My son blew up this morning again as I tried to get him to finish his breakfast so I can drive him to school before I was late to work. His meltdowns are becoming increasingly explosive and it is almost impossible to get to calm down. We ended up both being late for the 4th time in the past two weeks. His school contacted me to attend a meeting about his repeated tardies and my boss has asked to speak with me about my recent bout of arriving late-to-work. I am about at my wits end – any suggestions?

Answer: I understand how hard these mornings can be. We have them often at my house. It helps during the chaos if I can remember that it wont last forever. Sometimes I feel like we will never have smooth mornings again but then we do for a bit. What has worked well for me is to prepare ahead as much as possible. For my family that means I wake up and make sure I am ready before my children. I have them chose their breakfast and pack their lunches the night before so there is one less stressful thing in the morning. Some children respond well to picture charts with specific steps to take as they are getting ready. For my son we used a chart of things to do in the morning and he stuck a star next to the activities when they were complete. This worked really well for him and made the mornings go much more smoothly. Good luck ☺