension, a lot of thataggression, a lot of that
(17:07):
feeling rushed, um, just likethe old wiring that comes in
when things don't go well, a lotof that can be mitigated by the
fact that you're actuallythings are going to go well.
And I know that that soundskind of silly or or like
foolish, but when you makethings so brutally predictable,
(17:30):
then kids just kind of fall intothat pattern and they fall in
line.
This is the exact same thing,and I don't I should probably
look ahead at my other questionshere before I answer this
because maybe somebody's gonnasay they really don't like going
to school.
But if if one of the issues isthat your kid doesn't like going
to school, one of the toppieces of advice for that as
well is make a routine that'sbrutally predictable, that they
(17:52):
just that it just happens theexact same way every day, so
there's no variability, so thatthey're not um kind of finding
ways to derail the process.
They're gonna do but, bop, bop,but.
And here's the beautiful part.
If there's a visual aid, ifthey've helped to plan this, now
you can actually, after weekone, maybe after I would guess
with your six-year-old afterweek one, maybe with your
(18:12):
three-year-old, it's after weektwo or week three.
You can start to say, like,what's next?
What's next on the routinelist?
Next, it's this, next, it'sthis, next, it's this.
You can make up a song if youdon't want to do a visual aid,
or you can make up a song thatgoes with the visual aid.
Whatever you want to do, everysingle step of that needs to be
brutally consistent.
Now, two weeks in, you canstart to add some variability.
(18:34):
You can say, Oh, do you want todo this first or that first?
I'm not saying that I would dothat, but if you need to do that
for whatever reason, you canstart to do that.
But before two weeks, I wouldjust make that brutally
consistent.
And what will happen is you'llrealize very quickly a routine
that took at the beginning, wesaid it's gonna be a 30-minute
um morning routine followed by a20 minutes of uh actually
(18:57):
getting out the door into thecar, onto the bus, whatever.
That 50-minute routine youprobably can shrink down by the
end of week one, by the end ofweek two for sure.
You're gonna realize, you knowwhat, that 30-minute routine
probably only takes 20 minutesnow because my kids are actually
doing what they need to do,blah, blah, blah.
And so let's give it 25 minutesinstead.
Okay, we've been getting outthe door in two and a half to
(19:20):
five minutes for two weeksstraight.
We can shrink that 20-minutetime down to 10 minutes, right?
No big deal.
You can adjust the timing ofit, but I wouldn't adjust the
steps.
So, in other words, to go takeit all the way back to the
beginning, when you say, What amI doing wrong?
The answer is actually less ofwhat you're doing wrong and just
what you're not doing.
(19:41):
And what you're not doing ismaking this entire process so
brutally predictable that theirbrain, which is underdeveloped,
which has a hard time predictingthe future, which has a hard
time to uh orient steps uh in aseries, right?
These are all executivefunctions, things that you as an
adult hopefully have mastered.
You have taken away all of thismental and cognitive challenges
(20:04):
from morning routine, and nowit just becomes a game of just
following the steps in theseries with the visual aid, with
the whatever, and all of asudden they're out the door.
So that's where I think wereally need to get to that
point.
And that is going to be it'sgonna carry through all of our
(20:26):
questions today, but that'swhere I want to begin the
episode, or I guess we're likehalfway through the episode
probably at this point, butthat's where I want to go first
because understanding howpowerful routines are, not just
because of discipline, not justbecause of these other positive
things, but how powerfulroutines are because of the
underdeveloped nature of ourchild's prefrontal cortex, which
(20:47):
is the part of their brainwhich organizes items and
systems and uh can do theseexecutive functioning like tasks
to get out the door.
The reason that you can get outthe door in a minute and a half
and it takes them five or tenor fifteen or even twenty,
right?
All of those things, we'reremoving those barriers.
And once we remove thosebarriers, it's gonna go a lot
more smoothly.
And some days it's still gonnago bad.
(21:09):
If that's the case, that'sokay.
That's why we can repair.
And I have episodes on that,and I'm not gonna get into that
today.
All right, let's go to questiontwo.
All right, question two comesfrom Dave, and he says, uh, I
(21:34):
could really use your help withthis one, John.
Every morning we reach theshoes and coat part, and
everything falls apart.
My four-year-old becomes floppyand dramatic.
My toddler is zigzagging aroundthe house half dressed.
I feel my patience evaporate.
What's hard is how predictableit is.
The same spot, the samemeltdown every single day.
It's like our routine hits thesame emotional pothole, and I
(21:55):
don't know how to steer aroundit.
How do I break this patternwithout turning into a drill
sergeant that I swore that Iwouldn't become?
I love that, Dave.
So, to begin the answer to thatquestion, everything I just
said to Nancy about thebrutality of the routine
becoming the thing.
And now I'm gonna add a layerto it.
(22:17):
I'm gonna add a layer to it.
So, number one, we've alreadygotten to the point where we say
a lot of this is falling apart,probably because your kids have
identified that part of theirroutine for the morning is the
emotional meltdown.
So I want I want to just kindof like frame that in terms of
(22:38):
your kid will find routines andpatterns because the world is
not predictable to them.
Say that one more time.
Your kid will find routines andpatterns, maybe where they
aren't even there, or or whereyou wish they weren't, because
exactly because the world is notas predictable and consistent
(23:00):
as they might like it to be.
So, with that being said, partof your morning routine, Dave,
what I've just explained toNancy, part of your morning
routine is a meltdown.
That's one of the steps in yourmorning routine.
And what you're hoping to do isreplace that meltdown with
something else.
And so I here's how I would dothat in two ways, building upon
(23:24):
the idea that we can create thisroutine.
I would do the exact same stepsas Nancy.
Build the morning routinethat's brutally predictable.
Um, give yourself additionaltime when it's actually time to
get out the door.
That's gonna help you as well.
Now, I'm gonna take it one stepfurther.
Before the routine starts, Ithink we add a step, like
literally right when your childwakes up.
(23:45):
And that step is to connectemotionally with your kids.
I know a lot of parents, and Iunderstand this impulse, and I'm
not shaming anyone because I'vedone it in our house.
We have been in seasons wherethis has been the morning
routine.
A lot of parents will have akid who gets up at 6 a.m.
and you said you have afour-year-old who becomes floppy
and dramatic, right?
And your toddler is zigzaggingaround the house.
(24:07):
I'm gonna just assume here thatyou might be up in the middle
of the night, right?
And if you're not, that's fine.
But in my case, with aone-year-old, uh, the last year
I've been up a lot of times inthe middle of the night.
Two nights ago, I was still upfor most of the night, which is
crazy to think about.
But she woke up in the middleof the night and she's just like
wired, wide awake.
(24:27):
Not upset, not unhappy.
Um, this kid has been achampion sleeper for her
basically her whole life.
Um, I don't in comparison to myother kids, at least.
Maybe other people might say,well, she's not that great of a
sleeper.
But man, if you had my firstthree kids, you would probably
look at her and go, wow, this isa huge blessing and break for
you that she ever sleeps throughthe night, or that she ever,
(24:49):
you know, is able to put herselfback to sleep in the middle of
the night, which is basically myother kids could not, or two of
the three of my other kidscould not ever do that until
they were much older than she isnow.
But a couple nights ago, shewakes up and she's just like
wired, like happy, awake, justlike crawling around in her
sleep sack, just like trying tobe like, hey, come on, go, let's
get up, let's be.
It's 1 a.m., right?
(25:10):
This is like literally thedirect middle of her sleep
cycle.
So she goes to bed at seven,she wakes up at seven.
So this is the direct middle ofwhen she's supposed to be
asleep.
And she was up for two hoursalmost on and off.
Um, she basically never snoozedduring that time and then slept
in until like 8:30, 8:45.
Uh, but in the mornings, all ofa sudden, how John, how does
(25:33):
this relate?
In the mornings, we createdkind of a de facto routine that
one of the first things my kidsdo when they get up is they have
to entertain themselves becauseeither me or my wife is just up
with our kids all night.
And I know that I'm gonna getcanceled for this.
But hopefully, if you've madeit this far through the podcast,
you have a general feeling thatI'm doing the best that I can.
Um, but part of entertainingthemselves is like sometimes
(25:54):
they just go down and grab uhthe remote and turn on a show
for themselves.
Or they sometimes go down andthey find uh the Nintendo Switch
and they just start playing it.
Or do some other screen thingdysregulating thing.
And then they go over to thesnack drawer and instead of
eating, you know, like awell-balanced breakfast of eggs
and and beyond sausage orsomething, they open that thing
(26:15):
up and they're just basicallyeating sugar.
Because I mean it's it's like agranola bar, a protein bar, but
it's like 90% sugar, right?
And so it's like, oh John,don't have that in your house.
Oh John, don't have screens inyour house.
Oh John, hide the remotes.
Okay, we could do all of that,and that's what we do in the
best scenarios.
But when our on some mornings,and there have been times when
our one-year-old, or at othertimes it's my young older kids,
(26:39):
when they were super little, sixmonths old, whatever, we're
like for a week straight, ourkid feels like they're getting
up and kind of taking care ofthemselves.
And if it means that we can beget another extra hour of sleep,
not wake up the the baby, andyou know, everybody else can be
more well-rested, that kid'sgonna be more dysregulated.
Like, that's the trade-off thatwe have sometimes.
(26:59):
But what I know is that a lotof those meltdowns, the floppy
and dramatic, as you're saying,the zigzagging around the house,
oh, super wired.
I can tell you that a lot ofthose, in at least in my house,
come from that time where if mykid has watched screens in the
morning, if my kid has not had,you know, enough protein for
(27:20):
breakfast, that stuff happens.
It happens.
And I just have to kind ofsmile and laugh and say, well,
this is what this is the cost ofthat extra hour of of rest or
snoozing or whatever on our onour hand uh on our part.
And you know what, to my kids'credit, if we ever, if they ever
need anything, if they ever gethurt or something, they just
(27:40):
come wake us up.
They don't they don't careabout that.
But but sometimes, you know,especially when the
nine-year-old's up and he cankind of navigate things and help
help his siblings with things,um, they just take advantage of
that opportunity to say, okay,I'm gonna have a I'm gonna have
a couple episodes of Bluey orwhatever before before uh mom
and dad really get up or or dadcomes out from being with a baby
or whatever.
And what we can replace thatwith in our routine, Dave, this
(28:04):
is a long roundabout way to get,what we can replace that time
with in our routine is saying,okay, instead of doing that the
first 20 minutes when they'reawake, if you can do this, if it
at all possible, you connectdeeply with your child.
Connect with them emotionally,have conversation with them, uh,
(28:26):
just cuddle with them.
We did that this morning withmy kids, just get ex you know,
20 minutes of cuddle time.
And that has the exact oppositeimpact.
There's this researcher,Jacques Penkstaff, who is the
first behavioral neuroscientistbasically, and he talks about
how you know three minutes afteryour kid wakes up is like prime
(28:46):
neurological brain like resetfor the day.
And if you can connect deeplywith your child in those three
minutes, they're gonna feelconnected with you for basically
the whole day.
And if you don't do that,you're gonna have a hard time
connecting with them for thewhole day.
So the first thing I would dois go, as hard as it is, and I
know that there aren't alwaysseasons where this is possible,
(29:07):
really deeply connect with yourfour-year-old and your toddler
first thing in the morning whenthey first wake up.
Again, three to five minutes.
It doesn't have to be a hugething, an extra cuddle.
You know, just hey, I love you,just being close to them.
And a lot of that is gonnabuild up that emotional and the
relational capital, and it'sgonna help you kind of carry
through the whole morningroutine.
The second piece of advice thatI would add to all of this, and
(29:30):
that was really long way, longway around way of getting to
that one.
The second piece of advice is Iwould say we need to somehow
turn this into a game.
We can we know that there andis excess energy there,
especially for the toddler toget out.
We know that the excess energyis there.
We know that they have a needthat they're trying to meet.
Um, that's why I say the forthe four-year-old, the floppy
(29:52):
and dramatic, the need that theyneed is to connect with you.
That's what they're trying todo.
For the toddler, there'sanother need that's met, needs
to be met, which is like justthey're wired, they're just
running everywhere.
That need, the way that we meetthat need is by playing,
turning this into some form ofgame.
So, yes, we can do the routine,but maybe one part of the
(30:12):
routine is a game that is kindof active, right?
One part of the routine isafter we get our shoes and our
coats on, we run from one end ofthe house to the other and back
again.
Or we run around the block asfast as we can.
Whatever that piece is, we needto create one mark that is a
fun, positive connectionexperience for our child.
(30:33):
Usually that's through play,and it seems like it needs to be
active.
And if we can add those thingsto our routine, and Nancy, by
the way, you're free, feel freeif you're still listening.
Continue to do that as well.
Add a game to your morningroutine.
I think it's a great thing forany of us to do.
But especially for those kidswho are, they've created a
routine which includes ameltdown, which includes chaos.
(30:53):
We have to create a routinethat targets and kind of aims
that chaos.
Um, a great example of this,and I'm I'm I I can't spend too
much longer on this because Ihave to move on and finish the
episode.
But a great example of thislast night um I was standing in
line at Pop Belly, which is asandwich place here in Chicago.
I think there's locationselsewhere as well.
And um I always order my wife'sfood at the end.
(31:16):
So I go there with all my kids,but without my wife while she's
working, and I order her foodat the end so that it's not like
super soggy.
It's a hot sandwich, so it canbe like real soggy if it's we've
been there an hour orsomething.
So I order at the end.
And my uh three year old wasdone with being there.
He's almost four.
He was done with being there.
He's like running around, he'slike tearing.
Things up.
He's like getting into stuff.
There's like new higherorientation.
(31:37):
They don't know what to do withhim.
And I realized that while I wasordering the sandwich, I had to
assign him a job or a task.
And so I told him, and somethere was a mom in front of me
in line without her kids, andshe was like, Man, that was
really brilliant.
I love that.
You should share that withpeople.
I said, Hey, buddy, I have ajob for you.
And he comes over to me and Igo, Hey, can you uh can you go
stand?
Well, our table is near thebathrooms.
(31:58):
Um, all by the way, pro hack,right?
Sit near the bathrooms.
My three-year-old in the middleof his mac and cheese was like,
I have to be, and then we like,we're right there.
So it's great.
Anyway, we go, I say, go over,stand by our table, and I want
you to count the number ofpeople who go in and out of the
bathrooms while I'm ordering thesandwich.
I need to know how many peoplego in and out of the bathrooms.
And he's like, okay.
(32:19):
And so he runs over there andhe doesn't even do it.
He like gets distracted bysomething else that my son, my
my nine-year-old's doing, and helike winds up playing with him.
But I needed to redirect himfrom causing chaos.
And so I had to create a gameto redirect him.
Just saying, don't do that,stop that right now.
Do you sit right here?
Is almost always gonna receivethat pushback because why the
reason that they're doing thatcraziness or running around half
(32:40):
dressed is because they'retrying to get a fundamental need
met.
This is what I talk about inchapter two of my book, right?
Like you there is a need thatneeds to be met.
Unless we meet the need, we aregonna continue to see the
behavior.
Their kids will meet theirneeds in uh in maladaptive ways
if we don't give them adaptiveways to meet them, right?
And I could have given myfive-year-old another task.
I could have said, okay, youstand by the bathrooms, you
(33:02):
count the people coming in andout.
I could have said to myfive-year-old, don't let them go
in the bathroom after thesepeople, right?
I'm gonna we we can stack thejobs, right, on top of each
other.
All right, so that's what we'retalking about routines.
What are the types of things wecan add to our routines so that
we don't become the drillsergeant?
And by the way, if you want,don't want to be the drill
sergeant, you have to replacethat with the the reason the
drill sergeant is effective isthis is what I was trying to get
(33:23):
to and I forgot.
Uh the reason the drillsergeant is effective is because
they bark orders and they'relike really firm and they are
there's a lot of energy there.
You can give bring that energywithout that posture.
So you can bring the sameamount of energy without the you
know, hey, do this or else.
Um, you can you can my wifecalls it green energy.
(33:43):
You can just be, hey, likelet's do this instead.
Redirect positive.
Okay, last question.
Um, here we go.
Uh this one is oh, this persondid not send their name in.
So I don't know who this isfrom, but it's a funny question,
so I I want to keep it.
It says, hey John, okay, I havea serious parenting situation
(34:10):
for you.
Every single morning in myhouse, uh, every single morning
in my house turns into a shoehunt.
My six-year-old shoes vanishcompletely into another
dimension.
We'll find one in the pantry,one in the bathtub, or
something.
Do you have any brain hacksthat will work for this?
I do.
I do have a brain hack thatwill work for this.
(34:31):
Everything that I've said sofar, turn it into a game.
Yes, yes.
The great shoe hunt actuallylean into that, right?
But I think another great hackhere, and this is kind of goes
with the setting up the morningroutine at the beginning.
And this is this is a classicmorning issue that people have.
Included in the morning routineis getting is setting yourself
(34:52):
up for success the night before.
And a lot of parents do this byafter the kids go to bed, they
pack the lunches, they get allthe backpacks together, they
line up everything foreverybody.
And I'm not opposed to that.
If that's how you want to dothis, you go ahead and do that
right now.
Go find the shoe in the bathtubat night before you go to bed.
Don't go to bed without knowingwhere the shoes are.
That's totally something thatyou can do.
But if you want to empower asix-year-old, who, by the way,
(35:15):
might be seven soon, right?
Might be eight soon, thesethese kids at some point are
gonna grow up and need the tolearn discipline and
responsibility.
And not in a negative way, in apositive way, right?
They wanna, they, they have tolearn responsibility because
responsibility grants a childagency and autonomy.
And children who uh who aregiven tasks like this, like,
hey, keep track of your shoes,wind up being kids who feel
(35:37):
confident and resilient, right?
So if we do everything for ourkids, they're not gonna feel
confident and resilient.
We're encouraging them to findways and adaptive ways to do
this stuff, it's gonna make themconfident and resilient.
So this is positive for yourchild, right?
When I say it responsibilityand discipline, these are things
that make people feel goodabout themselves.
Okay.
So what I would do with thesix-year-old is I would I would
turn this into a game as well.
(35:58):
But the way that I would turnthis into the game is actually
the night before I would say,like, the shoes need a place
where they sleep.
And I love this phraseology.
The shoes have a place wherethey sleep because kids
fundamentally understand thatthey have a place where they
sleep.
And they understand that everynight at the same time they go
to bed in this place.
And now we can make a storyabout how our kids, the shoes,
(36:20):
need to go to sleep.
And this would be a greatchildren's book, by the way.
Maybe I'll write this somedayas a children's book.
But the shoes need to find aplace where they sleep.
And we can do that in a coupledifferent ways.
We can have a shoe rack whereall the shoes sleep together.
We could have literallysomething as simple as some
masking tape on the ground inthe in the mud room area where
our kid has to put their shoesin this box and this is their
(36:41):
bed where they sleep.
You could literally uh have acardboard box.
You could have a little chestwhere the shoes sleep, and they
have to go in there and theyhave to close it up so that it's
dark and they can go to bed.
But you really what you want toestablish is this routine for
your child where they're doingthis the night before and they
can feel a sense of agency.
And that part of bedtimeroutine now becomes, did you put
(37:03):
your shoes to bed?
And by the way, that can alsotrigger to them that it's time
for them to go to bed.
So this becomes kind of like adouble uh framing around
routines of saying, hey, this isthe game.
The game is put the shoes tobed, your kid goes and finds
them.
Probably your kid's gonna havea much clearer picture of where
their shoes are that night,where they probably took them
(37:24):
off, you know, within the lastthree to four, five hours than
the next morning after they'vejust slept on it.
Not always, but some uh somekids always know where their
shoes are, some kids never knowwhere their shoes are.
I can tell you from experience,my nine-year-old, um, he he
will know where something isthat he buried in the backyard a
year ago.
Like he has an incrediblememory, it puts me to shame.
(37:45):
He frequently knows where mystuff is, and I don't.
Um he was actually out in thebackyard looking for something
that somebody pulled out of mywallet, uh, just not even a week
ago.
Or, you know, that happened,and then he was trying to find
it today.
He knew where it was.
Um, when it comes to his shoes,this kid has no recollection.
And it's because it's anunconscious habit for him to
(38:07):
take off his shoes.
It's an unconscious habit forhim to just kind of do this and
he doesn't think about it.
So it's not like he feelshimself putting it down, it's
just happens, right?
And then he doesn't think aboutit because it's become so rote
and so um the you know part ofhis day that he doesn't ever
have to can even consider.
Well, now if you make thatroutine of here's the shoes have
to go to bed, which by the way,we've done in our house in in
(38:28):
some form or fashion.
And we've oscillated back andforth between like, I'm just
gonna lay out everything forthem the night before because I
don't want to have to deal withthis, and between like really
trying to instill that sense ofvalue and responsibility.
But when they have that, theycan really do this, and it's
incredible the positiveassociation that kids have when
they have something like that.
So uh I cannot save you thegreat shoe hunt every single
(38:49):
morning, but I I do think thatone of the best things we can do
is to create those otherroutines.
And this couples as a bedtimeroutine too, where you're
putting the shoes to bed and nowwe're gonna go to bed
ourselves.
Um, but that's the way that Iwould do this.
That's how I would handle this.
And it is a brain hack becauseit's play-based.
And anything that is play-basedis inherently a brain hack
because it works with adifferent part of their brain.
(39:09):
If they see it as a chore and atask that they're being forced
to do, they're going to beresistant to it, no matter what
the kid is, especially youngerkids, but um all kids will be
more or less resistant to that.
But if they see it as like thistask that they are doing
together in a shared way, andyou can go put your shoes to bed
at the same time or something,right?
(39:30):
You don't have to do this allon their own.
But that's how I would solvethat, and probably that adds
back into the other twoquestions as well.
I don't know if uh in Dave'scase, right, if a lot of the
reason that his four-year-oldbecomes floppy and dramatic is
because he can't find shoes.
I don't know if part of thesix-year-old uh and
three-year-old with Nancy, thereason that it's tense in the
(39:50):
morning is because they can'tfind their shoes.
So please feel free to use allof these guys.
And I hope that uh I hope thatit helps you.
All right.
That is what I have for thisepisode on morning routines.
As always, if you want tosupport me, the podcast, if you
want to support me on socialmedia, the way to do that is not
only to like and subscribe andshare all of the content that
(40:11):
you see there, but also to headover to Substack.
On Substack uh for $5 a month,you can just be one of the
people who donates to make surethat Whole Parent can keep
going.
Always join my email list.
I'll have a link to that in theshow notes where I send out
emails every single week withgreat advice, parenting advice.
Uh some of that morephilosophical stuff that I talk
about on episodes.
(40:32):
You can obviously on Substack,I post all my emails on Substack
for paid subscribers, so youcan always see my previous
emails there as well.
And yeah, that's what I havefor you today.
I hope that all of your morningroutines go smoothly.
I know that they won't always,um, but I hope that this stuff
helps you parent a little bitbetter today.
This has been the whole parentpodcast.
When you say what am I doing wrong, the
answer is actually less of whatyou're doing wrong and just what
you're not doing.
And what you're not doing ismaking this entire process so
brutally predictable that theirbrain, which is underdeveloped,
which has a hard time predictingthe future, which has a hard
time to uh orient steps in aseries.
These are all executivefunctions.
You have taken away all of thismental and cognitive challenges
(00:25):
from morning routine.
And now it just becomes a gameof just following the steps.
Hello and welcome to the WholeApparent Podcast.
I am so excited that you arejoining me today.
You can tell that this podcastis going to be a little bit
(00:47):
different than the last couplethat you've heard just by that
little intro.
And I already have a bugsitting on my microphone, which
is funny.
Sometimes these little stinkbugs get into my house and then
they like run amuck because I'mon my porch.
It's a beautiful day here.
I'm excited because we're like,I'm back out on the porch, even
though it's mid-November orlate November.
(01:09):
Thanksgiving's this week.
And uh oftentimes at this timeof the year, I have to have like
all sorts of heaters on andstuff out here because I'm in an
uninsulated room in Chicago.
But um this morning it was justlike warm when I woke up, so I
was like, all right, let'srecord some podcast episodes, or
a podcast episode at least.
Um, this is a little bitdifferent than the uh the last
(01:30):
couple podcast episodes thatI've recorded, and I wanted to
give you a little bit of anupdate on that before I jump and
dive right into our materialfor today.
Um, as you probably can tell,the podcast has been pretty
different in the last boy year,year and a half than how it
started.
When we started, I was doingcaller or not really caller,
(01:53):
emailed in questions, whereparents would email me questions
or DM me questions, and I gethundreds of questions a day from
DMs and things like that.
And I would take those and Iwould kind of organize them into
questions that are aroundsimilar ideas, like sibling
rivalry, or in this case today,we're talking about morning
routines, a bunch of questionsthat stem from getting up in the
(02:15):
morning and getting out thedoor.
And I would change the, or Iwould I would put those
questions uh onto a just a verysimple Google Doc, and then I
would read them live on thepodcast and I would just respond
in real time.
Sometimes I would make a couplenotes ahead of time, but I
would really try and respond asif I was on group coaching.
So for those who might notknow, I do a membership, and
inside the membership, I domonthly group coaching.
(02:36):
I've been doing that for overtwo years, and actually when it
first started, it was likeweekly group coaching.
So I've done like hundreds ofthese coaching calls where I sit
with people and I ask questionsanswer questions just like
this.
And what I've received over andover from people inside the
membership is like the best partof the membership is watching
just the replays.
They're like, I use this as mymonthly podcast from you.
(02:56):
And so that's how the podcaststarted.
And it was great.
We had a ton of peoplelistening.
We covered some awesome things,had a bunch of five-star
reviews.
And you would say, John, why'dyou change anything?
And the answer is because I'm alittle ADHD, uh, not a little,
I'm a lot ADHD, and I got kindof bored with doing the same
thing every time.
And so I started interviewingdifferent parenting experts.
(03:19):
And those interviews did notalways attract the same amount
of attention and interest justbecause it wasn't as practical,
like boots on the ground typeparenting answers to questions,
not as much neuroscience.
It was talking to experts thatI was really passionate and
excited about talking to, butbut not everybody was was here
for it.
And so I adjusted that over thethe time that I was
(03:39):
interviewing people and Istarted to interview people and
then envelop those into uhepisodes where they were
scripted out.
I would read the script for youof exactly what I wrote out.
So it's more like my writing,less like my talking or my
coaching or my social mediacontent.
And I would script those outand then I would insert the
(04:00):
interview, like the keyinterview clips or the best
parts of those interviews intothose grander podcast episodes.
And I would add all sorts ofmusic and high production value.
And while that is really great,and I think that those episodes
are really, really good andwill kind of stand as a monument
or a testament to a tremendousamount of work.
The problem is I just can'tpump them out very quickly,
(04:20):
right?
If you look back, episodes comeout, you know, every three
weeks.
There's periods where I have totake entire months or several
months in a row off just becauseit's impossible to record uh
and edit and write and do allthe stuff and organize the
interviews and host theinterviews and go back for uh
questions that we missed andstuff like that after the fact.
(04:42):
So what I'm doing now, or whatwhat it eventually morphed into,
was uh doing kind of standaloneepisodes where I was scripting
them out and I didn't even haveguests.
And if you look back at thelast few, several of those are
those episodes where they'rescripted.
I read off what I've alreadywritten and I add all of this
music, and it's kind of has likea this American life type feel
(05:02):
if you are familiar with thatpodcast.
And again, those just take somuch time.
They take so much and aninordinate amount of time of
editing and writing and uh anadditional research because I
like cite a lot of studies andthings like that.
And while I love that, and Iwould love to do that kind of
professionally or or full time,the truth is the podcast is a
(05:24):
net negative financially for me.
So uh I pay money to do thispodcast, I don't get paid money
to do this podcast.
And so as a result, um again, Ijust wasn't putting them out
very quickly or or frequently.
And uh it means that people areleft kind of in the lurch, just
going, well, I came here forpractical parenting advice, and
(05:44):
now you're giving me this likekind of philosophical
storytelling parentingphilosophy, I guess that's the
right word.
And while that's important andexciting and fun to listen to, I
want more than one episode amonth.
So, all of this long, long,long intro to say, today we
return back to something thatI've been encouraged by so many
(06:08):
of you to do for so long, whichis just John, can you just start
answering questions again?
Like, you don't even have toedit it, you don't have to add
music, you don't have to addanything.
Just like edit, just just justput these, hit record, record
these podcasts, and then you canput out, you know, one a week,
or even maybe more than one aweek if if you're able to record
more than one a week.
(06:28):
And so here I am.
We're talking about morningroutines this morning, and I'm
gonna jump in with our firstcaller question.
Um, this one is from Nancy, andshe says, Hi John, my question
is about morning routines.
My six-year-old wakes up slow,and my three-year-old wakes up
fiery.
It's hard to balance all theemotions coming at me before 8
(06:50):
a.m.
Somehow I end up bouncingbetween brushing someone's hair,
negotiating which socks feeltoo scratchy, and no matter how
early I get started, we'reeither late or someone has
screamed at each other.
I grew up in a house wheremornings were tense, to put it
mildly.
I can feel some of that oldwiring kicking in.
Okay, I can tell Nancy it'sread my book.
What am I doing wrong?
(07:11):
Okay, Nancy, the first thingthat I want to say is that
you're not doing anything wrong,right?
So let's put aside this notionthat there's a right and a wrong
way to parent in these momentsbeyond not harming your kids,
right?
So I don't wanna I don't wannastart from a place of saying,
well, if I was perfect, none ofthis would happen, and it must
(07:34):
all be on me.
I love parent-centric ideas orthinking about parenting rather
than child-centric ideas aboutparenting.
What I mean by that is ratherthan blaming the kid for having
an underdeveloped brain or brainblaming in some way like just
kids in general, inherently, allkids are bad or all kids are
(07:56):
annoying.
This is where you get phraseslike the terrible twos or the
you know, terrible threes.
I've heard three nature, all ofthis stuff.
Um, instead of thinking of itin those terms, it's much
better, I think, to think aboutparenting from a parent-centric
model, which it looks at, okay,I can't change everything, I
can't fix everything, but I cando those things that are
(08:18):
possible for me to do.
And those changes will, on thelong, in the long term, on the
grand scale, make positivechange for my kid.
And so I love that you'restarting from that point, but I
want to rephrase that what am Idoing wrong just right off the
bat and say, okay, it may not bethat you're not that you're
doing anything wrong.
It may just be that there arebetter or more effective ways to
(08:41):
do morning routines that don'tlead to this kind of snapping.
And the first piece of advicethat I give people with morning
routines, and you've alreadykind of done this here, you've
already said this, and so I'mkind of giving this advice not
just to you, Nancy, but toanybody who's struggling with
morning routines, is to set yourexpectations that it's going to
take you 20 minutes to get outof the house a minimum.
(09:02):
So if you have to leave thehouse, like for in my case, we
have to be out of the house by8.35.
We got to be in the car, 8.35,driving to school.
My kids' school is about 20minutes away and they're
supposed to be there between8.50 and 9 o'clock.
I know that I need to givemyself a five-minute-ish buffer
in case there's traffic or weget stopped by a train or
(09:24):
something like that.
And just in general, because Iknow even if I say 8.35 is my
intention, if it's 8.37, I don'twant to then be two minutes
late, right?
So I've even built in anotherfive-minute buffer for myself
there.
And sometimes we need itbecause, like I said, you can
get stuck by two trains goingthe opposite direction or
something like that.
So first thing that you gottado is you just gotta set that
(11:18):
intention.
It's gonna take 20 minutesgetting out of the house.
So if I'm 8:35 is my leavetime, that means at 8.15, I need
to start that movement ofsaying shoes, coats.
In my case, it's usually likesnowsuits, uh, extra clothes.
My kids go to four school, sothere's a lot of additional
things, obviously, a lunch forlunch, things like that.
(11:38):
And I gotta start that movement20 minutes before we have to
leave.
And for people who don't havekids, I don't know why you'd be
listening to the podcast, but incase you are listening and you
don't have kids yet, that seemscrazy because it's like, how
long does it take to put yourshoes on and walk out of the
house?
For for an adult, a minute,maybe two, right?
But for a child, when you'renavigating all of these things,
(11:59):
and it might come up, hey, bythe way, I'm still hungry, I
gotta eat, or I have to go tothe bathroom, which is actually
a good thing to do anytimebefore you leave the house
because it's just, you know, doit there and where you have
parental uh reminders to do thatinstead of even maybe your kids
on a bus or something and thenthey pee their pants and then
you've got to go drive to schoolor something.
So it's always good to do thatbefore you leave the house.
(12:20):
But all of these differentthings are gonna pile on top of
you.
And so setting that intentionthat you have to leave 20
minutes earlier, or you have tostart to leave 20 minutes
earlier than you intend toleave, is like first and
primary.
And so, Nancy, you're alreadydoing that.
You're already starting fromthe best possible thing, which
is no matter how early I start,uh, we're either late or someone
(12:42):
snaps.
So you've already started bysaying, well, at least you're
not putting that additionalrushing on kids.
And I will say, this is a goodmoment to just say when you have
that 20-minute buffer to getout of the house, you are far
less likely to be like, oh myGod, we're late.
Come on, hurry up, hurry up,hurry up.
And that stuff really, reallygets to kids in a negative way.
And it makes them melt down,and then it's slower getting out
(13:05):
of the house, and it justeverything is is worse.
So you might think, oh, okay,well, for we only have five
minutes to get out of the house,I can just start barking orders
and pushing people out of thehouse.
But that is not usually goingto work.
It's usually going to backfire.
So now that we have our ourleave time, whatever that is for
you, Nancy, for me it's 8 35.
Now we've moved back 20minutes.
(13:25):
So we've we've said, okay,that's when we're going to start
putting our backpack on,putting our shoes on, putting
our coat on.
And by the way, if you wind upgetting way out of the house 10
minutes early or even 15 minutesearly, playing in the front
yard for an additional 15minutes before the bus comes or
before you have to get in thecar is actually a very
regulating, positive activity onthe whole.
So even if you wind up going,okay, John, but but I don't need
(13:47):
20 minutes to get out of thehouse.
I only need five.
And now my kids are outside andthey're they're cold and it's
they have 15 minutes to standout there, then give them more
clothes.
Like dress them up warmer.
Because that extra 15 minutesof just calm play before they
actually enter neath enter intothat space of of shifting into a
new environment is a netpositive for them.
So let's let's start with thatintention.
(14:08):
We're gonna leave, we're gonnastart getting ready 20 minutes
ahead of when we actually haveto leave.
And even if that means thatwe're early, that's okay.
Uh, next, I would workbackwards from that leave point
so that my mine's 815, I don'tknow what yours is.
I'd work backwards from that,and I would set the next, let's
say, 30 to 45 minutes.
I would create a routine thatis brutally predictable every
(14:34):
single day, the same thing.
And like I said, it does it itcould it could only be 30
minutes.
It only has to be 30 minutes.
But that routine is going toinclude things like breakfast,
as I already said, going to thebathroom, um, getting clothes
on, although I have actuallyskipped that one.
I put my kids in the clothesthat they're gonna wear the next
day uh overnight.
I don't know if that's weird,but I've just learned that if
(14:56):
PJs is one more thing I don'twant to have to deal with in the
morning, especially because I'mgetting my kids all these
additional clothes to go out andspend all day in the forest.
And so uh I just do that thenight before.
So you you may have differentones than me.
Maybe yours is, like you said,uh brushing somebody's hair.
I have uh one daughter and Ihave to brush her hair, but
she's only one year old, so ittakes about six seconds.
(15:18):
Uh none of my other kids havelong enough hair that I really
have to brush, so maybe that'spart of your morning routine.
But every single aspect of thismorning routine is going to be
brutally predictable.
And I would make a physicalvisual aid for that.
So I would literally sit downwith your child, you can have
them, especially thesix-year-old, uh contribute to
(15:40):
that visual aid, contribute tothat morning routine.
They can draw the pictures forit or something.
And I would literally like, youknow, if it's a checklist that
they can check off on uh withlike a whiteboard marker, or if
it's a sticker that they can puton each one of their things or
whatever, or if it's a post-itnote that they can cover up, or
you can make like a if you wantto get really fancy, you can go
(16:01):
in and make like a fold-downchart where they fold down each
step of it.
Uh I have that downloadablethat's available for people
inside my membership for bedtimeroutine, and I think I might
even have one for morningroutine.
But whatever it is, you'regoing to have those, let's say,
a minimum of four steps thatthey're going to do every single
morning.
And those steps are going to bebrutally consistent.
(16:22):
So now we've taken out of theequation basically any uh change
or any variability.
We've just said every singlemorning, here are going to be
the steps.
Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, eightfifteen, now we're getting our
backpacks on, we're getting ourshoes on, boots on, whatever.
(16:43):
Bundled up, lunch in thelunchbox, whatever, out the
door.
Right.
And if you're early, great, nowwe're playing in the front yard
or the backyard or on thestreet corner, wherever that
looks like for you.
When you set that brutallypredictable routine, now a lot
of that tension, a lot of thataggression, a lot of that
(17:07):
feeling rushed, um, just likethe old wiring that comes in
when things don't go well, a lotof that can be mitigated by the
fact that you're actuallythings are going to go well.
And I know that that soundskind of silly or or like
foolish, but when you makethings so brutally predictable,
(17:30):
then kids just kind of fall intothat pattern and they fall in
line.
This is the exact same thing,and I don't I should probably
look ahead at my other questionshere before I answer this
because maybe somebody's gonnasay they really don't like going
to school.
But if if one of the issues isthat your kid doesn't like going
to school, one of the toppieces of advice for that as
well is make a routine that'sbrutally predictable, that they
(17:52):
just that it just happens theexact same way every day, so
there's no variability, so thatthey're not um kind of finding
ways to derail the process.
They're gonna do but, bop, bop,but.
And here's the beautiful part.
If there's a visual aid, ifthey've helped to plan this, now
you can actually, after weekone, maybe after I would guess
with your six-year-old afterweek one, maybe with your
(18:12):
three-year-old, it's after weektwo or week three.
You can start to say, like,what's next?
What's next on the routinelist?
Next, it's this, next, it'sthis, next, it's this.
You can make up a song if youdon't want to do a visual aid,
or you can make up a song thatgoes with the visual aid.
Whatever you want to do, everysingle step of that needs to be
brutally consistent.
Now, two weeks in, you canstart to add some variability.
(18:34):
You can say, Oh, do you want todo this first or that first?
I'm not saying that I would dothat, but if you need to do that
for whatever reason, you canstart to do that.
But before two weeks, I wouldjust make that brutally
consistent.
And what will happen is you'llrealize very quickly a routine
that took at the beginning, wesaid it's gonna be a 30-minute
um morning routine followed by a20 minutes of uh actually
(18:57):
getting out the door into thecar, onto the bus, whatever.
That 50-minute routine youprobably can shrink down by the
end of week one, by the end ofweek two for sure.
You're gonna realize, you knowwhat, that 30-minute routine
probably only takes 20 minutesnow because my kids are actually
doing what they need to do,blah, blah, blah.
And so let's give it 25 minutesinstead.
Okay, we've been getting outthe door in two and a half to
(19:20):
five minutes for two weeksstraight.
We can shrink that 20-minutetime down to 10 minutes, right?
No big deal.
You can adjust the timing ofit, but I wouldn't adjust the
steps.
So, in other words, to go takeit all the way back to the
beginning, when you say, What amI doing wrong?
The answer is actually less ofwhat you're doing wrong and just
what you're not doing.
(19:41):
And what you're not doing ismaking this entire process so
brutally predictable that theirbrain, which is underdeveloped,
which has a hard time predictingthe future, which has a hard
time to uh orient steps uh in aseries, right?
These are all executivefunctions, things that you as an
adult hopefully have mastered.
You have taken away all of thismental and cognitive challenges
(20:04):
from morning routine, and nowit just becomes a game of just
following the steps in theseries with the visual aid, with
the whatever, and all of asudden they're out the door.
So that's where I think wereally need to get to that
point.
And that is going to be it'sgonna carry through all of our
(20:26):
questions today, but that'swhere I want to begin the
episode, or I guess we're likehalfway through the episode
probably at this point, butthat's where I want to go first
because understanding howpowerful routines are, not just
because of discipline, not justbecause of these other positive
things, but how powerfulroutines are because of the
underdeveloped nature of ourchild's prefrontal cortex, which
(20:47):
is the part of their brainwhich organizes items and
systems and uh can do theseexecutive functioning like tasks
to get out the door.
The reason that you can get outthe door in a minute and a half
and it takes them five or tenor fifteen or even twenty,
right?
All of those things, we'reremoving those barriers.
And once we remove thosebarriers, it's gonna go a lot
more smoothly.
And some days it's still gonnago bad.
(21:09):
If that's the case, that'sokay.
That's why we can repair.
And I have episodes on that,and I'm not gonna get into that
today.
All right, let's go to questiontwo.
All right, question two comesfrom Dave, and he says, uh, I
(21:34):
could really use your help withthis one, John.
Every morning we reach theshoes and coat part, and
everything falls apart.
My four-year-old becomes floppyand dramatic.
My toddler is zigzagging aroundthe house half dressed.
I feel my patience evaporate.
What's hard is how predictableit is.
The same spot, the samemeltdown every single day.
It's like our routine hits thesame emotional pothole, and I
(21:55):
don't know how to steer aroundit.
How do I break this patternwithout turning into a drill
sergeant that I swore that Iwouldn't become?
I love that, Dave.
So, to begin the answer to thatquestion, everything I just
said to Nancy about thebrutality of the routine
becoming the thing.
And now I'm gonna add a layerto it.
(22:17):
I'm gonna add a layer to it.
So, number one, we've alreadygotten to the point where we say
a lot of this is falling apart,probably because your kids have
identified that part of theirroutine for the morning is the
emotional meltdown.
So I want I want to just kindof like frame that in terms of
(22:38):
your kid will find routines andpatterns because the world is
not predictable to them.
Say that one more time.
Your kid will find routines andpatterns, maybe where they
aren't even there, or or whereyou wish they weren't, because
exactly because the world is notas predictable and consistent
(23:00):
as they might like it to be.
So, with that being said, partof your morning routine, Dave,
what I've just explained toNancy, part of your morning
routine is a meltdown.
That's one of the steps in yourmorning routine.
And what you're hoping to do isreplace that meltdown with
something else.
And so I here's how I would dothat in two ways, building upon
(23:24):
the idea that we can create thisroutine.
I would do the exact same stepsas Nancy.
Build the morning routinethat's brutally predictable.
Um, give yourself additionaltime when it's actually time to
get out the door.
That's gonna help you as well.
Now, I'm gonna take it one stepfurther.
Before the routine starts, Ithink we add a step, like
literally right when your childwakes up.
(23:45):
And that step is to connectemotionally with your kids.
I know a lot of parents, and Iunderstand this impulse, and I'm
not shaming anyone because I'vedone it in our house.
We have been in seasons wherethis has been the morning
routine.
A lot of parents will have akid who gets up at 6 a.m.
and you said you have afour-year-old who becomes floppy
and dramatic, right?
And your toddler is zigzaggingaround the house.
(24:07):
I'm gonna just assume here thatyou might be up in the middle
of the night, right?
And if you're not, that's fine.
But in my case, with aone-year-old, uh, the last year
I've been up a lot of times inthe middle of the night.
Two nights ago, I was still upfor most of the night, which is
crazy to think about.
But she woke up in the middleof the night and she's just like
wired, wide awake.
(24:27):
Not upset, not unhappy.
Um, this kid has been achampion sleeper for her
basically her whole life.
Um, I don't in comparison to myother kids, at least.
Maybe other people might say,well, she's not that great of a
sleeper.
But man, if you had my firstthree kids, you would probably
look at her and go, wow, this isa huge blessing and break for
you that she ever sleeps throughthe night, or that she ever,
(24:49):
you know, is able to put herselfback to sleep in the middle of
the night, which is basically myother kids could not, or two of
the three of my other kidscould not ever do that until
they were much older than she isnow.
But a couple nights ago, shewakes up and she's just like
wired, like happy, awake, justlike crawling around in her
sleep sack, just like trying tobe like, hey, come on, go, let's
get up, let's be.
It's 1 a.m., right?
(25:10):
This is like literally thedirect middle of her sleep
cycle.
So she goes to bed at seven,she wakes up at seven.
So this is the direct middle ofwhen she's supposed to be
asleep.
And she was up for two hoursalmost on and off.
Um, she basically never snoozedduring that time and then slept
in until like 8:30, 8:45.
Uh, but in the mornings, all ofa sudden, how John, how does
(25:33):
this relate?
In the mornings, we createdkind of a de facto routine that
one of the first things my kidsdo when they get up is they have
to entertain themselves becauseeither me or my wife is just up
with our kids all night.
And I know that I'm gonna getcanceled for this.
But hopefully, if you've madeit this far through the podcast,
you have a general feeling thatI'm doing the best that I can.
Um, but part of entertainingthemselves is like sometimes
(25:54):
they just go down and grab uhthe remote and turn on a show
for themselves.
Or they sometimes go down andthey find uh the Nintendo Switch
and they just start playing it.
Or do some other screen thingdysregulating thing.
And then they go over to thesnack drawer and instead of
eating, you know, like awell-balanced breakfast of eggs
and and beyond sausage orsomething, they open that thing
(26:15):
up and they're just basicallyeating sugar.
Because I mean it's it's like agranola bar, a protein bar, but
it's like 90% sugar, right?
And so it's like, oh John,don't have that in your house.
Oh John, don't have screens inyour house.
Oh John, hide the remotes.
Okay, we could do all of that,and that's what we do in the
best scenarios.
But when our on some mornings,and there have been times when
our one-year-old, or at othertimes it's my young older kids,
(26:39):
when they were super little, sixmonths old, whatever, we're
like for a week straight, ourkid feels like they're getting
up and kind of taking care ofthemselves.
And if it means that we can beget another extra hour of sleep,
not wake up the the baby, andyou know, everybody else can be
more well-rested, that kid'sgonna be more dysregulated.
Like, that's the trade-off thatwe have sometimes.
(26:59):
But what I know is that a lotof those meltdowns, the floppy
and dramatic, as you're saying,the zigzagging around the house,
oh, super wired.
I can tell you that a lot ofthose, in at least in my house,
come from that time where if mykid has watched screens in the
morning, if my kid has not had,you know, enough protein for
(27:20):
breakfast, that stuff happens.
It happens.
And I just have to kind ofsmile and laugh and say, well,
this is what this is the cost ofthat extra hour of of rest or
snoozing or whatever on our onour hand uh on our part.
And you know what, to my kids'credit, if we ever, if they ever
need anything, if they ever gethurt or something, they just
(27:40):
come wake us up.
They don't they don't careabout that.
But but sometimes, you know,especially when the
nine-year-old's up and he cankind of navigate things and help
help his siblings with things,um, they just take advantage of
that opportunity to say, okay,I'm gonna have a I'm gonna have
a couple episodes of Bluey orwhatever before before uh mom
and dad really get up or or dadcomes out from being with a baby
or whatever.
And what we can replace thatwith in our routine, Dave, this
(28:04):
is a long roundabout way to get,what we can replace that time
with in our routine is saying,okay, instead of doing that the
first 20 minutes when they'reawake, if you can do this, if it
at all possible, you connectdeeply with your child.
Connect with them emotionally,have conversation with them, uh,
(28:26):
just cuddle with them.
We did that this morning withmy kids, just get ex you know,
20 minutes of cuddle time.
And that has the exact oppositeimpact.
There's this researcher,Jacques Penkstaff, who is the
first behavioral neuroscientistbasically, and he talks about
how you know three minutes afteryour kid wakes up is like prime
(28:46):
neurological brain like resetfor the day.
And if you can connect deeplywith your child in those three
minutes, they're gonna feelconnected with you for basically
the whole day.
And if you don't do that,you're gonna have a hard time
connecting with them for thewhole day.
So the first thing I would dois go, as hard as it is, and I
know that there aren't alwaysseasons where this is possible,
(29:07):
really deeply connect with yourfour-year-old and your toddler
first thing in the morning whenthey first wake up.
Again, three to five minutes.
It doesn't have to be a hugething, an extra cuddle.
You know, just hey, I love you,just being close to them.
And a lot of that is gonnabuild up that emotional and the
relational capital, and it'sgonna help you kind of carry
through the whole morningroutine.
The second piece of advice thatI would add to all of this, and
(29:30):
that was really long way, longway around way of getting to
that one.
The second piece of advice is Iwould say we need to somehow
turn this into a game.
We can we know that there andis excess energy there,
especially for the toddler toget out.
We know that the excess energyis there.
We know that they have a needthat they're trying to meet.
Um, that's why I say the forthe four-year-old, the floppy
(29:52):
and dramatic, the need that theyneed is to connect with you.
That's what they're trying todo.
For the toddler, there'sanother need that's met, needs
to be met, which is like justthey're wired, they're just
running everywhere.
That need, the way that we meetthat need is by playing,
turning this into some form ofgame.
So, yes, we can do the routine,but maybe one part of the
(30:12):
routine is a game that is kindof active, right?
One part of the routine isafter we get our shoes and our
coats on, we run from one end ofthe house to the other and back
again.
Or we run around the block asfast as we can.
Whatever that piece is, we needto create one mark that is a
fun, positive connectionexperience for our child.
(30:33):
Usually that's through play,and it seems like it needs to be
active.
And if we can add those thingsto our routine, and Nancy, by
the way, you're free, feel freeif you're still listening.
Continue to do that as well.
Add a game to your morningroutine.
I think it's a great thing forany of us to do.
But especially for those kidswho are, they've created a
routine which includes ameltdown, which includes chaos.
(30:53):
We have to create a routinethat targets and kind of aims
that chaos.
Um, a great example of this,and I'm I'm I I can't spend too
much longer on this because Ihave to move on and finish the
episode.
But a great example of thislast night um I was standing in
line at Pop Belly, which is asandwich place here in Chicago.
I think there's locationselsewhere as well.
And um I always order my wife'sfood at the end.
(31:16):
So I go there with all my kids,but without my wife while she's
working, and I order her foodat the end so that it's not like
super soggy.
It's a hot sandwich, so it canbe like real soggy if it's we've
been there an hour orsomething.
So I order at the end.
And my uh three year old wasdone with being there.
He's almost four.
He was done with being there.
He's like running around, he'slike tearing.
Things up.
He's like getting into stuff.
There's like new higherorientation.
(31:37):
They don't know what to do withhim.
And I realized that while I wasordering the sandwich, I had to
assign him a job or a task.
And so I told him, and somethere was a mom in front of me
in line without her kids, andshe was like, Man, that was
really brilliant.
I love that.
You should share that withpeople.
I said, Hey, buddy, I have ajob for you.
And he comes over to me and Igo, Hey, can you uh can you go
stand?
Well, our table is near thebathrooms.
(31:58):
Um, all by the way, pro hack,right?
Sit near the bathrooms.
My three-year-old in the middleof his mac and cheese was like,
I have to be, and then we like,we're right there.
So it's great.
Anyway, we go, I say, go over,stand by our table, and I want
you to count the number ofpeople who go in and out of the
bathrooms while I'm ordering thesandwich.
I need to know how many peoplego in and out of the bathrooms.
And he's like, okay.
(32:19):
And so he runs over there andhe doesn't even do it.
He like gets distracted bysomething else that my son, my
my nine-year-old's doing, and helike winds up playing with him.
But I needed to redirect himfrom causing chaos.
And so I had to create a gameto redirect him.
Just saying, don't do that,stop that right now.
Do you sit right here?
Is almost always gonna receivethat pushback because why the
reason that they're doing thatcraziness or running around half
(32:40):
dressed is because they'retrying to get a fundamental need
met.
This is what I talk about inchapter two of my book, right?
Like you there is a need thatneeds to be met.
Unless we meet the need, we aregonna continue to see the
behavior.
Their kids will meet theirneeds in uh in maladaptive ways
if we don't give them adaptiveways to meet them, right?
And I could have given myfive-year-old another task.
I could have said, okay, youstand by the bathrooms, you
(33:02):
count the people coming in andout.
I could have said to myfive-year-old, don't let them go
in the bathroom after thesepeople, right?
I'm gonna we we can stack thejobs, right, on top of each
other.
All right, so that's what we'retalking about routines.
What are the types of things wecan add to our routines so that
we don't become the drillsergeant?
And by the way, if you want,don't want to be the drill
sergeant, you have to replacethat with the the reason the
drill sergeant is effective isthis is what I was trying to get
(33:23):
to and I forgot.
Uh the reason the drillsergeant is effective is because
they bark orders and they'relike really firm and they are
there's a lot of energy there.
You can give bring that energywithout that posture.
So you can bring the sameamount of energy without the you
know, hey, do this or else.
Um, you can you can my wifecalls it green energy.
(33:43):
You can just be, hey, likelet's do this instead.
Redirect positive.
Okay, last question.
Um, here we go.
Uh this one is oh, this persondid not send their name in.
So I don't know who this isfrom, but it's a funny question,
so I I want to keep it.
It says, hey John, okay, I havea serious parenting situation
(34:10):
for you.
Every single morning in myhouse, uh, every single morning
in my house turns into a shoehunt.
My six-year-old shoes vanishcompletely into another
dimension.
We'll find one in the pantry,one in the bathtub, or
something.
Do you have any brain hacksthat will work for this?
I do.
I do have a brain hack thatwill work for this.
(34:31):
Everything that I've said sofar, turn it into a game.
Yes, yes.
The great shoe hunt actuallylean into that, right?
But I think another great hackhere, and this is kind of goes
with the setting up the morningroutine at the beginning.
And this is this is a classicmorning issue that people have.
Included in the morning routineis getting is setting yourself
(34:52):
up for success the night before.
And a lot of parents do this byafter the kids go to bed, they
pack the lunches, they get allthe backpacks together, they
line up everything foreverybody.
And I'm not opposed to that.
If that's how you want to dothis, you go ahead and do that
right now.
Go find the shoe in the bathtubat night before you go to bed.
Don't go to bed without knowingwhere the shoes are.
That's totally something thatyou can do.
But if you want to empower asix-year-old, who, by the way,
(35:15):
might be seven soon, right?
Might be eight soon, thesethese kids at some point are
gonna grow up and need the tolearn discipline and
responsibility.
And not in a negative way, in apositive way, right?
They wanna, they, they have tolearn responsibility because
responsibility grants a childagency and autonomy.
And children who uh who aregiven tasks like this, like,
hey, keep track of your shoes,wind up being kids who feel
(35:37):
confident and resilient, right?
So if we do everything for ourkids, they're not gonna feel
confident and resilient.
We're encouraging them to findways and adaptive ways to do
this stuff, it's gonna make themconfident and resilient.
So this is positive for yourchild, right?
When I say it responsibilityand discipline, these are things
that make people feel goodabout themselves.
Okay.
So what I would do with thesix-year-old is I would I would
turn this into a game as well.
(35:58):
But the way that I would turnthis into the game is actually
the night before I would say,like, the shoes need a place
where they sleep.
And I love this phraseology.
The shoes have a place wherethey sleep because kids
fundamentally understand thatthey have a place where they
sleep.
And they understand that everynight at the same time they go
to bed in this place.
And now we can make a storyabout how our kids, the shoes,
(36:20):
need to go to sleep.
And this would be a greatchildren's book, by the way.
Maybe I'll write this somedayas a children's book.
But the shoes need to find aplace where they sleep.
And we can do that in a coupledifferent ways.
We can have a shoe rack whereall the shoes sleep together.
We could have literallysomething as simple as some
masking tape on the ground inthe in the mud room area where
our kid has to put their shoesin this box and this is their
(36:41):
bed where they sleep.
You could literally uh have acardboard box.
You could have a little chestwhere the shoes sleep, and they
have to go in there and theyhave to close it up so that it's
dark and they can go to bed.
But you really what you want toestablish is this routine for
your child where they're doingthis the night before and they
can feel a sense of agency.
And that part of bedtimeroutine now becomes, did you put
(37:03):
your shoes to bed?
And by the way, that can alsotrigger to them that it's time
for them to go to bed.
So this becomes kind of like adouble uh framing around
routines of saying, hey, this isthe game.
The game is put the shoes tobed, your kid goes and finds
them.
Probably your kid's gonna havea much clearer picture of where
their shoes are that night,where they probably took them
(37:24):
off, you know, within the lastthree to four, five hours than
the next morning after they'vejust slept on it.
Not always, but some uh somekids always know where their
shoes are, some kids never knowwhere their shoes are.
I can tell you from experience,my nine-year-old, um, he he
will know where something isthat he buried in the backyard a
year ago.
Like he has an incrediblememory, it puts me to shame.
(37:45):
He frequently knows where mystuff is, and I don't.
Um he was actually out in thebackyard looking for something
that somebody pulled out of mywallet, uh, just not even a week
ago.
Or, you know, that happened,and then he was trying to find
it today.
He knew where it was.
Um, when it comes to his shoes,this kid has no recollection.
And it's because it's anunconscious habit for him to
(38:07):
take off his shoes.
It's an unconscious habit forhim to just kind of do this and
he doesn't think about it.
So it's not like he feelshimself putting it down, it's
just happens, right?
And then he doesn't think aboutit because it's become so rote
and so um the you know part ofhis day that he doesn't ever
have to can even consider.
Well, now if you make thatroutine of here's the shoes have
to go to bed, which by the way,we've done in our house in in
(38:28):
some form or fashion.
And we've oscillated back andforth between like, I'm just
gonna lay out everything forthem the night before because I
don't want to have to deal withthis, and between like really
trying to instill that sense ofvalue and responsibility.
But when they have that, theycan really do this, and it's
incredible the positiveassociation that kids have when
they have something like that.
So uh I cannot save you thegreat shoe hunt every single
(38:49):
morning, but I I do think thatone of the best things we can do
is to create those otherroutines.
And this couples as a bedtimeroutine too, where you're
putting the shoes to bed and nowwe're gonna go to bed
ourselves.
Um, but that's the way that Iwould do this.
That's how I would handle this.
And it is a brain hack becauseit's play-based.
And anything that is play-basedis inherently a brain hack
because it works with adifferent part of their brain.
(39:09):
If they see it as a chore and atask that they're being forced
to do, they're going to beresistant to it, no matter what
the kid is, especially youngerkids, but um all kids will be
more or less resistant to that.
But if they see it as like thistask that they are doing
together in a shared way, andyou can go put your shoes to bed
at the same time or something,right?
(39:30):
You don't have to do this allon their own.
But that's how I would solvethat, and probably that adds
back into the other twoquestions as well.
I don't know if uh in Dave'scase, right, if a lot of the
reason that his four-year-oldbecomes floppy and dramatic is
because he can't find shoes.
I don't know if part of thesix-year-old uh and
three-year-old with Nancy, thereason that it's tense in the
(39:50):
morning is because they can'tfind their shoes.
So please feel free to use allof these guys.
And I hope that uh I hope thatit helps you.
All right.
That is what I have for thisepisode on morning routines.
As always, if you want tosupport me, the podcast, if you
want to support me on socialmedia, the way to do that is not
only to like and subscribe andshare all of the content that
(40:11):
you see there, but also to headover to Substack.
On Substack uh for $5 a month,you can just be one of the
people who donates to make surethat Whole Parent can keep
going.
Always join my email list.
I'll have a link to that in theshow notes where I send out
emails every single week withgreat advice, parenting advice.
Uh some of that morephilosophical stuff that I talk
about on episodes.
(40:32):
You can obviously on Substack,I post all my emails on Substack
for paid subscribers, so youcan always see my previous
emails there as well.
And yeah, that's what I havefor you today.
I hope that all of your morningroutines go smoothly.
I know that they won't always,um, but I hope that this stuff
helps you parent a little bitbetter today.
This has been the whole parentpodcast.
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