There’s a lot changing this school year. We will start school all online and it’s going to take a lot of getting used to. We aren’t sure what the day will look like, how we will manage work and school, and where we are all going to zoom at the same time.

Anxiety is building a bit with my grade schoolers, my 9yo son in particular. He’s worried he won’t wake up in time for class because our schedule has been so off this summer (mom-fail on keeping that sweet, sweet 9pm bedtime).

So we talked about a strategy to help him wake up in time. It included getting him an alarm clock that projects the time onto the ceiling so he can easily see it in the dark.

After I set it up I brought him into his room and shut the door with the lights off and you’d have thought it was his birthday! Big smile on his face and doing a happy dance. I have to admit, it is pretty cool. Now I kind of want one.

The strategy is:

• Figure out how much sleep he needs (borrowed mom’s fitbit for that one)
• Set our wake-up time
• Count backward to figure out what time we need to go to bed to get enough sleep
• Go to bed at that time (thank you projection alarm clock!)
• Set alarm for wake-up, just in case

It’s simple and seems to be making him feel better. We’ll have a lot of challenges this year. For now I was happy to help put a smile on his face.

Photo by Chris Curry on Unsplash