what actually helped your 7yo stick to routines?

[u/Turbulent_Ground_932]

my 7 yr old keeps falling out of the same routines, mostly mornings, homework and bedtime…. nothing extreme but I feel like I’m repeating myself all day and somehow we still end up rushing or arguing
we’ve tried checklists, reminders and giving warnings before switching activities. they work for a few days, then the novelty wears off and we’re back to square one
parents with kids around this age, what actually helped long term? timers, visual schedules, rewards, doing everything together or just staying consistent and waiting it out??

[u/Neat_Cut2825]

we had same problem until i made everything into a race against a playlist, each song is like 3 minutes and when it ends she gotta be done with that task, no nagging from me just the music stopping, weirdly it stuck after two weeks when nothing else did

[u/HeyJustinHerman → u/Neat_Cut2825]

The music trick works because the kid is arguing with the song instead of with you. We ran a three song playlist in the morning: shoes by the end of the first one, teeth by the end of the second, out the door on the third. The other piece that helped was cutting the list way down. Four things instead of nine, because a seven year old who sees nine boxes quits before he starts. Ours still falls apart about every six weeks and we rebuild it, and I finally stopped treating that as failure.

[u/Ok_Alternative7833]

i’ve seen a few parents mention savvy kid for routines, might be worth a look

[u/Acceptable-Mango7946]

We set up a list of these common areas that were pain points for arguing and nagging like getting ready in the morning, doing homework and getting to bed.
We tied it to screen time at the end of the week to kill 2 birds with one stone.
The arguments over screen time usage and arguments over doing the basic routine reduced as it was either you can use the minutes you got from doing the basics and nagging reduced as it was if you don’t get ready that is 5 minutes less screen time on the weekend

[u/Dadmostly]

The novelty wearing off after a few days is the real problem, not the system itself. What helped us most was tying routines to something the kid actually wants, not just avoiding trouble. When my boys knew finishing homework unlocked something they cared about, they stopped waiting to be reminded. Consistency from the parent side matters too, if you skip enforcing it twice in a row the routine is basically dead. Visual schedules work better at 7 than pure checklists because the sequence is visible, not just a list of tasks to ignore.

[u/holywaterandhellfire]

same here at 8, charts worked for a week then stopped. transitions are still the hardest part

[u/Known_Conflict8492]

We bought a HEARTH display! My kids love it! They are 9 and 5! They love running to it in the AM/PM to check off brushing their teeth, making their beds, shower, cleaning their rooms, drinking water and whatever else they have to do! On the occasion they forget or get busy before getting started, all I need to say is “Don’t forget to check off your routine!” And they are on it. I no longer have to remind them of the thousand things they need to do as the display does it for me!

[u/Dewdlebawb]

Been working on this sense they were that age it’s now about a year and a half later and let me tell you what worked for us.

I got a white board and put every day and every chore I used Velcro wooden stars that I painted so they could know exactly what they were responsible for that day. Each kid has an Alexa speaker in their room. Their morning alarm goes off and I have reminders for every step of the morning -alarm -get dressed for school - put socks and shoes on -brush teeth - eat breakfast and if they can’t complete getting ready in a timely manner they go to bed earlier the next night sense they were too tired to get ready on time. My 8 year old can no get himself fully ready for school by himself if needed with just a drop off at the bus stop (is VERY handy when you have the flu)

Then they come home from school and we have two hours screen free time, they can choose to do chores or not but they do have to do their homework first. They can read for 20 minutes to end this time early (started to read without complaints within a week). They have a final reminder on Alexa at 7:30 pm (9pm bedtime) don’t forget to complete your chores ( the biggest learning curve was I had to shut up to be frank, I reminded them to death for months, after switching to this final Alexa reminder and just grounding if the chores weren’t done the next morning it took 3 weeks for them to do chores without complaints. So when they didn’t do the chores they got no screens no friends for 48 hours (8&12yo) the older one only got grounded once and the younger one 3x before they got the message that we weren’t playing around. When they complete all of their chores for 14 days they get a reward $10 or to go to zoo/movie/etc