None of my children have ever been “morning people”. Don’t be jealous. It is a mixed blessing. It is true that I get a good bit of quiet time alone in the morning to read my bible, exercise, and get myself ready. But, when they do join me at 8:30, they are grumpy and slow moving. The joy of my morning is quickly sucked away by their negativity. I have just dealt with it over the years, mostly by trying my best to ignore their grumpiness.
This year, I am wondering, do I sit down with them and come up with a system and a plan for them to make over their mornings or do I just start later and adjust the daily schedule so that we begin later when they are more awake and have a chance to get the grumpies out? The almost 10 year old is in bed around 9 on school nights. The 14 year old is around 10/10:30, which cannot be changed do to her ballet schedule most evenings. The 17 year old is a non issue now as she has a job and will be taking college dual credit classes. Her schedule is dictated by those things, not by me. Which I love, by the way.
I have mixed feelings on both options. I feel that for their futures it might be more beneficial to insist that they become better at mornings and start even earlier. However, I have tried that in various ways before with little success. I want joy and peace in our home more than I care about some arbitrary schedule. My 19 year old works and goes to college full time. He was never a morning person, but as a young adult has forced himself to be at work by 6:00 am and he is surviving.
Curious if others have struggled with this and if so, would you be willing to share how you worked through it?
I’ll be honest, most of my kids are the total opposite. However, my sister also homeschools her kids and hers are not morning people – and neither is she. They have found it to be wonderful to start school right after lunch each day. Everyone can sleep and wake and take the time they need to be awake and civil and by lunch time they are ready to get to work.
We typically do school after lunch. My children don’t have a problem getting up early (typically around 7:30), but none of us really are “up and at ’em” kind of people. They like to have time to play first. So, our days typically look something like this:
7:30ish – Wake Up (get dressed, make beds, then they watch tv for a bit while I check email, Facebook etc)
9:00 – Breakfast with Bible Time
9:45 – Morning Chores
Then whenever we’re done our daily work (10:30ish normally) they go outside and play. They come back in for lunch around 12:00. And then we start lessons at 1:00.
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