9 year old daughter can't follow directions

My 9 yr old daughter can not get ready for school in the morning. She lays around and argues with me about everything from what she is wearing to  what's for breakfast. This morning I gave her 2 options of outfits to wear and after half an hour she still was not dressed. Her 6 yr old sister is up and dressed having breakfast at this point. Then when I go in to check on her she will have put on  a summer outfit in the winter or something like that. When she is finally ready the carpool is here and she is throughing a fit because she didn't have breakfast yet and everyone is waiting for her. Today I was so fed up I made her go without breakfast because she was making other people late. I felt just awful inside, but I thought maybe tomorrow she'll do better because she missed breakfast today. I can't stand every morning getting into a screaming match with her.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Dear Tracey,

No need to feel badly about the step you took - missing breakfast was a natural consequence of your daughter's behavior. Hopefully she'll learn from it.

You are wise to see that engaging in screaming matches is not helpful - it doesn't change the situation and only results in all parties feeling miserable. What's called for is a systematic behavior management plan.

To begin with, are you getting your daughter up early enough? She may be one of those children who need a little time to 'get in gear' in the morning, and if waking her up a little earlier will help, it might make sense. In addition, you might establish some quid-pro-quo for her performance in the morning - i.e., a reward for accomplishing her morning routine in a timely manner, and a punishment for not doing so. You might consider having your daughter earn her play time in the afternoon, or her bedtime at night, by adhering successfully to her morning obligations. You'll know best where the leverage is with her. The basic strategy is to make it in her vested interest to do better in the morning.

[PamD]

I have a ten-year-old and she is slow in the morning too.  I got her to break this habit by making her go to bed five minutes earlier for each night she was not ready on time.  She could get this discipline for not brushing her teeth, not being completely dressed, not having her backpack ready, etc.  By the time she was going to bed at 7:45 she decided this really stunk, and got better at getting ready.  Then I started letting her stay up five minutes later for each day she was ready on time until we got back to her regular bedtime of 8:30.  The other major change is that I did start waking her up fifteen minutes earlier; that really helped.

Good luck with your little one.  You are not the only one.  My daughter's best friend's mom and I have had this same discussion!  :-)

[Onemoremom]

Does your daughter only have a problem following directions/getting ready for things in the morning?  My youngest son was not a morning person, (neither am I), and I discovered getting him up early enough to take a morning bath was a life saver for both of us.  10 or 15 minutes in the bath gave him time to wake up and put him in a much better mood, where he was ready to get ready and face the day.

[kepford]

A related discussion, frustrated with my daughter! was started.