Morning Time ... gone BAD!

[domestic_engineer]

What do you do when Morning Time goes awry?  

What if a child has a horrendous attitude that morning?  Do you force them to sit through MT?  Do you send them to their room?

What if a child repeatedly misbehaves or doesn't give you their attention during MT?  Do you end MT for the day or do you power through MT?

 

MT has so much potential for beautiful, family learning time ... but how do you handle it when reality/human nature sinks in?  Especially when you have more than 1 kid, the likelihood of *everyone* having a good attitude during MT seems slim ... 

 

Help?  Advice?

[EmilyGF]

Our morning times never worked as Cindy Rollins et al said they should. Too many different personalities and learning styles. 

We still love each other and learn together. It just doesn't look anything like morning time. 

 

Emily

[Kel & the Kids]

Well, I don't have any advice, but I can commiserate.  My oldest was never cooperative in much of anything, least of all my fabulous morning together-time ideas, and he just sucked the life out of the whole situation for everyone :glare:     I still wish it would work out, and every summer (like now) I have grand plans, but by a month in we are down to a morning "meeting" that includes prayer, sometimes discussing a current event, and syncing our calendars.  Not very inspiring  :mellow:  And not what I wish it was.  I'll be gleaning any great suggestions that pop up here!

[MotherGoose]

Well...I have two girls who love to color and to be read to. They are close in age. They love morning time. But they are calm little girls who love reading. All kids are not this way! I also have a baby, but he's not a problem yet. I can definitely see if kids don't enjoy being read to, don't enjoy sitting, etc., that it could become torture. That's not what you want. I would (and do) discipline intermittent behavior problems, but if it's a case of really just hating it, I'd pick my battles. Maybe they can listen to audio books while in the car, playing Legos, etc. captive audience and all. Reduce the number of things you want them to memorize to the bare minimum. I do think that some kids will be more receptive to it than others, and that's okay. An hour of Mt might be good for some, whereas 15 mins is all you're going to get from others. I think you should enforce what's reasonable for each kid, while making everyone give a good effort. Maybe kids who are old enough could type out memory work on the computer from memory. Or something. Maybe they could teach the youngers. I believe those mamas who appear to have perfect morning times have poopy diapers, "mama I lost my tooth," "mama my head aches," and "mama I'm still asleep" mornings too. :D

[Mrs. A]

Cindy Rollins has said before that there were plenty of days when her morning time was not ideal. There were times when the older kids were only there for part of it and times when younger kids wandered in and out. She tries to let people know that it's not all sunshine and roses all the time.

 

Here we've had (and continue to have) our share of bad attitudes, complaining, whining and short tempers. Some days I wonder if it's worth it to continue. But there are good days too, and I am committed to sticking it out because I know that it will bear fruit.

 

When there are stinky attitudes here the offender is asked to leave. I send them to their rooms and tell them they can return when they're ready to be with the rest of us. It usually doesn't take long because none of them like miss the stories we read. There are some times when they come back and have to be sent away again. Some days one or more dc miss it altogether. At first that used to upset me because I felt like it was an important part of our day and they would be behind with those readings and the memory work, etc. But then I realized that the lessons of learning how to be with people in a pleasant way, and learning how to not be disruptive or disrespectful are just as important as the things we're reading, if not more so. It stinks that they have to choose the moment of our nicely planned MT to decide to learn those other lessons, but it is just the way things go sometimes and I have learned to roll with it.

 

I think it's important to remember that MT needs to be seen as part of the bigger picture. Looking at individual days, or even weeks, makes it easy to feel like we're failing at it, but if we can step back and see the whole, and look at how it has been effective over time, the picture becomes clearer.

[Lucy the Valiant]

If it's worth the struggle to you (it would be to me, probably), could you put the un-loved things into a different section of the day (call it "homework" after lunch?) and do almost completely DESIRABLE things during Morning Time? So that they wanted to come? Small prizes for trivia answers, cartoons, toys that are only for "when mom reads out loud," funny read-alouds, joke sessions, singing songs they love, a humorous poem, and boom - done, now if you kids liked that, see you tomorrow! And slowly win their hearts with it? (And THEN start easing in the quieter / family / mom-priority things?)

 

Or maybe if that fails, you could go a little hard core on them: "Kids, we're going to have GOOD ATTITUDES while we play this times tables game together . . . *OR* if you prefer, you may go sit on your bed and copy the list 6 times legibly." *said with a sweet grin*

 

Or . . . explicitly explain to a child (gently) how one kiddo's poor attitude affects the potentially-happy whole. (This works better for some kids than others, haha!)

 

Morning Time is (of course) not ideal for everyone, but we are one of those families for which it has a made a huge difference in the "soul" of our home school - knitting us together, anchoring the hither-and-yon errand-things that slowly draw us apart.

[2_girls_mommy]

I've never done any kind of morning time since preschool/K age besides one year when I read some of What Your X Grader Needs to Know saying everyone should know in the mornings over breakfast. It just isn't a good time of day for one of mine in particular. And with only 2 school ages kiddos, its important to me to include them both in family time.  

 

We have always done all of the same things that are always included in those morning time things or reading basket times or whatever all of the curricula call it in the afternoon after lunch. I always call it history time, but we do memory work, coloring, poetry, art cards or art history reading, and read aloud at that time, whether they have to do with history or not. I always schedule "history" time longer than other school periods for us. Everyone is relaxed and ready to sit and enjoy time together after working hard all morning.

[coffeegal]

I've found it works best in my family if we schedule morning time during lunch and I keep it to the 'essential'. Their mouths and hands are busy while ears are ready to hear. Once lunch is over, I pull out art supplies to keeps hands busy. As far as subjects, I like to have a read aloud going, poetry memorization, and a looping subject. My high schooler is too busy for a long morning time while my 5yo has the attention span of a gnat. :lol:

[PeterPan]

Hmm, I don't know who this Rollins chick is, but I definitely think you have to find methods that fit with your REALITY and adapt them.  I SUPPOSE there are some people who have these idyllic children.  My dd has ADHD, so when she was that age read alouds, bible time, etc.  meant she would be in motion (like doing laps around the yard).  I was fine with that.  My ds has ASD, and he's a little harder.  With him, I provide motivators (FOOD!!!) and I know there are days certain things just aren't reality.  He has days when he's very with me and easy to interact with and days when he's gonna spend the whole morning flying a plane around the house.  And you really don't know which you're getting when you start.

 

Now your specific questions!

 

-repeated misbehavior--I think this is a Mom problem.  But I'm just sorta of that camp.  Pudewa has this little thing he tells (and it actually came from somewhere else, I don't know), but the general idea is a child will do what he can do, blah blah, I always forget.  I just think it's always good to assume the dc will do better with more support and to provide more support.  So they may need fidget toys or something to do with their hands or coloring pages or a change of what the materials are or something more upbeat.  They may need to know there are donuts for everyone afterward and that getting called for gross violations of the rules means you lose a donut.  (minis obviously!)  I would try to be flexible and see if you can structure it out. 

-doesn't give attention--How are you measuring this?  Many kids learn just fine while in motion or even stimming.  If you're rewarding, you'll probably get attention.  If it's not engaging, why are you doing it?  I mean, a lot of classical stuff is just BORING.  Nothing about this should be enforced torture time.  I do all kinds of things with my ds that they say can't be done, but I keep it really upbeat and interactive and reward.  

-ending due to problems--Hmm, that would be kinda counterproductive.  You just taught them they can disrupt and end it.  If they're ACTUALLY misbehaving and having a hard time participating in family circle, send them to their room.  Then they miss out the donuts you distribute at the end of family circle.  Natural consequence.  And if they like donuts, tomorrow they'll probably do better.  Or you'll axe the boring stuff and make it more interactive and flex how they're allowed to sit and buddy them up and let them have legos and do it while they play in the yard or something.  But I'm not picky like that.  I'd just buy bags of mini donuts until they figure it out.  

 

You might want to let the kids lead too.  They get to pick one component or pick the order of things or pick 3 things to do of the 5 they could do.  Then they get to pick the kind of donuts.  Need donuts for this.   :)

 

Seriously, that's how I get my ds to comply for morning Bible reading and singing.  It's interactive, involves food, and I give him choice where possible.

Edited August 9, 2016 by OhElizabeth