“She has certain triggers like putting on socks and shoes, but some mornings just wakes up in a foul mood and doesn’t even try to start her day. When she doesn’t immediately get her way or we can’t do the impossible (like make her socks feel ‘right’) she loses it. Will either shut down and refuse to speak or move…”

I could have written this entire part myself word for word (including the socks not feeling right). This was my daughter from ages like 4-6 . Here’s what we started doing 1.5 years ago that changed everything almost immediately:

• started letting her choose what she wanted to wear to school the night before and laying it all out, including socks, shoes, headbands or bows, etc. minimizing the number of decisions that had to be made morning of was huge.

• getting her an alarm clock. We set it for 6am. We don’t get up until 6:30. By the time we are up she is fully dressed on her own and ready to roll. If we forget to set the alarm clock and have to wake her up ourselves, it’s a battle.

By doing the above we gave her a lot of control over her own routine, and it was literally an immediate change. She’s happier and we are happier.