The secret to getting your kids dressed in 5 minutes or less in the morning

Well we tried star charts and they worked for a little while but they did seem to lose their appeal and somehow we still ended up running late.

Now we have two little pots both have £1 each in 5 pence.

One has my name on the other has my daughters name.

Every morning we have a race to see who can get dressed quickest, who ever wins gets to take 5p out of the other persons pot and put it in their pot.

Most mornings she does win and actually rightly so, it has gone from taking her half an hour to get dressed to less than 2 minutes now and that includes tie, vest and tights but now and again I will win.

This is actually quite good as well as at first we did have tantrums if I won but over time now she has learnt that the tantrums will result in all money going back into my pot and now she accepts losing gracefully and just says well done mummy if I win.

Its been a great learning curve, she now speeds up and is learning to accept defeat and she feels like she has really earnt her dressing pot. Whoever fill empties the others pot first wins and gets to keep all the money.

It costs about a £1 a month but is worth every single penny.

If you have more than one child you could either just do each child against you (you would need to start off with £1 in 5p's for each child) or really pump up the competition and do it against each other. The latter could result in tantrums but is a great way of teaching children about winning and losing.

You could put up a rules before starting stating that any negativity regarding others winning will result in that childs money going into mummys pot. Also have a clear guideline as to what the winner will be. Ie is it the first to shout ready, or the first downstairs at the pots with clothes on.