My son is almost 11, inattentive ADHD and I have a 5 year old. I make sure that I am ready completely before I wake up my older son. Most mornings I just dress him myself and save the battles for eating. They both go to school where I teach, so all I have to do is get them into the car and off we go. I have to make sure there is nothing on the table that can be read, or he wil not eat. I also let him eat just about anything, with a glass of milk and a multivitamin. Shoes and backpack stay downstairs and once we are all down, no one goes back up. He, too, has trouble going to sleep, so I let him sleep late on the weekend. I remind him of that each moring I wake him up at 6:30 how many days until the weekend. I have also arranged my schedule with 10 extra minutes of crisis time built in for those that I know will happen. When they don't, we get out the door 10 minutes early. That doesn't happen most days. The boys are not aware that I have that 10 minutes. This helps me to not panic when things go haywire.

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Hi,

Maybe you could find activities for your kids that aren't so disruptive to their sleep/dinner? IF they absolutely love their activities, you need to make it clear that if they want to continue these extra fun activities then they need to show they can handle them - hence get with the morning program.

I am also ADD, as an ADD Mom, I need structure in the morning. For example you could explain to your kids, no fighting bickering in the mornings or this will happen (think of something both wouldn't want to happen but not too harsh). Tell them when Mom asks you to do something if it takes 3 requests - then have a "then this will happen." For example, we have the TV on in the am, I am usually up before my son, he is 8 - I am drinking my coffee and watching the news (my son knows this is Mommy TV time). My son wakes up and joins me, he will groan a little for breakfast, I remind him that until I finish my coffee I can be grumpy in the mornings - trust me I can - don't want to - just occasional lack of sleep sometimes gets to me. Somewhere in the groans, I remind him to ask nicely and when he does, how can I refuse? I get my son his breakfast - coffee can be nuked. Can't say this works every time but at least 80-90% - my son understands, he isn't a bright eyed bushy tailed dude in the morning either.

We take our pills after we eat and feed the dogs. Then my son knows as well as the dogs know that the next step is Mom getting ready and my son getting ready for the day. I like music and listen to it in the bathroom, my son, he likes TV, he can watch it in the am (his shows) as long as at a commercial he tries to floss, brush his teeth and mouthwash. I try to get his mouthwash when I make the request, while his show is still playing. My son worries about bad breath and his kid's mouthwash helps with his confidence.

My son can care less what he wears at this point and time in his life so I usually ask him what class he will be doing that day and get his clothes ready for the day. Sometimes he will get dressed in his room during a commercial, other times while watching TV - doesn't matter to me as long as he is ready before I am. My son knows if I need to remind him 3 times to either take care of his oral hygiene or get dressed, the TV will go off and he will have to read/play with toys - but not until after he is completely ready for school with my unhappy supervision. This doesn't sound like punishment and it isn't, it just isn't what he prefers in the am - so in some strange way - this works for us. My son knows what I expect him to do and does it. Sometimes he is reminding me to get his mouthwash poured or clothes ready because I forgot to do so prior to getting my own clothes for the day, etc. Sometimes he will totally surprise me and pick out his own clothes and is dressed.

It wasn't always like this, it took time to figure out what worked for us and his medication really helped my son to do this stuff on his own - usually I ask him once - twice the most and he is off - sometimes I don't even need to tell him at all he just takes care of it. OK I know I still pick out his clothes but when you don't care what you wear and you are being forced to make choices that don't mean anything to you and you have a lot of clothes to choose from (little overwhelming) similar to myself in a restaurant with too many menu selections - takes me a while to decide what the heck I want to eat! My 8 year old feels like that with clothes, I don't mind picking stuff out for him on school days, encorage him to choose between two choices sometimes and to select on his own on weekends. If it was the opposite and he was determined to select every day what he wears and most of the time it was mixmatched - hey if he likes it and wants to wear it, that would be fine - so be it, if he is dressed and ready for school on time - it's all good.

I know I do not have more than one child so things get a little different with more kids but I did babysit a younger girl for a few years prior to my current position and boy in time it was like she was one of my own. We had the bickering, tattling, and (temporary) sybling-ish rivalry. One thing her mother taught me was when the bickering starts and the tattling starts and if it is minor, not like someone will get injured or is in danger or doing something Mom would go ballistic over- ask if they both want a timeout? It was amazing, they both would say no and continue playing nice after that. Trust me this took some time, you have to be/remain consistent. Maybe if the bickering keeps going, have them sit back to back crossed legs in the middle of the floor and interlock their arms and set a timer and tell them if they make any noises/grunts/complaints then the timer will get longer and you will add 5 minutes on to the time already set with each and every sound. Somewhere in the mist of all of this - I would think the boredom would make the bickering not worth the timeouts...

Hope this helps some - if you decide to try it, let me know either way and if it doesn't help, hang in there...

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I worry less about quantity of food at a given meal than I do about food eaten in the entire day. I also make sure that the food eaten is chosen by my child and the choices given are all highly nutritious. We also discovered Mighty Milk. While expensive it is high protein and low sugar. If that is all he eats for lunch I am happy. The rest of his lunch is his afternoon snack and if he is still hungry he may have more. Dinner follows shortly after and I offer a bedtime snack as well. All in all he is gaining weight and growing.

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I know how you feel, I was ready to give up until I found THE TOTAL TRANSFORMATION PROGRAM by JAMES LEHMAN. Phenomenal.This was my last resort after literally trying EVERYTHING else .I truly don't know where my family would be if it weren't for this program. Whatever you try ,the key is consistency.Don;t give up and good luck!

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Now I would go nuts if the TV were on in the morning as well. I have ADD and my 6 year-old son has ADHD. The radio in the bathroom doesn't bother me as long as my son is not trying to ask me 35 questions while I'm getting ready. On the weekend during breakfast, my husband tends to turn on the radio, but then it drives me crazy when the music is playing, he's trying to discuss something with me and my kids are both constantly trying interrupt. I could go through the roof, but my husband just doesn't understand why I can't focus on his conversation. Oops...getting off the topic here.

Ever since I decided to have the kids eat their breakfast in Kindergarten everything works out fine. I lay out the clothes the night before (or else ask them to pick out something for the next day and lay it out), then I pre-pack the breakfast and afternoon snacks (they get served a hot lunch in kindergarten) and put it in the fridge. So, in the morning I get up before they do (very important), have breakfast, then I put their lunchboxes in their backpacks. They usually wake up in time, then brush their teeth, get dressed and we're ready to go and out the door. Easy, easy....about 90% of the time.

I've found lately that it helps me to keep the house quiet from extra "noise"...from the radio or tv...with the kids, it's loud already, although I'm trying to train them on that too....with the "inside" voices. :-)

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