Having a routine helps to bring consistency and comfort to a child’s life. Routines help children to feel safe, develop life skills and build healthy habits.
Consistent routine will help your child and their “body clocks” with many day-to-day basics such as:
- Ability to take naps and sleep well at night.
- Ability to eat healthy and full meals.
- Regular bowel movements every morning.
- Sufficient play and outdoor time.
- Calm, relaxed behavior throughout the day.
How to set a routine for your child?
- Give your child confidence and independence – Make a weekly planner of your child with him or her, use clip arts or images to represent the task instead of sentences. It really helps children to do all their work on given schedule. If a child has a task mentioned in their weekly planner, then they will be able to look at their planner and know to do this themselves rather than having to be told, which will instil a sense of independence and pride.
- Teach your child the importance of time management as well as help them to follow a schedule – For example, if your child goes to bed at the same time every night, then they will soon begin to learn that the hour before bedtime is their time to begin winding down.
- Create habits – Whether it’s brushing their teeth in the morning or completing their homework before dinner time, having a routine in place helps to create these habits in children and teaches them how to manage their time.
- Help children to get excited about what’s coming up – If children know what to expect, such as watching a film together one evening or making pizzas together at the weekend, then they have something to look forward to.
Finally every small step taken by you as a parent is really important. Kids are sharp observers, they follow you. So if you want to set a routine in your child’s life, then you should organize their day accordingly. Good routines are well planned, regular and predictable. Routines help parents feel organised, reduce stress and find time for enjoyable activities.