When Mornings are (Really) Difficult

Mornings can be incredibly challenging for young people, and by association, for their families. Teens and young adults have to be at school, treatment programs, or other commitments early in the morning, but their biological clocks would have them stay up late and wake up late. As a result, they don’t get enough sleep, and mornings can turn into a serious struggle. Add emotion dysregulation into the mix, and suddenly you have a substantial challenge on your hands. 

We know that getting to the program is hard for many of our families. Unfortunately, there is no magic fix for difficult mornings. However, we find that having a solid and collaborative plan can help everyone – parents and teens – stay as effective as possible when sleep debt, emotional dysregulation, and stress about being late collude to make mornings an unpleasant experience. 

How do you make a solid and collaborative morning plan? We’re going to give you an overview of some key steps and components. Note however, that due to the challenging and contentious nature of the topic, many families will benefit from the support of a clinician in making or finalizing their morning plan.  

Step 1: Agree on the Problem and Set Aside Time to Collaborate 

Before you can make a plan, it’s important that everyone agrees that there is a problem and what the problem is. This may sound so obvious as to be useless, but if parents feel that mornings are a huge problem and the teen thinks mornings are going totally fine, they’re unlikely to be successful in solving anything together. One party needs to approach the other with a clear and nonjudgmental ask: “Can we find some time to talk about mornings together? I’ve been finding them stressful and I think they’ve been hard for you too, and I’m wondering if we could come up with a plan together?” It’s best to ask for time in advance, rather than try to get someone to work with you right at the moment you ask. 

Step 2: Identify Personal Limits 

Parents/caregivers should complete this step before sitting down with their child to problem solve together. Personal limits refer to what you are willing to do or tolerate in a relationship. Identifying personal limits means figuring out what does (and does not) work for you, and being clear about what you will do if a personal limit is crossed. The most important part is being clear with the other person about how you respond. Marsha Linehan quoted an anonymous team member of hers as saying, “It is very difficult to know your limits before they are crossed” (Linhean, 1993, p. 322). In identifying your personal limits, please reflect nonjudgmentally on the question of what morning behaviors have occurred that you are not willing to tolerate and what behaviors have been intolerable to you. Another question to ask is, “what makes me resentful or angry?” Then, consider carefully how you will respond in the future if these things occur. For example, if a parent is not open to being yelled at in the morning (yelling crosses their limits), they might say that if they are yelled at upon waking up their child, they will not be willing to provide a wake up the next day. 

Step 3: Clarify Roles 

List out all the tasks in the morning and agree on who is responsible for each task. Is the teen using an alarm to wake up? Or are parents waking them up? How many wake ups are provided? Who makes breakfast? What prompts/reminders are provided? Who walks the dog? Who makes coffee? Be clear about what needs to happen and who is responsible. 

Step 4: What is Helpful? 

The teen should identify what is helpful, and just as importantly, what is not helpful from parents in the morning. There’s nothing worse than trying to be helpful only to make the situation worse. Are reminders/prompts helpful or unhelpful? Is being offered food helpful or unhelpful? Is there something that would be helpful that isn’t happening? Is it most helpful for the teen to be left completely alone? 

Step 5: Departure Details 

Identify the details of transportation. How will the teen get to their destination? Will they drive themselves? Get a ride from parents? A ride from someone else? Uber? If someone else is driving, what time will they leave? 

Once a departure time is identified, it is important that the driver leaves at the agreed upon time, whether or not the teen is ready. Parents are strongly encouraged to keep any scheduled obligations and to not adjust their reschedules in response to dysregulation. 

We typically suggest allowing one “late pass” of up to 20 minutes per week with advanced notice. For example, if the departure time is 8:15am, a teen may request at 8:10am to leave at 8:35am for that one day per week. This is to help everyone stick to the plan with flexibility. If you would like to allow a late pass, identify how much later (in minutes) the teen can request to leave and  how often they can make that request. It is also helpful to specify how they should make the request (e.g., by text or in person). 

Step 6: Backup Planning 

It is important to have a backup plan in the case that the person responsible for providing transportation is no longer available (e.g., they have a work meeting, they are sick). Some ideas include teens reaching out to another person who can drive, Uber teen (ordered by parents/caregivers), Uber (ordered by teen). Some families have agreed ahead of time that if the teen is not ready in time and misses their ride, it is their responsibility to pay for the Uber to program. We encourage parents to consider their limits around this and discuss it ahead of time so that any limits are not punitive, but rather are observed with the intention of maintaining balance and supporting predictability within a relationship. Be sure to identify what the backup plan is, who is responsible for initiating it, and who is responsible for any costs incurred. 

Step 7: Review and Troubleshoot 

Review the plan. Identify any barriers and work to troubleshoot them. For example, if the plan is for getting to school and lateness needs to be excused by parents, are parents willing to call in a late arrival or not? If the backup plan is to walk, but it’s snowing, is the teen still expected to walk? 

We have prepared a companion worksheet. Please contact your clinician for a copy of the worksheet.