Author’s practical guidance
Getting out the door in the morning
Source named in the book: Montessori · Positive Discipline (Nelsen)
You are on adult time, and they have no concept of late.
Say this now
“Shoes.”
One word beats a lecture. Instructions should get shorter as urgency rises, not longer.
“Do you want to put your coat on here, or by the door?”
A choice inside the task — never a choice about the task.
Do this
- Add ten minutes and remove one demand. Both, not one of them.
- Keep coats and shoes where small hands can reach them.
- Use a picture routine chart and let them lead: "What's next on your chart?"
- Give one instruction at a time and wait for it to land before the next.
- Get yourself ready first so you are not doing two jobs at once.
Avoid this
- "Hurry up! We're going to be late!" — names a consequence they cannot imagine.
- "Why can't you just put your shoes on?" — a question with no available answer.
- Doing everything for them while announcing how late you are.
If it repeats
Move as much as possible to the night before: clothes chosen, bag packed, breakfast decided. A calm morning is built at eight in the evening. What cannot be moved, start earlier — ten minutes of margin outperforms every technique on this page.
Why the book suggests this
You are on adult time, and they have no concept of late. Being late has consequences you can picture and they cannot — a meeting, a closed door, someone's face. To a three-year-old, hurrying is simply an unexplained rise in pressure.
And pressure produces resistance, not speed. The faster you move, the slower they get. That is not defiance so much as a small nervous system answering urgency the only way it knows how.
From this collection
Same Words: Both Parents
45 prepared situations in this family area.