From Parents Magazine, September, 2000

What's your morning routine with your child? Shut your eyes and think a minute. How would you feel if, when you got up in the morning, no one greeted you? Slightly resentful? Now think about mornings when, as you step out of bed and go into the kitchen for breakfast, someone cheerfully says, "Good morning, sweetheart." Doesn't the latter give you a warmer feeling? Make you feel loved and appreciated and, therefore, more willing to greet others cheerfully and be cooperative and helpful?
  From birth, people need routines. You could say that routines and rituals are emotional and social "fences" and templates. They provide people with behavior boundaries, procedures for solving problems, prompts for acting appropriately, patterns for celebrations, and ways for coping with the emotions and social implications attending life's landmark events such as losing loved ones (funerals) and creating the next generation of families (weddings).
  For similar reasons, children benefit from routines all through each day, both at home and at school. Children flourish when flexible routines are punctuated by enjoyable and soothing rituals.

Morning Moments
Just as your child's teacher gives her a special, personalized greeting each morning, so should yo have a special getting-ready-for-school routine.
  Begin with a morning greeting. "Wake up, honey bunny. Rise and shine. Let's stretch those strong muscles. It's a beautiful day!" Pick special words you can use every day so your child knows what to expect and feels comforted from the first moment she opens her eyes.
  Create getting dressed, toileting, and grooming rituals. Does your child help pick our her clothes the night before and put them on a chair? Does she like to sing a song before she goes into the bathroom? Do you pretend you can't find her hairbrush and then pull it magically from your pocket? The more familiar the routine, the less resistance you'll get. It's also important to our child that a routine follow the same order every day: In the morning, she gets out of bed, goes to the bathroom, washes her hands, brushes her teeth, and so on.

Separation Time
Emotionally, your child is still very much a part of you. (To a lesser degree, we are all, at every age throughout our lives, profoundly emotionally entangled with our parents.) Because parent and child are so intimately entwined emotionally, some young children find separating very painful. Even if your child is the "wave-goodbye-and-go" type, departure rituals are essential to a child's emotional well-being.
  Find a comfortable goodbye ritual and stick with it. You can, for instance, put pretend (or real) kisses all over your child's face, hang a "necklace" with your picture around her neck, slap high fives, rub noses, and so on.
  Don't forget to say goodbye. Even if your child seems happy and involved, let her know you're going and give her a sense of when you'll return. Say, "I'll see you after [the last activity of her day]. We'll go home and [do something she likes to do]."

Going Home
Does it surprise you that sometimes your child resists leaving school—even if she's complained when you dropped her off that morning? Children who adore their parents and are very happy to go home sometimes find the abrupt change between the two worlds of home and school upsetting. Yet even children who grab their backpacks as soon as you show up at the door benefit from a leaving-school routine. Time is different for young children. To a child, a day might seem as long as a life stage does to an adult. An end-of-day ritual helps children grasp that they are moving from one chapter of their lives to another.
  Borrow a toy or book from the classroom's resource library. It helps children to separate when they can carry a bit of school home with them—almost the same way it helps them to bring a bit of home (such as a picture of you or a favorite toy) to school.
  Always say goodbye to the teacher and any remaining classmates. When a child experiences this kind of inclusion every day, she's absorbing an important principle and an invaluable social skill: We recognize the worth of all people and we consider it good manners to address people we know by name.
  Create a "getting home" routine. If your child is delivered home in a van or bus, greet him with a big kiss, three hugs, and a snack of crackers and milk.

Mealtimes
Preparing the table for meal, eating, and cleaning up all offer many opportunities for you to establish meaningful routines that will help your child feel smart and capable and will puff up his self esteem—in a nice way.
  Spice your routines with variety and fun. For instance, you can make Monday vegetable and cheese day. Tuesday can feature fruit salad, Wednesday graham crackers for dessert, and son on. Make one day special by always have a tablecloth and fresh flowers! Every now and then, present a wonderful surprise, such as a happy face made from peas on top of the mashed potatoes.
  Capitalize on your child's pleasure in routine. Phrase your "directives" so that they indicate respect for your child's knowledge and cooperative spirit. "Pete, you know where the ketchup goes, right? Help us all out by wiping the table too." You can also help him feel competent by giving meaningful compliments: "What a fabulous job you did putting things away and wiping the table! You're terrific with a sponge." You can pin a pretend badge on your child every time he helps—even if it's only in a token way.

Goodnight, Goodnight
Sleepy children frequently fuss about getting into bed. And who could blame them? They know where still a lot of activity going on in the house, and besides, bedtime means another separation from loved one. The routines and rituals that ease this transition should follow a familiar order: brush teeth, read a book, sing a song, and say goodnight. But there's plenty of room for variety within that routine. You can sing different songs, read different books, and even vary the number of books!
  Be playful. "Bedtime express, bedtime express, all aboard the bedtime express," you can chant every evening as you carry your child piggyback into his room. Or make up a nightly challenge: "I bet you can't kiss all your toy animals goodnight before I turn out the light."
  Include a "comfort" routine. Little rituals, such as sitting in your lap and "reading" you a story before bedtime or doing a series of hugs, give your child a little extra physical, loving contact.

Knowing what to do (being able to predict what's coming next) makes a child feel competent—and feeling competent is an important part of emotional contentment. This is what rituals and routines do: They help make your child feel happy and good about herself—they foster your child's social and emotional growth.

great books
  for back-to-school

At Preschool With Teddy Bear, by Jacqueline McQuade
(Dial, 1999; $5.99)
Ages 18 months-4 years.

Clifford's Schoolhouse, by Norman Bridwell
(Scholastic Inc., 2000; $10.95)
Ages 2-5.

Tom Goes To Kindergarten, by Margaret Wild, illustrated by David Legge
(Albert Whitman, 2000; $15.95)
Ages 4-6.

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