5 Tips to Get Up & Out the Door that First Week After Summer Break

Remember when your kids were babies and you would've given anything to get them to sleep just a little longer? Now that they actually have to wake up early to get to school, it's practically impossible to drag them out of bed. Teens don't just sleep, they hibernate on a nightly basis -- and they're mad as bears when someone (you) dares to interrupt their slumber.

And of course that first week back to school is the worst of all. Spoiled by a summer of sleeping in, teens are anything but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when that alarm clock goes off -- in fact, they might not even hear it! So how do we get them on their feet?
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See, in my experience, conventional methods like buzzing clocks and gentle nudges (Time to get up, sweetie!) are completely useless. Not to mention counterproductive: By my eighth or ninth attempt, I'm so aggravated I end up resorting to the considerably less gentle approach (TIME TO GET UP! DO YOU HEAR ME?! YOU'RE GOING TO NEED A LATE PASS AND I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!). This is not what I would call getting the day started on the right foot, exactly.

Here are some tricks to try that really work (I promise!). Start with #1; if that doesn't do the job, go to #2 (and so on). #5 is your last resort. Good luck!

1. Bring iPod into your teen's room. Sneak earbuds on sleeping teen (one ear will do if she sleeps on her side). Find her least favorite song and hit "play."

2. Turn up the volume.

3. Sit down on the bed next to your sleeping teen and start bouncing up and down while singing along.

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4. Say, loudly, "Hey, I think I'm going to take a video of this and put it up on Facebook so everyone can see!"

5. Remove earbuds from teen's ear(s) and put iPod away. Go to kitchen and bring back a glass of cold water. Dip fingers in water and flick drops in your teen's face. Repeat. (Only dump water over teen's head if you're absolutely desperate! You don't want to be bothered with putting pillowcases in the dryer before work.)

How do you get your teen up and out the door when it's time for back to school?

Image via Eryne/Flickr

Written by Jacqueline Burt on CafeMom's blog, The Stir.

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