Is it hard to get your child up and going in the morning? Does the thought of battling to get breakfast eaten sound all too familiar?

One idea that might help is offering choices. Make a list—use magazine or newspaper ad cutouts for a visual list—of breakfast options. These could include cereal and milk, scrambled eggs, yogurt fruit, pancakes and even a peanut butter sandwich.

Every night before bed, let your child pick an item from the list. That will be tomorrow's breakfast choice. Put the picture on the kitchen table as a reminder in the morning.

Next morning, there's no indecision. The choice from last night is the choice for this morning. It's not a guarantee that your not-a-morning person will start to smile and chat, but at least it removes one small barrier.

Studies have shown that this whole breakfast ordeal is a vicious cycle. We're grumpy in the morning because we've gone 10 hours with no food; our blood glucose levels are skewed. Food will fix that. But because we're grumpy, we don't want to eat anything. And when we don't eat anything, our blood sugar levels stay skewed and we stay grumpy. Get some protein into that body and you're likely to see happier faces!

Published 09/25/09