Positive routines
2 min read
A Routine Your Family Can Actually Keep
A few fixed points in the day are worth more than a full timetable nobody follows.
You do not need an hour-by-hour chart. Pick three points that stay the same most days — breakfast, coming home from school, bedtime — and let everything else move around them.
Children settle when they can predict the shape of the day. A predictable shape is not the same thing as a strict one.
Say what is coming next before it happens. "After this we will wash hands, then we will eat." That short warning removes a great deal of resistance.
On the days it all falls apart — a guest arrives, someone is unwell, the power goes — let it fall apart. The routine is there to help you, not to be obeyed.