How to make mornings easier for ADHD brains

Mornings can be chaos, especially when neurodivergence is part of the mix — for your kids or for you. This week, we’re joined by Jon Zeitlin from HabitCoach, who’s been in the thick of it. Jon and his son both have ADHD, so they’ve had to build routines that work for brains like theirs. Spoiler: It starts the night before.

HabitCoach helps neurodivergent kids build lasting habits through personalized coaching. Check them out!

• 8 ways to make school morning routines easier

• For neurodivergent parents: Podcast “Tips from an ADHD Coach” on finding your morning momentum

• Download: Picture schedules for daily routines

(06:17) What’s on your morning to-do list?

(08:37) Why is the morning routine harder for kids with ADHD or executive function challenges?

(15:51) Strategies to make mornings easier

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us at init@understood.org.

Gretchen Vierstra: Hello and welcome to "In It," a podcast for families with kids who learn and think differently. Here, you'll find advice, camaraderie, stories of successes, and yes, sometimes failures, from experts and from parents and caregivers like you.

I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood.org.

Rachel Bozek: And I'm Rachel Bozek, a writer, editor, and mom who has definitely been in it.

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Rachel: But we're not done yet. We have a great show for you today. We are talking about the dreaded morning routine.

Gretchen: Oh my gosh. My one kid who's still in the house is a teenager. So more or less independent. But I still feel like I can't breathe sometimes until she's out of the house. Like there's going to be some sort of last-minute disaster I have to deal with.

Rachel: Oh, same here. Just this morning, we had a last-minute emergency that was just like, "Oh, I need this thing." And just to be clear, we just had a weekend where there were two days and a Friday night to get all of this figured out. And it was like, "Oh, wait, no, I need that right now." And like, now I'm searching the house for a makeup bag. Why? I'm not sure, but yes, mornings are fun.

Gretchen: Mornings are tough. So the good news is help is on the way. Today, we've invited Jon Zeitlin to give us some tips. Jon is the co-founder of Habit Coach, an executive function coaching service. He is himself an ADHD coach. He lives in Palo Alto, California, and has three kids. And we're so delighted to have him here today with us. Jon, welcome to "In It."

Jon Zeitlin: Welcome, Jon. Thank you for having me, and this is a fun topic to talk about.

Gretchen: I'm glad you think it's fun.

Rachel: We think so.

Jon: So, Jon, as a parent or perhaps as someone who grew up with undiagnosed ADHD, what comes to mind when you hear the words "morning routine"? Do those words spark joy?

Jon Zeitlin: No. I mean, like everybody, it was dread, particularly as a parent. As I was growing up, my mother was incredibly structured. She was a bit of a martinet and the three kids all practice their string instruments before school and she just had us super well organized. But when I became a parent, it was like the days of just the women doing all the work were over. And so my wife and I always shared this. So I have three kids and one of them has ADHD. And the challenges came up when he and I were the ones that had to get things done.

So I have one story. Is it okay?

Gretchen: Please.

Jon: Okay. So we actually were living in Costa Rica for three years when my kids were in early grade school. And so I would have to, you know, get the kids ready, cook them breakfast, you know, follow up with them. My wife was often on early morning work calls. And then I would get them into the car and there's already some stress at this point because you've been through all the things of getting them ready and I in my mind, I'm like, "I know I have 15 minutes to drive there, drop them off, 15 minutes to get back and I'm, you know, running a meeting with a lot of people there and I can't be late." So it's a kind of a classic morning routine where your own timing is sort of getting in the way.

So anyhow, we get in the car, we drive there and we, you know, we get to the school and we drop them off. And so my son, we'll call him E, so E's twin sister gets out of the car and his older brother gets out of the car. And I look around and he's sitting there. I'm like, "What's up?" And he says, "I don't have my shoes." And now I will say in his defense it is a beachy area and kids didn't wear shoes a lot. But there was a rule at school, "You can't come to school without shoes." And I was like, "Okay, just get out of the car. Get out of the car."

So he gets out of the car, he goes in without shoes. And, you know, I drive home, I change my meeting, I come back, I get, bring him the shoes. I'm like, "Okay." And then, you know, three weeks later, exactly the same thing happens. And it happened like three or four times a year. And of course, my wife said to me, "Jon, why can't you just remind him to put his shoes on?" I said, "You don't understand. That's hard for me. Like, I'm trying to get all my stuff together, get the kids in and get to my meeting on time. I'm thinking about, I'm not totally prepared for this meeting." So it's that combination, you know, ADHD is incredibly genetic. So sometimes that combination of the parent who's got some challenges and the kid who has some challenges makes it really, really challenging. We do laugh about the shoe thing, you know, now.

(06:17) What’s on your morning to-do list?

Gretchen: That was a good story. So, you know, whether you are a family where someone has learning and thinking differences or not, Jon, why is it that getting kids out the door in the morning can be such a challenge?

Jon Zeitlin: Well, first of all, you're coming into this situation with some stress usually because you're trying to get to something, usually work or whatever, whatever you have to get to. So there's your deadlines and your kids' deadlines. And then I think the biggest thing is that, you know, as an adult, it's just a habit, right? You don't have to use a lot of cognitive load or energy to deal with this. Like, do either of you guys have a checklist in your bedroom wall with all the things you have to do every day, every morning for morning routine?

Rachel: I have lists everywhere. It's part of my problem.

Gretchen: I do not.

Rachel: Okay. Okay. Okay. Anyhow, most adults don't. I'm sure some of us do. But, you know, after this many years, you don't really have to think about it too hard. But if you're four or six or eight, you know, it's not ingrained in there. And, and so, you know, there's probably like, you know, really maybe seven or eight steps to a morning routine. And I think it's hard for parents to put themselves in the shoes of their kids and what that was like.

Gretchen: All right, Jon, so you said this is hard for kids to remember everything and they might need a list. What are all the things that might be on that list?

Jon: Well, I always started actually with the night before, because, you know, if you're a young kid or even an older kid, if you go to sleep at your bedtime, then you probably have no problem getting up. But if you go to sleep a couple hours after your bedtime, which so many kids do, then it's really hard to get up in the morning. So I'd say step one actually happens the night before. Okay, then you have to get up, and you have to get up on time. And these days, there's like a huge industry of like alarm clocks that, you know, because there are a lot of people that can't get up. So they get louder and louder or you have to solve a math problem before the alarm will go off. So for, you know, for a lot of people, that's no big deal, but for some people, that's a big challenge.

Okay, so then you have to do your, whatever is you're doing in the bathroom, which is, you know, multiple steps and, you know, it's easy to get distracted or forgetful or you don't like to do it. Like, you just don't like to brush your teeth, you know, like this my son who I've been talking about, just didn't like to brush his teeth. I never understood that because I was like, it makes your mouth feel so minty fresh. But he didn't like it.

Rachel: I know.

Jon: You know, then of course, the next thing is wash your face, which again, for adults, it's something that you don't really want to go to work without washing your face or having a shower, but for kids, it's just not that high on the priority scale and it's easy for them to forget. So there's a lot of stuff that could go wrong in the bathroom. Okay, so great, maybe you've gotten through the bathroom. Then you have to get dressed. But to getting dressed, you have to know what the weather is going to be, which is something of course we just look at our phone, we know the weather and we get dressed. But a lot of kids just don't do that. And so in my family was often kids showing up in shorts and T-shirts when it was, you know, cold and rainy outside.

Then you have to eat breakfast. Okay, great, eating breakfast, that sounds easy, except for if you're playing with your Legos, or you're on your phone, or you're reading a book and you're into it, and your mom's trying to get you to eat breakfast and you're just not doing it because, you know, you're so into what you're doing. Then you have to get all your stuff together for school. And if you have soccer practice after school and you left your soccer cleats in the car the night before and you don't remember that, and you're running around the house with, you know, checking with their head cut off trying to find your cleats and getting more and more anxious about it, that doesn't help some things. And then finally, let's say you've gotten through all of that, and then, you know, you have to go and get ready for school, you have to put on your shoes.

Gretchen: Yeah, yeah. I was waiting for that. Yeah.

(08:37) Why is the morning routine harder for kids with ADHD or executive function challenges?

Rachel: So, what makes all of those steps, I mean, I think those steps can be challenging for any kid. And we know that morning routines are kind of universally tough, but what makes all of this particularly hard for a kid who maybe has ADHD?

Jon: Well, a kid who has ADHD, their prefrontal cortex is not developing quite at the speed that it would be if you're, you know, without the issue. And so your synapses are not firing so well. That means your executive function is not as strong. And so there are a few executive functions that are absolutely critical to be able to do a morning routine and to do it independently. So time management is a really, really big one. A lot of people with ADHD are what's called time-blind, where they just, they don't have a different sense between 10 minutes and 50 minutes. Switching is a big one. So folks with ADHD, you know, they have very alive, very energetic, very curious brains and when they get on to something, they go deep into it and so it's hard to switch them off. So if mom's calling up and saying you have five minutes to go and you're deeply into your, you know, whatever it might be, your comic book, your video game, your book, your Legos, it's very hard for you to switch off of that and listen to your mom. Organization, like I was saying, like that example of like, I can't find my cleats, they're in the car, and working memory because you don't remember where you put them. So those are all executive functions. And that's, you know, basically what ADHD is, is challenge with your executive functions. And, you know, ADHD is basically makes it hard to get things done. And morning routine is like the classic example of getting things done.

Rachel: I know I kind of mentioned this a second ago, but for some kids with ADHD, they may also have sensory challenges. So like for example, clothing, maybe putting on a particular type of clothing. Like can those things slow down kids in the morning routine as well?

Jon: I mean, yeah, there's so many things that can go wrong. For sure, if you have sensory challenges, like eating a meal can be a minefield if you have sensory challenges, right? Eating your breakfast could be a minefield. And I think the work of the parent is to really be a question asker, to really, really understand what's going on with the child. You know, and when they're really young, they might not even be able to express it that well, right? And so you just have to be like a detective. And if you're like a detective and you can really understand what's going on with them, it just makes your job so much easier.

Rachel: I like the detective analogy.

(15:51) Strategies to make mornings easier

Gretchen: And I know you have strategies and I and we do want to get into some of those. So before we do though, can you tell us what are some of the more "rookie mistakes" that parents and caregivers make when trying to help their kids, you know, get their morning routines down?

Jon Zeitlin: Yeah, okay. Well, my favorite one is the old "call upstairs" and think that it's going to be effective. I still fall for this every day. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I, to be honest with you, I had to really, my wife, like she's got attention surplus disorder. She's got the opposite, right? And so I had to explain that to her. I was like, "When you're calling upstairs to the kids, they're not hearing you, especially my child with ADHD." You know, you really have to, like, walk up the stairs and get right in front of your child's face.

In our family, we do this, we say, "Look at me." And my wife does it to me and I do it to my son, and we don't get offended because we know that's what it takes to get our attention. So like, look at me, you've got five minutes to go before school. And you think that's going to work, but then five minutes could be five hours, you don't know. So then you'll learn the next step, which is you don't yell, you go upstairs, you say, "Look at me," and then you say, "You got five minutes to go to school and I'm going to set a timer." Okay? But then the timer goes off and they're still not ready to go. Okay? So then you go to the next level, which is look at me and the timer. And then you say, "I'm going to come back with one minute to go just to remind you." And you go upstairs again. So it is more work on the parent, right? And especially when they're young, it's just, you just have to work harder with an ADHD child. There's just there's no way around it, really.

Gretchen: So no yelling upstairs, expecting people to listen to you. And what about like assuming they understand how much time it's going to take for something to happen?

Jon: You know, timers are kind of a classic tried and true of what we do in the coaching world, at Habit Coach and when I'm coaching kids. But even timers don't work a lot of times. So you could train your kids. And we do this in our coaching practice, you can actually get better at understanding time. So we'll do these, you know, sort of activities where we say, you know, go through five things that you normally do in your day and predict how much each one's going to take. And then time it and then compare your estimate to the actual. And then you could see if you're way off, you're always underestimating or overestimating. So it is actually, like a lot of these things, something that you can get better at. But you have to work at it.

Gretchen: I like that. I feel like I do that with recipes. I read it says it's going to take this long and I've finally figured out, I need to at least add 10 minutes to that because that's not real for me.

Rachel: They all lie. They all lie. At least for beginners, right?

Jon: Yeah, yeah. Attention's a big one in cooking, right? I love to cook and I just learn like if I go watch the ball game and I come back, it's going to get burned.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Rachel: And I think to your point, not to totally digress to cooking, but like when you said setting timers is sometimes not helpful. When that's happening too often, just like in my life, I don't hear it. Like I hear it and I'm just like, "Oh, there's that thing beeping. Anyway." And it's like, no, we have to respond to that. Yeah.

Jon: Yeah, there are a lot of things that fade into the back. Like the chart, like that's the morning routine chart. It's going to be in every curriculum. Like we of course teach this as well. And the morning routine chart is good, but it's only good if you use it, because it fades into the background incredibly quickly for children.

Gretchen: Speaking of the chart, what are some of the favorite strategies that you have that can actually help the morning routine go more smoothly? Maybe you can start with giving a few strategies for a young kid, and then maybe some older kids.

Jon: Okay. Well, for young kids, my favorite strategy and parenting a whole is I call it "Distraction Theory of Parenting." So like, you know, when they're in the tantrum phase, I'd be like, "There's a bee on the wall," even if there wasn't one. But in the morning routine, the corollary of that is to turn it into games. So before we lived in Costa Rica, we lived in Brooklyn, and we had a 15, 20 minute walk to school each morning through, you know, the million high school kids and terrible weather sometimes. And it was hard and I had to get to work afterwards. And so we had, I came up with these games that we would play.

So one of them I stole from Monty Python, which we called "Silly Walks," where one of the four of us, me and the three kids, would have to do a silly walk and then everybody else would have to copy them. Or we would do, you know, the classic "Would You Rather?" "Would you rather be 100 feet tall and weigh 100 pounds or two feet tall and weigh 200 pounds?" or my wife's favorite one is she would run ahead. She's a very fast walker. She's a very fast walker. And she'd say, "Run, run, run, run, run, run." And the kids would run up. And so when you're doing that, they're forgetting all their distractions or things that are bothering them or all the things that normally slow you down. And they're into the game. But you're, you're kind of, I mean, you are manipulating them. You're getting them to do what you need them to do, but in a fun way. And you can apply that to any part of a morning routine. And if you're not a creative person and can't think of like how to come up with a game, just go to ChatGPT and say, "Give me a game to help my child learn to brush their teeth," and you'll get like 10 suggestions.

Gretchen: I like that.

Rachel: Can I go on to older kids?

Gretchen: Oh, sure. Go on. Yeah, go on to older kids.

Rachel: With older kids, the trick is that you're trying to get them ready to leave the nest like a bird. And so, you know, your temptation, of course, is to not let your child fail, right? Just to parent them the way you always parented them where you're, you know, especially if you have a child with ADHD or executive function challenges that you're really on top of them the way my mother was with me to make sure that nothing goes wrong. But of course, you're getting ready for them to leave.

And I've coached some college kids where the parents are, you know, tracking them on their phone and they know their class schedule. And, you know, if it's, you know, 8:55 a.m. and they have a class at 9, they're calling them to say, "Get up and go to class." And, you know, honestly, of course, when I first encountered that, I was like, "Oh my God, what's wrong with your parents?" And then I realized, you know, there are kids who do still need that.

But when we work with high school students and we're working with the parents as well, a lot of what we're doing is getting them to give up their control little by little and let the kids fail. And the way you do that is by asking a lot of questions and giving them accountability. So, you know, if they never do have their cleats ready to go and they have soccer practice, then instead of, you know, screaming at them, which I've done plenty of times in my kids, but, um, uh, you know, it's all about like, "Well, I observed this happening. Why do you think it's happening? Why do you think you keep on forgetting your cleats?" And then they'll come up with an explanation. And then, "Well, what do you think? What would be a strategy that would work for you that would, you know, make that better?" Because a strategy that they own for fixing their own problems is one that they're going to be much more likely to do.

Gretchen: The college example, I'm just curious, like what tips do you have for parents of older kids who are about to go to college within the next year? Because I would think, "Oh, well, I want to track and make sure my kids' getting there because I'm paying for that."

Jon: That would 100% be making that call. Why are you not walking?

Gretchen: How can you prep that so you're not having to make that call that year?

Jon: There are a couple of things. I think first of all, like before your child leaves, they need to learn how, they need to be able to do their laundry, they need to be able to cook a meal, they need to be able to organize their stuff. Like you have to work on that. Hopefully that's already happened by senior year, but not for all kids. And then, you know, once they're at college, they're sort of out of your control, right? And so you can try and hector and nag him, but they're not with you. And so it's really about much more about winning their hearts and minds.

So I have a freshman in college and his studying was very, I would say, very inconsistent in high school. And now he's in college studying things that he really enjoys in a, you know, kind of a happier culture. And he's studying like crazy for the first time in his life. And I think it's just because he's into it. And I don't think we did that particularly. I think that was his decision to do that.

Gretchen: So it's possible that if the morning routine isn't working so well in high school, there's something about college that might help it kick in?

Jon: Sometimes. Yeah. The other thing I would say is that transition from high school to college is much harder than most people understand. And we do a lot of coaching with first-year college kids because all of a sudden they have absolute freedom, right? And they're not that busy compared to high school. And so that, you know, you get a lot of kids who have ADHD and executive function challenges who drop out of freshman year in college because they weren't prepared. So having a coach while that first semester in college is not a bad idea at all.

(06:17) What’s on your morning to-do list?

Rachel: So, do you have any final words of advice or maybe a pep talk for parents and caregivers who just cannot imagine their mornings getting better? Because sometimes it feels hopeless.

Jon Zeitlin: I've heard.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Rachel: I think the really big fear is, is my child going to be okay? Will they be okay at a certain point, right? That's really what worries you as a parent. And so, you know, I would say if your child is struggling, get outside help, right? You don't have to do it all yourself. Like there are people who are professionals who do this for a living, who understand building executive function. You know, it takes a while, doesn't happen in a few months, it happens in a few years, but get outside help.

But the other thing I would add is that time is going to help. And it's hard when your kid is young, it's hard to really appreciate that, right? And so what happens is our prefrontal cortexes, they just develop and they develop at different speeds, right? And some kids, you know, they're still developing till they're 25. And some kids are still struggling because their brains are developing. But time does help. And so, you know, the things that are really are driving you crazy when your child is six or eight are still going to be there when the child is 15 or 16 or 18. But they're probably not going to be as bad because your child's, you know, brain has developed. And hopefully you've worked with them or you've had somebody outside work with them so they've been able to build these healthy habits over the years.

Gretchen: So we've just got to be patient then. I'm like, so we'll find out. That's part of it.

Rachel: That's part of it. Use your ADHD patience.

Gretchen: And don't yell upstairs expecting people to listen to you.

Rachel: Exactly.

Gretchen: I actually think that's a really big one and I need to remember it. I've often done the yelling and I'm really thinking now if I go, "Alexa, drop in to so-and-so's room and say something," like that's going to make a difference because a robot lady told you. Probably not.

All right, well, this has been great. Thank you so much for all of your tips on morning routines.

Jon: Thanks to both of you. It's been fun talking about these issues, always fun to compare and parenting notes. And, um, yeah, thanks for your time.

Gretchen: Thank you so much.

Rachel: Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any thoughts about the episode, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at init@understood.org.

Gretchen: And check out the show notes for this episode, where we have more resources and links to anything we mentioned.

Rachel: This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.

Gretchen: "In It" is produced and edited by Julie Subrin, with additional production support from Cody Nelson and Andrew Rector.

Justin D. Wright mixes the show, Mike Errico wrote our theme music, and Briana Berry is our production director.

Rachel: From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson.