When you have to get three little kids out the door on time in the morning, it’s really hard to keep calm. In our home, I sometimes felt that nagging and repeating myself hundreds of times was the only way to start the day.
It was so until I came across Bruce Feiler’s fantastic book, The Secrets of Happy Families, where he shared the idea of a “self-directed morning checklist” for kids. In the book, he claims it is an excellent way to organise mornings, reduce stress and empower children.
So this February, we kicked off our Agile Family journey by introducing Morning Checklists. And it transformed our mornings.
The Morning Checklist Basics
Morning Checklist is a visual representation of a morning routine that children can follow independently. In a way, it allows you to replace reminding them what to do with one simple reminder: “CHECKLIST!”
While creating a Self-Directed Morning Checklist for my boys, I followed these principles:
- Killer items only – I only included things on the checklist that I constantly reminded my boys about (e.g. brushing their teeth and taking their water bottles).
- Keep it simple and specific – each item on the list is a very specific behaviour (e.g. make your bed).
- Add pictures – visual reminders are better than text, especially for younger kids.
- Add items with health benefits – morning workout and free play. That just needs to be scheduled. I would also add sun exposure (inspired by Dr Huberman), but they get it on the way to school anyway 🙂
Our morning routine is very simple. I put it on the checklists in chronological order (well, more or less):
- Make a bed
- Play
- Workout
- Have breakfast
- Get dressed
- Brush your teeth
- Take a water bottle
- Dress and take your bag
To make it child-friendly, I’ve asked my artsy sister, @alina_mityukova, to illustrate it. And here is our masterpiece:
I printed three copies out, put them in punched pockets and presented them to the boys during our Sunday family meeting together with the new dry-erase markers.
The checklists went straight to our kitchen pinboard (right next to our Family Manifesto).
Everyone seemed super excited.
Morning Checklist – how it transformed our mornings
The next morning, I woke up to a question “Mummy, can we do Cosmic Kids Yoga?”
When I walked into their room, trying not to step on the freshly built Lego towers, I first noticed that all the beds were made. The boys were sitting on a yoga mat – ready for the workout!
I went to the kitchen and saw the first two ticks on every checklist. I knew I had some time to prepare breakfast without being interrupted hundreds of times.
Then I saw the magic of the checklist in action – boys were on fire!
Breakfast – tick.
Get dressed – tick.
Brush your teeth – tick.
They filled their water bottles independently – even the three-year-old with the help of his older brother – and wiped out all the spills!
All three of them were ready to start the day, proudly standing next to the door with their jackets and shoes on. Ten minutes ahead of our usual time!
Both me and my husband, Dawid, were impressed.
“Look at you! You followed the checklist and got ready so quickly! I can see you all look very proud and energised for the day! I’m glad we all had such a positive morning. I even had time to finish my coffee today!”
The next couple of weeks were amazing. We all felt like we owned our mornings – kids loved the idea of ticking the boxes on the checklists, and we loved how independent they were.
But good things don’t last forever.
After some time, I’ve noticed changes. Although the morning dynamics stayed positive, and we all felt less stressed, the number of reminders to check the checklists started to grow.
Our 7-year-old son, Max, still followed the routine, but not even a tiny tick appeared on his checklist. He explained, “I know what I have to do now, mummy. I just don’t feel like ticking it all the time.”
Fair enough.
The youngest one, 3-year-old Aris, just loved following his older brothers rather than the checklist. The dry eraser markers’ excitement vanished quite quickly. So did his motivation to be the first one out.
I guess it might be too much for him at this point.
And only our 5-year-old boy, Alex, stayed super committed. He followed the checklist, ticked the boxes and called himself a Checklist Superstar. Eventually, he also learned the routine but ticking the boxes was still a satisfying experience for him. Especially if done all at once. And he just loves order – I guess that’s his character strength.
I plan to keep the checklists on the board anyway as a visual reminder of their morning routine. At last, we are Agile Family now! I just need to laminate them now (these self-laminating sheets look good).
At the end of the month, I also added the PM checklist, but it still needs work.
Step by step.
Morning checklist – the bottom line and key takeaways
Implementing the self-directed morning checklist for kids as part of our Agile Parenting plan was definitely a fun experience. It helped us to have more Zen mornings while allowing the boys to build some basic executive skills. It also reduced the number of times the boys left for school without water bottles or bags (that was a real problem, yep).
Here are my 4 takeaways:
- Keep it simple and bright – make it fun to use! Our boys LOVED the cute monsters on their checklists. And the simple routine.
- Don’t expect it to work for all of your kids in the same way – it’s all down to character and developmental stage. Very young kids may not catch the excitement of following the checklist, but 4-5-year-olds are more likely to grasp the concept and engage. Also, more creative, right-brained kids love the visual reminder and the whole idea of the checklist, but ticking the boxes – not so much. Once they learn their routine, the checklist ticking becomes more like a chore than fun. Other kids may love order and organisation, so the entire process of checking the boxes is a bliss for them.
- Don’t give up – keep the checklists on the board as a visual reminder. Even if children don’t tick the boxes, you can always remind them to check if everything is done from the list. Now I usually remind everyone to look at their checklist 10 minutes before leaving the house – usually, that’s enough time to catch up with all the tasks.
- Positive reinforcement is the best reward. I’ve tried introducing rewards for doing the checklist, but rewarding the behaviour and not the ticks on the board was tricky. Verbally rewarding the desired behaviour – following the routine – and giving high fives worked best for building internal motivation in our kids.
Hope you find it helpful.
I’m now working on my personal daily checklist as I see the potential ☺
In the meantime, I would love to hear about your experience with morning checklists below in the comments!
Loads of love,
Irina
