School routine important – but not always easy

By Dana Benson

There were about three weeks left of summer, when one Monday morning my daughter stumbled out of bed, bleary-eyed and dazed, and informed me she just had to get more sleep.

I let her go back to bed because I thought she might be coming down with something. But when she woke up feeling fine about three hours later, I started to understand she wasn't truly sick, but rather she was sleep deprived and suffering from the total lack of routine that we had somehow fallen into.

Summer means lack of structure

I'm not sure how or when it happened. School let out, and her bedtime started creeping later and later. First 9 p.m., then 9:30, until finally it was typical for my six-year-old to be dancing around the living room to Camp Rock songs at 10 p.m.

It's one thing for her to be sleepy at her summer care program, where there's minimal reading, writing and arithmetic but plenty of fun trips to the local pool, bowling alley and skating rink. But it's a different story at school. I'm well aware of the importance of adequate rest on academic performance and I understand fully that children thrive on structure and schedule.

Regaining control

Fortunately I still had time to regain control before school began. I started inching bedtime back to the optimal 8:30 p.m. I gently reminded her that our leisurely mornings – a result of lighter summer traffic that allowed me to leave the house later – would be coming to an end. We'd have to get up a little earlier, and she would need to get dressed and eat breakfast before being allowed to watch a few minutes of television. We talked about homework, and how we would fit that into our evening routine.

But just like I knew the importance of routine, I also realized that they are not easy to establish and sometimes the best-laid plans end up going awry. So I was prepared when the first week of school arrived and our morning routine didn't go quite like I planned and my daughter didn't eagerly start on her homework or hop into bed at 8:30 every night.

There's no point in losing my cool – although the temptation was there and sometimes I teetered on the edge. It may take a couple weeks, but we'll get back into our routine and soon start seeing the benefits of it.