As soon as your alarm goes off in the morning (or you get woken up by an energetic toddler bouncing on your bed), it’s go time. From making yourself presentable to getting your kiddo(s) ready for the day and making sure you don’t forget anything important for work and/or school, there’s so much to think about and check off the to-do list in those early hours. And if nobody slept well the night before? There’s not enough coffee in the world to replicate a full night’s sleep, unfortunately.
If you struggle with getting everyone ready and out of the house on time—without forgetting anything or arguing about how, no, candy is not a breakfast food—you’re not alone. Even top experts, like parent coach Kristin Gallant and licensed marriage and family therapist Deena Margolin, the powerhouses behind the popular parenting platform “Big Little Feelings” (with 3.5 million Instagram followers), can relate to the tricky A.M.
“The mornings are hard for anyone,” Gallant exclusively tells Parade. “I don’t know about you, but I’m always late. It is not easy—you’re waking up, your brain is barely online.”
And parents aren’t the only ones who sometimes fumble through the start of the day.
“When you’re a kid and you have no concept of time, you don’t care if you’re late or not as a child—you’re not really getting it,” Gallant continues. “So, what we need to do as the adult is we need to show up calm, present. We’re ready, we’re confident. If they see us all [flustered], we’re definitely not getting out the door in time because now they’re feeling the same way.”
Luckily, there’s a five-minute morning hack from Big Little Feelings that the experts swear by.
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Big Little Feelings’ Trick for Easier Mornings With Kids
“The five-minute amazing hack? Make your own chart at home—a morning chart,” Gallant reveals.
She admits that she used to get turned off by charts, not wanting to go to Amazon or try a bunch of different ones that might not even work. But this is different.
“Use something as simple as Post-Its or whatever you have, just cut up pieces of paper and let your child draw five steps in the morning,” Gallant shares. “Okay? Getting your shoes on (which I think is the biggest battle for all of us), eat breakfast, brush your teeth, whatever those five [are]—go potty, by the way, big one, right? You’re turning this now into a game. It’s less of a chart, and it’s more of, ‘This is a fun game.'”
It’s especially enjoyable for the kiddos because of how involved they get to be.
“What I love about it, it just makes it so independent for them,” Margolin shares.
“They’re going to draw out the steps,” Gallant continues. “They’re going to post them at eye level where they can have them. When they’re done, if it’s a Post-It, they’re going to rip it off. We’re going to be like, ‘Okay, now what’s next?’ And they’re going to say, ‘I need to grab my backpack.’ They go and they grab their backpack. ‘Okay, what’s next?’ And they’re going to rip it off. And this way, it makes it fun. It makes it like they’re in charge.”
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Why This 5-Minute Hack Really Works
“It’s something visual, concrete that they can go back to again and again,” Margolin explains. “Because for us adults, we’re like, ‘Hi, this is so obvious. We go out the door every single morning. The same six things have to happen every day. How is this hard?’ But for them, having that visual resource, it makes such a difference.”
Plus, it helps keep everyone on the same page, without having to repeat yourself over and over again.
“Kids and also, like, human beings, they don’t like to be barked at all the time,” Gallant says. “And I never thought I would be a ‘barking-at’ kind of mom. I’m chill, I’m a cool mom. No, now I’m barking orders at them, and so it also alleviates that. It makes it a little more fun for us but also for them because we’re not just like, ‘Get your shoes, get your shoes, get your shoes!'”
They also get to feel like they’re calling the shots using this morning chart method.
“Them drawing and then getting to rip it off—they love feeling like they’re in charge, they’re running the show,” Margolin explains. “It’s an age-appropriate way to give them that power and they just thrive that way.”
You can even incorporate a kind of “reward” by giving them a sticker at the end of completing the last task.
“I love the Post-Its with my kids, literally from age two to age eight,” Gallant continues. “And sometimes, I’ll even put a sticker on the back of the last Post-It and they have to hold it until they get in the car. So, you get *all* the way into the car and then you could open up the Post-It and there’s a little sticker inside.”
“Who doesn’t love a sticker?” Margolin says. “I love a sticker.”
The best news is, this hack works for any time of day that includes a series of tasks.
“You can use it for everything,” Gallant says.
Bedtime battles, we’re coming for you!
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Remember: Give Yourself Grace
This parenting thing? It’s hard. It’s full of twists and turns and sleepless nights and plenty of effort without always seeing instant results.
Keep finding tricks that work for you and your family (and share them with your fellow mom friends!), but also make sure to give yourself a whole lotta grace each and every day.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the daily grind, the women behind Big Little Feelings want you to know “you’re not making it up and you’re not crazy and it’s not that everybody else has it put together and you don’t,” as Gallant says.
“We’re all sort of drowning in our own ways and thriving in our own ways,” she continues. “You might be better at cooking and something else and your neighbor might be better at putting them in perfect little outfits, but she doesn’t know how to cook. So, no one has it all together. I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect at every single aspect of being an ideal parent and that is never going to happen, [just like] it’s never going to happen at work—you would never be the engineer, the marketing manager, the IT guy and the CEO.”
Don’t put impossible expectations on yourself—embrace what you enjoy doing and what comes to you naturally.
“Rest a little bit easier with this,” Margolin says.
“We all have what our strengths—play into that,” Gallant adds. “Find other ways to let the rest of it go. Because when you can let go of sort of guilt and shame, that’s where you’re really going to show up for your kid for yourself and kind of enjoy this thing a little bit more.”
Amen!
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Sources:
- Parent coach Kristin Gallant and licensed marriage and family therapist Deena Margolin are best friends and busy moms behind “Big Little Feelings.” Margolin studied under Dr. Dan Siegel, and brings clinical experience specializing in interpersonal neurobiology and the connection between parent-child relationship, brain growth and emotional development. Gallant has a background in international affairs, a concentration in maternal and child education, and she’s a vocal mental health advocate. They have 3.5 million followers on Instagram.
